The Significance Behind Recruiting One More Volunteer

by: Bryan Rose

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Without that backup volunteer in place, conversations that change everything are hard to have. To stop and talk means that a welcoming task will likely not be done. Gospel opportunities exist on your church campus every weekend, but your hospitality team may not be ready to recognize and respond to them. As the leader, it is up to you to recruit that “one more” volunteer to help provide the warmest welcome possible. Here are five holes in your hospitality to fill asap.

This weekend, put someone else…

…on the sidewalk.  The gap between your front doors and your guest parking spaces can feel like a long walk to the first time guest. Playing zone in your hospitality means that someone minds that gap, ready to receive a warm handoff from your parking lot team and walk alongside your guests into the front doors. Do you have anyone smiling on the sidewalk?

…in the parking lot.   The parking lot typically contains the most transactional hospitality moments every weekend. Everyone wearing a vest will necessarily be correctly positioned and focused, to keep every car moving and every pedestrian safe. Do you have anyone else out there who can engage in a relational moment if needed?

…at the back doors.  The invitation to return next Sunday may be more critical than the welcome this Sunday. It is easy to think of hospitality as merely a “before the service” need. However, the questions a first-time guest might have after worship could be much more important than those they have prior. Do you have people at the doors as everyone exits the service?

…in front of a counter.   The worst place for a hospitality leader is behind a desk. It is too easy to hide behind a table, to carry on a conversation with another volunteer behind a counter, and to forget that their first priority is to serve the guest. Do you have anyone positioned out in front of the counter, focused and poised to help?

…in the church office.  The office phone rings all week, and there is typically an operator or receptionist ready to give a warm welcome and connect callers to the appropriate extension. But on Sunday mornings, callers are likely looking for information or maybe even just reaching out for help. Do you have someone answering the phones on Sundays or will callers get an impersonal recording?

Tags: Bryan Rose, Church Guest Experiences, Danny Franks, Guest Experiences, Volunteers

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You’re Not A Church Plant Anymore… Here’s Why

by: Bryan Rose

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On the last this My Ministry Breakthrough Podcast, Northwoods Community Church Senior Pastor, Cal Rychener, and I talked about leading a church plant 30 years later. Off mic, he and I shared a laugh about at what point a church planter can, and maybe should, stop calling themselves a church planter. This, of course, led me to think: “When is it time to stop using a term like church planter?” After all, I made the mistake of once calling someone a “former Marine.” I was quickly informed that there exists no such thing. Once a Marine, always a Marine. So maybe it’s the same with church planters.

However, I do believe that there are some indicators that a shift in the language you use for your church might be required. Here are ten signs it’s time to stop calling yourself a church plant:

1. You just launched the fourth campus.
2. Your middle school girl’s associate pastor is asking for a cost of living raise.
3. You are considering running two Christmas services in the local NBA arena this year instead of one.
4. Your time speaking at conferences on church planting is really cutting into your time running a coaching network of young church planters.
5. Your publisher is really turning the screws on getting this latest manuscript wrapped up.
6. Your school principal wants part of the south parking lot repaved and striped before summer band practice.
7. You find it harder and harder to raise enough financial support to replace the blades on your helicopter. (this is a real thing)
8. You aren’t holding your breath anymore when you turn around after worship to start the sermon and see how many showed up.
9. You are giving serious thought to upgrading your LED wall for Easter.
10. You look forward to a good old-fashioned Saturday night snowstorm that shuts down the city without worrying about missing a week of offerings.

> Read more from Bryan.

Tags: Bryan Rose, Church Planting, Language

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Breakthrough Guest Experience Ideas with Danny Franks

by: Bryan Rose

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On a recent episode of the My Ministry Breakthrough podcast, Danny Franks tells the incredible story of a parking lot volunteer that eventually became a church planter in China. It all started with a conversation with some visiting exchange students and a leader taking the time to do more than only help someone park their car. This ordained moment fuels Danny’s calling as Pastor of Guest Services at the Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. And it also challenges him to ensure that, each weekend, there is always at least one more volunteer than he actually needs. You can listen to the whole conversation here.

