Marketing and Management Thoughts

I personally love hearing about Bi-Vocational pastors (as that is where the Lord is leading my wife and I) and here is a man who is doing just that, at a mega church. This goes against many of the assumptions people make about bi-vocational ministers. Mainly that their ministry isn’t large enough to support them.

Enter Tim Gray

Tim not only is the Lead Pastor/Vision Director of The Bridge Community Church in Leadington, MO but also the Athletic Director for Mineral Area College. The folks over at the Catalyst Space blog did a great interview with him. He shares about his approach to church and is worth the time to listen to it. He talked about being bi-vocational starting at 4 minutes.

Just imagine preaching about tithing when you don’t draw all or any of your salary from the church among any other subjects. Since preachers asking for money regularly tops the list of things un-churched people fear about coming to church.

(Hat Nod: catalystspace )

This really is an awesome flash visualization (via NYT) that you just have to check out online. It has a number of demographic break downs to see the different in how people use their time. You can also click on a part of the stacked line graph to see how that activity breaks down for the selected demographics.

Below are some quotes from the project that are particularly relevant to the church. Remember, the better we understand how people are using their time the more likely they will be to make sacrifices for Jesus.

“On Sundays at 11 a.m., about 13 percent of Americans are at church or participating in other religious activities.”

Time spent on Religious Activity per day:

By Race:

• White people spent 7 minutes
• Black people spent 17 minutes
• Hispanic people spent 8 minutes

By Age:

• 15-24 spent 5 minutes
• 25-64 spent 8 minutes
• over 64 spent 15 minutes

By Gender:

• Men spend 7 minutes
• Women spend 10 minutes
• Everyone averaged 8 minutes

View the Visualization Online

(hat nod kottke)

Earlier we’ve blogged about the importance of having a presence in online communities like Facebook and Twitter. Talking with some pastors and other friends of mine in ministry has raised an interesting point.

How does one separate their close friends, from those who know them because of their ministry? Facebook has actually built in a number of features to help you grant and deny access to various parts of your profile! Most people don’t realize this is even possible.

(more…)

Dreams into Reality

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Sometime over the next couple days we will no doubt hear about this man, Yves Rossi, in an aside to the news as he flies across the English Channel with a jet-pack. It will be a first and the Swiss born former fighter pilot is ready to give it a try.

Personally there are tinges of jealously and excitement as I hear about him setting out to do this. I don’t remember the number of tee-ball games I spent daydreaming in the outfield of doing amazing things like this. But what has come of nearly all of those childhood dreams? almost nothing.

While it is unlikely that anyone you or I know could pull off what Yves Rossi likely will, there are many things that those close to us, and those in our churches have dreamed of doing. Of the people in the pews next to us and those we meet up with for lunches and coffees there are two different types. (more…)

When leaders don’t fail, no-one else will ever innovate.

Who has ever heard of someone achieving success without failing first? Every professional athlete spends more time practicing and lets not forget they were all amateurs before turning pro.

So why do we manage as if we should only experience/expect success and not failure. Those failures are the building blocks of their success. They might be of yours as well if you don’t push them away.

Leaders have to take risks that both succeed and that fail. Without this no one will feel the freedom to take steps of their own (in addition to your explicit encouragement). This molds the culture that your organization projects, both externally and internally, and will determine if you will raise up innovators from within or not.

The problem here is that we love boasting and reminiscing in our successes. If we only have success, or never talk about our failures, those around us will fear trying to live up to your standards. The more humble we are, the more accessible opportunity (and then innovation) will become to those around us.

In the last post we talked about how the focal point (mission statement) can inhibit innovation through suffocation. Here we’ll talk more about developing that culture. (more…)

Negative connotations aside, innovation is highly attractive. It draws people into an organization, or to a person. Yet often we struggle to cultivate a culture that is conducive to community. Most commonly this lack of an innovative culture comes down to a few points:

Factors Against an Innovative Culture

• Unknown focal point
• High and rigid management
• Lack of freedom
• Lack of goals to innovate towards
• Few empowered ‘champions’

Over the next few posts we’ll address the latter four, today this unknown focal point. (more…)