MediaSalt highlights a HUGE reason to get a VimeoPlus account. If your ministry can afford $60 a year, then do it.

You and I both know that getting in creative ruts is one of the most frustrating pieces of ministry. You’d love to pull off something new and fresh, but you just can’t seem to muster it. Stephen Brewster shares 14 reasons you might be in that funk.

Sometimes the best way to move forward is to start questioning some things that just go unquestioned. Over at Creative Theology, Sam questions whether biblical community would be easier without a weekly corporate gathering. Wow.

What if your church could be a truly local expression of faith in your community? What if your music, art, building, ministries & sermons all held the local flavor of your community?

For some of your church leader types, the Bible has become boring. Admit it. You’ve read it so many times throughout your life, you feel like you don’t even need to read it again. Sometimes I feel this way and THE VOICE has helped refresh the powerful, ancient Scriptures for me.

Just subscribed for a year’s worth of themes for our youth ministry from ROOM 1228. Their art is the best art I’ve seen coming out of a ministry. Costs $500 for a year, which comes down to less than $10 a week for small group curriculum, large group teachings & incredible video, posters, promotion, shirt design and more. Awesome.

Came across an article this morning talking about customer loyalty. We train our fans, customers, members & staff how to interact with us.

Now think about churches. We train people how to engage with us & on what level. If we cater to church shoppers, we’re training our entire congregation that shopping for churches is OK.

Well, when your worship is a bit sub-par or your sermons are in a dry spell, what happens? You’ve trained people that hopping about from place to place is acceptable practice and – guess what – that’s exactly what they’re going to do. They’re going to just hop about until they find a place they like.

Pastors know this. Any pastor who interacts with new people (and then meets with those who are leaving the church) knows that habitual church leavers always leave churches. They’ve been trained and they’re very skilled at jumping from community to community.

Church leaders, you’re training people. The way you talk is training people. The things you say and don’t say train people. Think about it.

I was looking to equip some teenagers to lead our student ministry in worship. I wanted to put a book in their hand that was helpful, foundational & simple. I sent an email to any people I thought would have a good perspective and here’s the list they gave me:

• “The Unquenchable Worshiper” by Matt Redman
• “The Air I Breathe” by Louie Giglio
• “Praise Habit” by David Crowder
• “The Worship Answer Book” by Rick Muchow:
• “Worship in Black and White” & “The Worship Pulse” by Yancy
• “Exploring Worship” by Bob Sorge
• “200 Pomegrantes and an Audience of One” by Shawn Wood
• John Frame’s “Worship In Spirit and In Truth“
• Reggie Kidd’s “With One Voice“
• Robert Webber’s “Ancient-Future Worship: Proclaiming and Enacting God’s Narrative“
• “The Heart of the Artist” by Rory Noland
• “To Know You More” by Andy Park
• “The Heart of Worship Files” by Matt Redman
• [blog post] how to plan & lead worship by Andy Rowell
• [bog post] FAQ about Worship: Seekers, Emotions, & Me-Songs by Andy Rowell

*Note: The first two book “Unquenchable Worshiper” & “The Air I Breathe” received the most recommendations. Also, “Praise Habit” received multiple recommendations.

*Thanks to Andy Rowell, Chris Williams, Ben Taylor, Michael Farnsley, Shane Hart, Jeremy Zach, Graham Buck, Nathaniel Dame, Ryan Smith, Benji Robinson & Lee Bezotte.

What UP! It’s LINKFEST 2010!

Youth Ministers, keep your senior pastor in the loop without annoying him/her. Josh Griffin has an great example of doing this. (Also, senior pastors, feel free to do the exact same thing with your staff.)

As your youth group’s small groups get rolling this fall, here is a list of 35 conversations starters. Put these in the hands of any volunteers who spend relationship time with students.

My friend Kevin and I are starting to work on a project called artFWD. The mission is this: years and years ago, in another age, the CHURCH had a monopoly on the art market. Churches and leaders valued beautiful art that helped tell a story (architecture, painting, liturgy, stained glass windows, etc). Today, there are more art forms than there ever have been in all of history. We’re bringing art back, by moving forward.

My post, “Dear Church,” Got LOTS of traffic and one really lame comment. Oh internet…

Twitter can teach you this:

“We need to understand the church as the effect of discipleship, not the cause.” from Mark Christian

“100% Pastoral Guarentee: No matter how much you give, someone will think you’re inadequate.” from Jamie Arpin-Ricci

Youth Ministry Tweeter of the Week: Graham Buck (mostly because he dominated on helping me jailbreak my iPhone)

Videos you gotta watch:

Josh Garrels “Just Doin Your Thing”

Menomena “Evil Bee”

“Catalyst” by Linkin Park (with lyrics)

Powerful video. I so BADLY don’t want to just be a cog in the machine.