Here are some key breakthrough ideas with Danny:

• When God says “I am doing something…” words begin to create worlds.
• Learn why nobody wants to give their life away to show up and help somebody find a parking space.
• Why serving on a hospitality team is a lot of fun for about three weeks but becomes a lousy hobby if there is no substance.
• If all we are calling people to do is show up to check off a box, they will only be excited for a short time. Train for this instead.
• How vital is a welcoming ministry in a church where there is so much emphasis on the gospel and missions?
• Is a First Impressions ministry essential? Answering this question with the Gospel is critical, here’s why.
• Could it be that there roles in the church that we are presenting as family chores? Serving should never feel like taking out the garbage.
• There are plenty of opportunities to offend people and make them uncomfortable when you see with first-time guest eyes.
• We can do everything possible to make 60-75 minutes inside the worship service flawless, but if we are not thinking through what somebody sees first, it may not matter.
• Do we need to ask – what do they see first?
• Make sure that the messages from the stage hold up to the messages on the sidewalk.
• The gospel is offensive but nothing else should be, especially your welcome.
• Guests far from God may disagree with points of your sermon, but they cannot argue with the love of your people.
• There are all kinds of offenses on a Sunday that we can fix… the gospel is one offense we shouldn’t try to fix.
• If we make it feel like we love people, we planned for them, and we cannot wait for them to come back, people hostile to the gospel will eventually take hold.
• Helping people understand the purpose behind needed changes is critical to keeping volunteer hearts engaged.
• The why behind The Summit’s hospitality begins and ends with the gospel.
• The big win of the weekend is that everyone hears the gospel communicated.
• The Summit First Impressions Plumbline: The gospel is offensive, nothing else should be
• The Summit First Impressions Plumbline: The why is more important than the what.
• The Summit First Impressions Plumbline: Everything speaks.
• The Summit First Impressions Plumbline: The first visit should set up the second visit
• The Summit First Impressions Plumbline: Make it personal – every weekend is someone’s first weekend, meet people where they are
• The why has to be more caught than taught. People should understand what matters most beyond just hearing words at a training meeting.
• Leaders must be present and in conversation to ensure that culture is stewarded well from campus to campus.
• Stories are the most significant indicator of cultural health.
• Asking guests about their experience is a way to hear from guests and listen for systemic issues in your hospitality experience.
• The first time guest experience is a health indicator for the entire church.
• Stats don’t grab people’s hearts the way stories do… tell stories to motivate and to cultivate the results you want to see.
• Gospel discipleship in every ministry means that people can move from parking cars to planting churches.
• The majority of guest services conversations are transactional, but are your people available to connect beyond the welcome and into the relational?
• The bare minimum number of volunteers result in the bare minimum number of gospel experiences.
• You always need more volunteers – more people engaged in the mission creates more opportunities to engage people.
• There has to be a passion for the guest experience… your volunteers need to see welcoming people as more than just family chores.
• Nobody dreams of being a guest services pastor, but the reality is that Biblical hospitality is a critical component of following Jesus.
• Guest Services are a biblical virtue expressed on an organizational level.
• Essential Qualities of a Great Hospitality Leader: People person, Attention to detail, Dreamer not afraid to take measured risks
• We don’t always need to learn something new; we need to revisit the truth over and over again.
• Leaders sharpen their tools by reading – and not just leadership books.
• You can engineer EPIC moments to engage First Time Guests.
• Relax… let go of the perfect plan and the ideal event. Outside of salvation, there are very few things in ministry that are as life and death as we think they are.
• We can sacrifice people on the altar of our idol the plan.
• We are not here for the plans we are here for the people.

Listen to the whole podcast here.

If you want to learn how to create an exceptional Guest Experience at your church, check out Auxano’s Guest Experience Boot Camp coming up January 29-30 in Newport Beach, CA

Click here for more information and registration.

