Archive - June, 2008

Super Heroes

June 30, 2008 in CCC with 1 Comment

Yesterday was a our first Sunday of the Super Heroes series in Discovery Island, our K-5th grade environment at CCC.  It was great.  There was definitely a buzz going around with the kids being excited.  Since we launched we desired to change the pace over the summer in Discovery Island for two reasons.  One is to lean more on the large group side of things so summer volunteers don’t have to be small group leaders, but rather facilitators.  The other is to provide momentum heading into the summer (when momentum usually sinks) and the change allows us to create new momentum heading in to the fall. 


I’m looking forward to the rest of the series.  Here are some pics:


Jake opening up large group talking about super heroes:

SuperHeroes1


Our over-sized super hero Bible:


SuperHeroes2


Our video game stations with a little super hero flare:


SuperHeroes3

Friday Five

June 27, 2008 in Friday Five with 0 Comments

Here are my five favorite blog posts from the week:


Perry Noble – Sunday Night Reflections – Perry talks about another pastor who celebrated the fact that NewSpring is launching a campus 2 miles from his church.  Gotta love that kingdom heart.


Orange Families – All Access – Recruiting Staff & Volunteers – Great thoughts from Adam about how to find the right people.


Craig Groeschel – Developing People – I need to put together a document of all the powerful things I’m learning from Craigh otherwise I’ll forget because it’s too much.


Ben Arment – My Heart for Struggling Church Planters – I’ve enjoyed Ben’s thoughts about the “spiritual fertility” of an area and I’m still waiting for him to post his thoughts on the practical side of that.


Carlos Whittaker – The Day Jesus Saved My Twitter – Carlos was able to get boarding for the night because of twitter.  That’s cool.  You can follow me at www.twitter.com/nickblevins – but 1500 people aren’t following me.


There you have it…..just in time.

Fulfilling Exhaustion

June 27, 2008 in CCC with 2 Comments

This week has been a tough one.  Coming off vacation is always tough because a lot of the stuff that wasn’t done while you are away still has to get done.  On top of that is the fact that this Sunday we’re starting our Super Heroes series in Discovery Island at CCC.  We’ve been preparing for this for a few weeks now, with tons of help.  But, it’s been so much work that it has felt like the week we launched our first KidStuf……which felt like the week we launched CCC.


So, that’s why this is the first blog since last Friday.  Hopefully I’ll update more often again.  This week has been totally exhausting but very fulfilling.  Once we finish this week, we’re almost set for the rest of the 10 week series and that will be nice.  On Thursday Jennifer went to CCC with me to help out and we were there for 14 hours!  The end is in site.  The other beautiful thing is that we can use this series over the summer next year at the Dundalk Campus once it launches.  We’ll pack up all the printed graphics, banners, designs, decor, and store all the videos, audio, notes, and pretty much everything we used and have it ready to be used again and again.


I can’t wait until Saturday.  What exhausts you in a fulfilling way?

Friday Five

June 20, 2008 in Friday Five with 0 Comments

Yes, I'm doing a Friday Five while I'm on vacation.  I had already earmarked some blog posts before we left.  I've also kept up by reading them while waiting in long lines at the amusement parks.  Jennifer reads books (currently The Hobbit).  So, here are my favorite 5 from the week:

Perry Noble – Here Comes the Bride – Long, but powerful

Tony Morgan – 25 Web Apps That Make My Life Easier – Great list.  I use a bunch of those, but had never heard of some.

Access Elevation – In The Loop – Great post about giving the right information to the right people.  It's always better to over-communicate….something I could work on.

Brian Jones – Why Churches Should Euthanize Their Small Groups – Interesting take on small groups.  Brian has a series of posts on this topic and his church's small groups guy guest posts as well.

Ben Arment – Here's a Good Nugget – Good lesson from Chic-Fil-A.

Breakout Churches

June 17, 2008 in Books, CCC, Church Culture with 0 Comments

Our staff recently read Breakout Churches by Thom Rainer.  The book was very similar to what Good to Great was for the business world.  That was done on purpose.  Thom and his research team set out to find some churches that broke out of mediocrity and had great success under certain conditions:

  • They had to have a period of decline
  • They had to break out with the same pastor leading the church the entire time
  • They had to have at least 26 conversions/year after breakout
  • They had to have no higher than a 20:1 conversion ratio (20 christians for every 1 conversion per year)

Here are some points that hit me:

  • It's a sin to be good if God has called us to be great (my favorite!)
  • When pastors grew in their leadership, the growth of the church was directly affected in a positive way
  • The breakout churches consistently had a vision that was outwardly focused
  • Breakout churches faced the brutal facts about their ineffectiveness and changed.  Churches that didn't break out were either in denial of those problems, or didn't have the courage to do something about it.
  • Almost all of the breakout churches were influenced by conferences, books, consultations or other similar outside influences.
  • Breakout churches had a culture of serious fun

As I read through the book I thought of the countless churches that are declining.  That's probably 95% of the churches in America.  At the Drive Conference Andy Stanley talked about the fact that their are tons of churches that have resources & people, but aren't effective, that are declining and aren't making an impact on their communities.  He said that somebody will figure out how to get those churches to take their resources and marry them with new ideas to actually make an impact. 

