© 2009, VoiceWind. . .Greg Loveless. All rights reserved.

Book Review – “God According to God” by Gerald Schroeder is a post from: VoiceWind - Greg Loveless

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Review:

The two most important concepts Nixon has in his book are in chapter “Choosing Life Over Death” and “Choosing Frontier Over Fortree”.

The key information in “Choosing Life Over Death” are taken from pages 31 to 33.

“In stagnant and dying churches, the members usually turn inward and become a bit selfish in what they expect of the church; decisions are made based upon what is most convenient and comfortable for the church members rather than what is expedient in effectively serving the community people.”

“Often the most helpful persons to partner with are inactive members…who have grown bored or frustrated with their church over the years and who may have turned their energy toward other good projects in the community…”

“I urge you to take names. Keep a list of the bright-eyed people, the people who are energized by the thought of their church living and thriving in ministry with a new set of people…”

“Grow this list of bright-eyed vision share holders—both inside the church membership and beyond it! Keep a roll. This roll is your real church roll…reframe your ministry toward this roll of living disciples…”

“The bright-eyed people form the green shoot poking its way to life from what appeared to be a dead tree. Growing this new shoot is your main task as a turnaround leader. This shoot, these people are the living church you are called by God to lead.”

The key information in “Choosing Frontier Over Fortress” are taken from pages 88 to 89.

The historical statistics that Nixon outlines in this chapter paints a very powerful picture.

• “From 1790 to 1830, the congregations that would become the United Methodist grew from 58,000 in 1790 to 501,000 in 1830.”
• “They went from 1.5% to 5.1% of the US population.”
• “These churches were so nimble that one third of the Methodist Episcopal congregations in 1830 had no building.”
• “By 1840 the groups growth rate was slowing.”
• “The correlation between the slow-down of the Methodist movement’s expansion over the next century and the steady construction of larger more substantial buildings is nothing short of remarkable…there is definitely a correlation: the more building-oriented any church becomes, the more it will be tempted to take on the settle attitudes and habits of an institution, and to leave the free-spirited, frontier-oriented attitudes and practices that grew it to start with.”

I would highly recommend this book to any Church Leader, lay or professional. It cuts through the common assumptions and misconceptions we all have when we consider how to turn a church around. It will eliminate the mistakes that are often made that waist time and resources and then create burn out.

How this Book Helped Us:

As the Church Chairman, I read this book when our church, Olathe Covenant, was going through a difficult transition period. Our attendance had been on a steady decline for over 5 years. For a three year period we had not a single couple or family under 40 years of age visit and stay. Our lead pastor accepted another call. Our youth director accepted another call. We were over $24,000 in debt.

After reading this book and “Church Unique” by Will Mancini (click here for our review) the church Leadership Team decided to follow the guidelines and recommendations in these two books. We did this even if these guidelines ran contrary to those provided by our denominational conference leadership.

As a result we chose to go with a non-traditional model of a video worship experience. From August to December of 2008 we used LifeChurch.tv Message videos in place of traditional pulpit supply. We did this for several reasons:

1. This would make us “Unique” in our area which is a main point of Mancini’s book.
2. The Messages from LifeChurch.tv were free so this saved on the cost of pulpit supply.
3. The concept, worship experience and the content of the LifeChurch.tv Messages by Craig Groeschel were “X” & “Y” generation friendly.

When we had our Annual Meeting in December of 2008 the members voted to continue with this video worship experience. Subsequently, in February of 2009 the congregation voted, with only one dissenting vote, to become a LifeChurch.tv Network Church. Since then we have had seven families visit and three have remained and have become active in church ministries. In addition 6 singles have visited with one continuing to visit and another who has become a member of our Praise Team.

© 2009, VoiceWind. . .Greg Loveless. All rights reserved.

Review of “I Refuse to Lead a Dieing Church” by Paul Nixon is a post from: VoiceWind - Greg Loveless

Related posts:

1. Review of “Church Unique” by Will Mancini

Review:

I would highly recommend this book to any Church Leader, lay or professional. It cuts through the common assumptions and misconceptions we all have when we consider how to turn a church around. It will eliminate the mistakes that are often made that waist time and resources and then create burn out.

How This Book Helped Our Church:

As the Church Chairman, I read this book when our church, Olathe Covenant, was going through a difficult transition period. Our attendance had been on a steady decline for over 5 years. For a three year period we had not a single couple or family under 40 years of age visit and stay. Our lead pastor accepted another call. Our youth director accepted another call. We were over $24,000 in debt.

After reading this book and “I Refuse to Lead a Dieing Church” by Paul Nixon, the church Leadership Team decided to follow the guidelines and recommendations in these two books. We did this even if these guidelines ran contrary to those provided by our denominational conference leadership.

As a result we chose to go with a non-traditional model of a video worship experience. From August to December of 2008 we used LifeChurch.tv Message videos in place of traditional pulpit supply. We did this for several reasons:

1. This would make us “Unique” in our area which is a main point of Mancini’s book.
2. The Messages from LifeChurch.tv were free so this saved on the cost of pulpit supply.
3. The concept, worship experience and the content of the LifeChurch.tv Messages by Craig Groeschel were “X” & “Y” generation friendly.

When we had our Annual Meeting in December of 2008 the members voted to continue with this video worship experience. Subsequently, in February of 2009 the congregation voted, with only one dissenting vote, to become a LifeChurch.tv Network Church. Since then we have had seven families (all under the age of 40) visit and three have remained and have become active in church ministries. In addition 6 singles (all under the age of 40) have visited with one continuing to visit and another who has become a member of our Praise Team.

In addition to the above we have paid off our $24,000 of debt. Our attendance has stabilized. We have been in the black for over nine months. After our worship team leader decided to leave last fall because he did not agree with the LifeChurch.tv model, we were able to bring in a new Worship Team Leader who has published two CD’s, (one vocal and the other insturmental), and he is working on a third that will be Praise music. We just completed a much needed and expensive repair, seal and restriping of our parking lot. And now we plan to turn our focus on the interior of the worship center to bring it up to LifeChurch.tv standards.

So what was the key to the turn around? The Leadership Team walked through the process in “Church Unique” and as a result we eliminated some cherished ideas. The most important idea was this — that by adding another ministry, this would be the silver bullet that would turn our church around. Rather, as Will Mancini discusses in his book, we simplified by throwing everything out and then we came up with three basic ministries that we were going to focus on and do well. No matter the pain, the rest of the ministies were eliminated.

The three main ministries we focused on were:

1. The LifeChurch.tv Worship Experience: We decided we would follow this format even it it made some uncomfortable because it’s not about us, it’s about those who need Christ. See Craig Groeschel’s Message “Dangerous Church 2″ (Message Week #1 and Message Week #2). Also see Andy Stanley’s Message on LifeChurch.tv regarding the Church should be “A Place for Everyone“.
2. Children’s Ministries: We focused on this area rather than trying to do all the ministries for adults and high school, etc.
3. LifeGroups: We made a focused effort to get as many persons as possible in LifeGroups. In the past many of our members connected intimately only with the pastor on Sunday morning. Since we were doing a video Message from LifeChurch.tv, and there was no live person in the pulpit, so we replaced it with the intimacy in the LifeGroups.

© 2009, VoiceWind. . .Greg Loveless. All rights reserved.

Review of “Church Unique” by Will Mancini is a post from: VoiceWind - Greg Loveless

Related posts:

1. Review of “I Refuse to Lead a Dieing Church” by Paul Nixon