Tags: Bryan Rose, Church Guest Experience, Danny Franks, Guest Experience, Guest Experience Boot Camp, My Ministry Breakthrough

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Where Does True Fulfillment Come from in Ministry Leadership?

by: Bryan Rose

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Breakthrough ideas with Barrett: 

• How can a church reach Christians who live in the city, from within the city, not just the suburbs?
• True fulfillment as a Christ-following leader comes from a deep sense of two key understandings.
• Why it is important to bring yourself back to your calling as a leader, not someone else’s.
• It is hard to truly rest if people are constantly in contact, and what to do about it.
• Every leader needs to know their symptoms of exhaustion and unkempt health.
• The importance of every small group having direct contact with this person.
• Marry Biblical Gospel rooted purpose with a vocational dream and people are not just looking for a job after school, they are being sent into a calling.
• The big problem of never really casting vision beyond week-to-week ministry engagement.
• How does the horizon storyline work and why is it important?
• Learn the art of “purposed nothingness” and how this makes room for the Holy Spirit.
• The one big idea to having a church of deep maturing disciples who are loving caring people reaching the lost.
• Three things that, together, are the source of life and effectiveness in ministry.

Breakthrough resources from this episode:

Island Community Church

Zeal Without Burnout by Christopher Ash

M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

God Dreams by Will Mancini

Dangerous Calling by Paul David Tripp

New Morning Mercies by Paul David Tripp

Barrett Bowden is the pastor of Island Community Church, a young and thriving congregation in downtown Memphis. Barrett has a heart for leading the church to invest in its unique, urban context and to cultivate missional leaders with a heart for the nations. Barrett is married to Michelle, an adolescent pediatrician in the Memphis area, and they have one adorable daughter, Caroline Jane.

Tags: Barrett Bowden, Bryan Rose, Fulfillment, Island Community Church

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One Word Makes Your Mission Missional

by: Bryan Rose

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One word. That’s it… one word could mean the difference between your congregation merely liking – or really living – the church’s mission. This idea surfaced last week on the latest My Ministry Breakthrough podcast.

Barrett Bowden, lead pastor of Island Community Church in downtown Memphis, and I discussed one word in their mission. Using “our” instead of “the” when talking about a calling to the world immediately made ICC’s missional mandate intensively relevant to each person.

One word may seem minor, but imagine the difference between “being transformed by Jesus to impact the world” versus “being transformed by Jesus to impact our world.” One names an ethereal, general notion of outreach. The other forces people to consider how the Gospel will impact their neighbors, co-workers, and classmates – as well as distant people groups in other countries. As Barrett stated it:

“We should have that shared ownership of our local context, our neighborhood, but also distant peoples. God gives us, the local church, that burden… and opportunity. It is ours to own, and to joyfully see it, and then go after it.”

One word will make the difference between people smiling and nodding when you cast vision from the mission – or being moved to imagine and envision themselves on-mission in everyday life.

One word engages people beyond fellowship around a phrase into ownership of a purpose. Here are a few other church mission statements in which one simple word moves people from appreciation to invitation:

Visalia Christian Reformed Church in Visalia, California: Grafting each person into Gospel shaped community. Using the word each, instead of all or every, brings the object of the calling to know the unique individual, not merely a nameless group.

Calvary Christian Church in Burke, Virginia: Guiding people to forge a life-long reliance on God.Now renamed as Foundry Church, using the word guiding instead of helping leads every member of Foundry to both be forged and lead others to do the same. Guides cannot lead from the seats in worship, they have to be on the trails of life.

Northwoods Community Church in Peoria, Illinois: Inviting broken-world people to experience complete freedom in Christ Jesus. For Northwoods, it took courage to use broken-world instead of a safer, user-friendlier word like “all people” or “every person.” Naming this broken world draws every member into the understanding that “the world” is broken, “our world” is broken, and “my world” is broken, and therefore we must be actively inviting people to experience freedom in this brokenness.

St John Lutheran Church in Cypress, Texas: Connecting our neighbors to true riches in Jesus.Similar to Island Community Church, the word “our” in front of neighbors make it every person’s responsibility to connect in an upwardly mobile suburb of Houston, not just the staff’s.

Highland Park Baptist Church, Muscle Shoals, Alabama: Mobilizing all people to live as Jesus-followers. For HP, it was adding one word, the word “all” to an already well-established mission that shifted their focus from organizational purpose to an individual and missional mandate.