(found on ChurchCreate)

Dear Church,

I’ve missed you.

Not your programs or your events. Not your words or videos or music or your building.

Just you.

As I look back through my history, memories flood my mind of how you took me in, cared for me in tough times & challenged me . I remember strolls along the beach and conversations in the hallway. I remember walking alongside of you as I reluctantly served elderly folks in New York. I remember helping you reroof homes in Kentucky that had been destroyed by a flood. I remember the constant reminder to engage Jesus.

I miss you. I know we see each other often, but it just hasn’t been the same. It’s not entirely (or even mostly) your fault. It’s mine. I find myself searching for you and realizing that it has been me keeping you at arms length. I’m critical of your faults and yet I am the one who created them.

I apologize and hope we can strive through this.

With all sincerity,

Adam Lehman

When your organization is getting off the ground – or maybe before that – you’re going to want to create communications that help share your story with both current & potential fans. This can be a daunting task when one is strapped for cash or doesn’t have the time, energy or skills to communicate consistently.

Another hurdle small organizations face is the fact that – if they grow – they’re going to have to completely overhaul their communication methods which could be a truckload of work & has potential to create confusion with those who you’d like to be crystal clear with.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could start off with a cheap (or FREE!) method of commication while your needs aren’t tremendous? Wouldn’t it be great if those modes of communication were scalable so you could be consistent while your organization grows?

Well the internet just made that a LOT easier. Here are a few ways my current organization uses cheap (usually FREE) ways to communicate. The best thing about these communication avenues is that they’re easiliy scalable. If our organization doubled in size, we’d still be able to use the same avenues and wouldn’t have to transition our entire tribe to a new communication.

Email: Our organization uses MailChimp because MailChimp offers a “Free-Forever” option. We don’t have enough people on our mailing list to warrant spending lots of money on email marketing. Luckily for us, MailChimp has a super-simple interface which allows us to set up multiple mailing lists (teenagers, volunteers, program leaders, & everyone) without costing us a penny. It’s an easy, scalable way to communicate regularly with your customers. MailChimp works well if you have a list of 30 or 3000.

Blog: Write a blog. It’s free on WordPress, Blogger & Tumblr. It’ll cost you a little bit to purchase a custom domain but it sure isn’t hard. Train people to learn about your company through the web. Once you write a blog, there are only minor differences between having 2 readers & 20,000. It’s super-scalable.

Text Messaging: My organization uses text messages to remind people about upcoming events. There is a small monthly fee for us (which will increase as we grow), but being able to communicate in short bursts is fantastic. We use TXTsignal for this.

Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Vimeo. Free, simple services that allow you to connect with people. It costs you the same to connect with 3 friends as it does to connect with 30,000 fans. Either way, these avenues of communication are an easy way to pump out your message.

BONUS!: And just for an added bonus, you can interconnect all of these services to varying degrees. TXTsignal can update your Facebook status. Youtube can update Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr. MailChimp connects to twitter, facebook & blogs. When you interconnect your communication avenues, you help fans connect with whatever communication is easiest for them.

Figure out a strategy, get to work & never stop learning.

On August 1st, I became a part-time student ministry director.

Due to some recent budget decision at my current church, I was moved from full-time to part-time pay.

When most people heard that news, they felt sorry for me. They expressed frustration. They thought that I’d be crushed. Well I’m not.

Here are the reasons:

• Having all of your financial NEEDS (and many of your financial wants) met by other people’s tithes is a ridiculous blessing. We’re STUPID lucky to live in an era of history where it is normal for a church to fully compensate their “staff.”
• Sometimes, I think it MAY handicap the ministry as lay-leaders begin to rely on the “professionals” to do the work on ministry. They turn into consumers of religious goods & services which completely separates them from the best blessings of ministry.
• If I took a spiritual gifts test, I’d score high on the gift of evangelism. It’s pretty freaking hard to build relationships with non-church peeps when you move to a new city to work in a church. It’s not impossible, but I’m excited to pick up another part-time gig that allows me to rub shoulders with those who could use a pastor in their lives but would never set foot in a church.
• I went to a church in college that was part of a network of church plants. One of that networks core values was that all of their pastors would be bi-vocational. I’ve never been in a more spiritually vibrant & healthy church.
• I have the opportunity & necessity to more urgently invite others to join in what God in doing in the lives of teenagers. For the past two years, I’ve too selfishly clung to this blessing on my own, it’s time to share it with more people.