If one word could make a difference in your mission, it could just be an eternal one.

Auxano provides church leaders with a free 30-minute vision assessment call with one of our team of vision-crafting practitioners. To evaluate the words of your mission, schedule an assessment call here, or shoot me an email with a specific question (contact details here).

> Read more from Bryan.

Tags: Bryan Rose, Mission, Vision

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Placing Volunteers Never Works, So Try This

by: Bryan Rose

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Last week on the My Ministry Breakthrough Podcast, Todd Adkins and I discussed a bit of the difference between just placing volunteers in ministry positions and truly developing leaders for ministry roles. It got me to thinking… how would a church staff person know the difference?

Here are 12 signs you’re just placing volunteers… not developing leaders:

1. The excuses of why they will miss this Sunday keep getting lamer and lamer.
2. Lots of people fill out a card, next to nobody shows up for your training.
3. Training keeps getting put off until  “things slow down”  and never happens.
4. No new ministry has been added, yet the same number of vacancies exist each year.
5. Your team comes to you for answers to every problem, even the most minute.
6. Not much gets done if you’re not around.
7. You’re banking on the worship service announcements to get you some more names.
8. You’re proud of how much busywork you’ve delegated.
9. Everyone on your team has a different definition of success.
10. You have a ministry org chart but no process for existing leaders to take on a new responsibility.
11. It’s easier to be jealous or critical of success in other ministries instead of celebrating it.
12. You find yourself dreaming of ministry somewhere else and struggle to see a better future where you are.

Tags: Bryan Rose, Church Volunteers, Leadership Development, Leadership Pipeline, Volunteers in church

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Ministry Breakthrough Stories are New Podcast’s Focus

by: Bryan Rose

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MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (BP) — In Philippians 4:8, Paul tells the church to dwell on what’s commendable and praiseworthy. With a new podcast, Christians can now apply Paul’s advice during their daily commute.

Hosted by Bryan Rose, “My Ministry Breakthrough” is dedicated to telling the stories of churches experiencing key moments of vision clarity and alignment.

“Many of our guests may not make conference stages with their stories or be featured in big magazines, but that’s the beauty of the podcasting medium,” said Rose, lead navigator for Auxano, the on-site consulting arm of LifeWay Christian Resources. “You can tell stories with ordinary leaders in a way that’s encouraging and challenging.”

The inspiration for Rose’s podcast comes from National Public Radio’s “How I Built This,” a broadcast featuring entrepreneurs behind some of the world’s best-known companies. But instead of speaking to website designers and real estate moguls, Rose calls upon pastors and high-capacity volunteers to tell their stories of how “God build this.”

“It’s easy for churches to copy-and-paste vision from other churches,” Rose said. “But every church is called to be unique and to tap into its own DNA. God has a plan for every church that’s rooted in its context.”

Rose believes ministry breakthrough happens when churches embrace their cultural and geographic context and align people and resources to a vision that helps them make disciples.

“Pastors are visionaries,” he said. “The problem is many tend to rely on a general sense of where they’re going. This always leads to misalignment and competing pictures of what the future looks like.”

In the inaugural episode of “My Ministry Breakthrough,” Rose interviewed Will Mancini, founder of Auxano, about what breakthrough looks like for churches. Mancini said such a definition is hard to put into words but described the following traits of churches that go through such an experience:

— Church members and leaders begin to see ministry routines in a new, exciting way.

— An idea brings a quantum jump of energy to a church.

— A deep sense of satisfaction forms in knowing, “This is exactly what we’re called to do.”

— New confidence is created as the future of the ministry becomes clearer.

— Persistent tension in a church suddenly becomes resolved.

“For me, the most important part of breakthrough is there’s a trajectory change for the rest of your life,” Mancini said. “You know it when you see it.”

By telling breakthrough stories, Rose is committed to helping others learns what a breakthrough might look like for their own ministries.

“There are lot of pastors out there who feel isolated, who feel like they’re going through things no one else is,” Rose said. “The goal of this podcast is to provide an instructive listen for anyone who’s involved in leadership in the church, whether it be in a lay role or a staff role.”

Future episodes of “My Ministry Breakthrough” will include:

— Barrett Bowden, senior pastor at Island Community Church in Memphis, Tenn., which began in a living room but has blossomed into a large ministry heavily populated by Millennials and medical students living in urban areas of Memphis.

— Chris Freeland and Justin Atkins, senior pastor and executive pastor of McKinney Church in Fort Worth, Texas. Freeland and Adkins will discuss what it looks like to lead an established church through a name change.

— Chris Driver, pastor of Fifth Street Baptist Church in Levelland, Texas, a church with a membership of less than 100 that plans to launch house churches in small farming towns nearby.

“You don’t have to be a big church with big resources to have a big vision of what God is calling you to,” Rose said.

New episodes of “My Ministry Breakthrough” are made available every other week and can be downloaded at MyMinistryBreakthrough.com or wherever podcasts are available.

Auxano is the on-site ministry consulting arm of LifeWay that fuses vision clarity with five critical needs in churches: resourcing, leadership, execution, communication and discipleship.

The original story can be found at: http://www.baptistpress.com/51801/ministry-breakthrough-stories-are-new-podcasts-focus

Reprinted from Baptist Press (www.baptistpress.com), news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.

by Aaron Wilson

Tags: Breakthrough Clarity, Bryan Rose, My Ministry Breakthrough, auxano

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Fighting Complacency in Your Church

by: Bryan Rose

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Breakthrough Ideas with Brady Cooper:

• To fight complacency in the church, we must stay hungry evangelistically.
• Building a church culture that engages men, requires a shared value toward challenging men.
• For his staff, the intentional discipleship of 2-3 other people is not up for negotiation.
• Keeping your family healthy is your primary responsibility as a senior pastor.
• Growing a thriving church can quickly produce a starving family, pastors can and should seek professional help.

Brady’s call to preach came during his days at Belmont College. After graduating from Belmont and later from Southern Seminary, he served New Vision Baptist Church as the youth pastor. Brady left for First Baptist Hendersonville and returned in 2003 to serve as New Vision’s Senior Pastor. The church has grown from 400 to 5,000 in weekly attendance over the last 15 years, with three campuses (one inside of a jail!). Most days off for Brady include hunting, fishing or enjoying a great ball game.

> Listen to the podcast here.

Breakthrough Resources:

Accidental Pharisees by Larry Osborne

New Vision Outdoors 

RealTime Congregational Survey

Tags: Brady Cooper, Bryan Rose, My Ministry Breakthrough, New Vision Baptist Church

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Ten Better Practices for Effective Guest Response

by: Bryan Rose

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The most-asked questions at each Auxano Guest Experience Boot Camp consistently revolve around recognizing, and hopefully eliciting, some kind of response from First Time Guests. After serving more than 100 churches and campuses while curating Guest Perspective Evaluations, I have observed various styles of church Welcome Team best practices in this arena. Here are a few common forms of Guest recognition that ultimately end in failure to produce a second visit:

The Family Reunion – We are very friendly and love it when we have first timers and they will definitely feel welcomed. But like the “last boyfriend,” we don’t expect them to be here the next time we gather so we do not invest much real effort.

The Sorority Ceremony – We quickly forget that we invited that guy to be Santa at our Christmas Party and leave him in the corner while we conduct some weird “OMG! You got engaged!” ritual. We feel sorry that he was uncomfortable and we wasted his time during exams week, but it’s our house and our rules.

The Eggshell Walk – We work hard to make sure our Guests can remain completely anonymous. However, in consciously sidestepping Guest parking spots or welcome centers, it becomes MORE conspicuous and uncomfortable to visit our campus and wander helplessly around for the first time.

The Humanitarian Relief – We are so tired from keeping the ministry held together and the lights turned on, that whenever a new family visits, they are mobbed like aid workers during a third-world famine. Every smile carries a certain sense of desperation and the hopes that “you are the one” that return us to our former glory.

Here are 10 Better Practices for Effective Guest Response:

1. Remember to leave time for them to fill out the card. If you announce the seat/pew-back connection card immediately before the offering plate or another stand-and-sing song starts, people will not have time to fill it out. Think through your service timing and make welcome announcements intentional not automatic.
2. Provide pens too. Keep the seats stocked or hand them out at the door. This simple reminder is essential for filling out cards and taking notes on the sermon. Invest in branded pens and invite them to “steal the pens” as long as they leave them for their server at lunch, alongside a generous tip.
3. Don’t ask for too much information. Think through how much you are asking for on the connection cards and what you will do with it. Do you really need every data point, or just enough to follow-up the next week?
4. Provide your contact information first. Why would a first time guest give you, a somewhat over-caffeinated announcement maker, their cell phone number? List your contact information, whatever you are asking for from them, first. Unless you are ready for them to call you randomly, do not expect to be able to call them randomly.
5. Tell them why you want their information. If you need their address or cell phone number, then tell them why. If they know that you are just sending a thank-you note and not going to show up out of the blue some evening, they may be more likely to give it to you.
6. Trade them for something. One great way to receive a Guest response is to give Guest swag. Consider a “swap” for the connection card in the form of a Bible, book, teaching resource or other tangible items. But be careful, some churches have gone too far with this idea!
7. Tie their response to your vision. What if you choose to invite your Guests into God’s better future, to share in your missional calling, instead of just making the typical announcement? Let them know how their response demonstrates a core value of your church, represents the next step in their spiritual growth, or forms the foundation of long-term disciple-making success.
8. Don’t send them to a back room or dark corner. Position any next steps, meet and greet areas, or welcome centers in prime locations within the flow of traffic. Very few people will go against the flow to huddle under the dark balcony stairs – no matter what new swag you have to give them.
9. Plan for a multi-dimensional response. Create two to three different opportunities to respond rather than just relying on one card. You should provide online web forms, Facebook group pages and regular discovery classes to attend. Move beyond the worship tear-off card and look for other, natural opportunities to connect. Team up with the Kids ministry and share information about Guest families, as every parent will have given contact information at sign-in.
10. Plan the work and work the plan. Think through the entire experience a new family will have at your church, from their first Google search to the ride home. Now think beyond the first visit and how that family will be engaged and growing in Christ at your church. Create a plan and the supporting systems that move people toward God’s better future, one step at a time. Assign one person to have ownership over the entire process, working with and for every ministry.

At Auxano, we use Seven Checkpoints to frame the Guest Experience process from the web to the welcome center. Interested in learning more? Bring a team of up to five leaders to one of our upcoming Guest Experience Boot Camps and learn how to integrate the seven checkpoints, as well as create an intuitive plan to get an excellent Guest response at your church.

> Read more from Bryan.

Check out Auxano’s Guest Experience Boot Camp in Cincinnati, OH on August 7-8.

Tags: Bryan Rose, Church Guest Experiences, Guest Experience, Guest Experience Boot Camp, Guest response

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12 Reasons You’re Failing to Reach Young Families

by: Bryan Rose

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You would rather shame a mom and dad for missing Sunday worship than equip them to engage other travel-ball parents with the Gospel.

You consistently make decisions based on anecdotal member happiness rather than analytical program effectiveness.

Your children’s area smells musty, or it looks worn and outdated.

Your decisions about worship style, service times or service content are made in fear of losing people rather than conviction toward reaching people.

You have tens, or even hundreds, of thousands of dollars in the bank and carpet from the mid-1990’s or before.

Your conversations about churches in your area experiencing growth are marked by negativity and insecurity.

You are close to retirement, looking for easy wins and avoiding the challenges required by a change.

Your personal calendar reflects more time spent doing ministry tasks than developing ministry leaders.

You expect parents to be the primary spiritual influence in their homes, but fail to provide any meaningful engagement or resources beyond baby dedication Sunday.

You rarely, if ever, ask the youth minister what he or she is most passionate about.

You and the team watch webinars, attend classes online and stream the latest conferences, yet refuse to live-broadcast Sunday worship services.

Your Children’s ministry security is non-existent or revolves around the “technology” of classroom volunteer facial recognition.

> Read more from Bryan.

Tags: Bryan Rose, Children's Ministry, Families, Reaching young families

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