I've mentioned a couple times that my BIG prayer is for God to help Baltimore become known for strong, healthy churches, for His glory.  I believe a huge part of making that happen is church planting.  But, I also believe it will take a lot of churches breaking out.  Hopefully somebody can figure out how to do what Andy talked about, here in Baltimore. 

Willow Creek REVEAL & Hybels’ Response

June 16, 2008 in Church Culture, Leadership with 0 Comments

Willow Creek released the results of a massive study they did at their church.  REVEAL is the result of that study (click the link for details).  I bought the book and read through it, probably too quickly.  My understanding of the study is that they realized that long-time christians were not as happy at Willow because there didn't seem to be much for them.  Willow realized that they had not done a great job at teaching people how to grow spiritually, on their own. 

Willow is most well known for launching the "seeker movement".  The movement that is based on the idea that churches should be designed to reach unchurched people.  This study doesn't even really have anything to do with that, since the problem wasn't with seekers or new christians.  However, as usual, people started making weird claims that Willow finally realized their errors and abandonded the seeker movement because it was wrong, and of the devil.  Of course, that totally wasn't the case and those people were just fueling their pride.  Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek, responded to some of the criticisms in this video:

 

I'm glad Bill responded.  Sometimes it's hard to decide whether or not to respond.  But, as somebody who doesn't have to deal with the push back, I'm glad he put to words what everybody with half a brain knew to be the case.  It would be hard to actually read about the REVEAL study and think Willow was somehow abandoning their focus on reaching seekers.  It would be easy to not get all the facts and incorrectly assume something else.  That's not all bad, until you start sharing your opinion about something you know nothing about.  I know my first thought when I heard they had done a study was that maybe they realized Willow has too many ministries and needs to simplify…..I assumed, and I was wrong.  Fortunately I checked it out before I formed a real opinion.  I love their transparency, willingness to change, and heart for the Church.
 
Here are some thoughts from other bloggers (and their commentors):
 

I’m hip, I have a Moleskine

June 14, 2008 in General with 0 Comments

If you asked me what I Moleskine was a year ago I probably would have figured it had something to do with fancy clothing made from dead animals.  But, now I know it's the "is the legendary notebook used for the past two centuries by great artists and thinkers, including Van Gogh, Picasso, Hemingway and Chatwin" (according to the website).  That's not true obviously, as that brand has only been around since 1996.  They just claim those famous peeps used something similar. 

Well, I finally got 2 of them.  I doubt that makes me any cooler but I definitely like them.  I use one for my written "to-do" list and the other for my journaling.  I used to use a legal pad for the to-do list and small 5 star notebook for journaling.  But, neither of those were great for different reasons.  The only problem is that both my moleskines are exactly the same, so I put a red paper clip on one so I know the difference when reaching in my bag. 

The big question is……..how do you pronounce moleskine?  I've actually never heard anybody say it, but I've read that the real pronunciation is "Mo-leh-skeen-eh".  Either way, my coolness just went from a 2 to a 3……on a 100 scale.

Friday Five

June 13, 2008 in Friday Five with 0 Comments

Once again the Friday Five is a little late, as it is a few minutes into Saturday.  Anyhow, here are my Five Favorite blogs from the week:

Jay Hardwick – When Good Becomes Ultimate – Church work is the good thing that battles for the place of ultimate in my life.

Chris Brown – Insights from Seth Godin – Great quote from Seth and and great thoughts from Chris.

Steven Furtick – Stop Succeeding and Be a Blessing – The first line in the post says it all.

Jennifer Blevins – Four Things – Nepotism here.  My wife's blog posts are usually always more entertaining than mine.

Bobby Gruenwald – At the Movies Promo Video – That's just awesome.  CCC just wrapped up our annual At the Movies series last Sunday. 

What are over 1,400 churches doing?

June 12, 2008 in Church Culture with 0 Comments

They're doing a series called One Prayer.  One Prayer was an idea started by LifeChurch.tv to unite churches from all around the world by doing the same 4 week message series at the same time.  Churches that are involved will preach one message on their own, talking about what one prayer would they pray for the church at large if they knew God would answer.  Then, they will show 3 videos of other preachers talking about their one prayer.  So, each church will listen to their preacher and listen to 3 preachers from around the world (each church can choose the other 3). 

When I wrote this there were over 1,400 churches involved and they represent over 800,00 attenders.  I love Craig Groeschel's heart for unifying the Church, regardless of denomination or doctrine. 500 Churches will also be started because of One Prayer.  You can read about that here. 

What would YOU pray if God would answer One Prayer for the Church at large?

McChurch?

June 10, 2008 in Church Culture, Leadership, Strategy, Systems with 3 Comments

In a previous blog post I talked about Ed Stetzer's blog posts regarding multisite churches and some questions he posed.  Multisite churches come in all different forms so one can rarely talk about them as a whole and really be able to include every possible model.  Most of the distinctions are in the small things (preaching format, style, location, leadership, etc) but in Ed's article he actually referenced a model that is far less popular than what I'll call standard multisite. 

Standard multisite to me is one church, multiple locations.  One staff, one budget, one eldership, one vision, one language, etc.  Most would fit under that category but Ed called the article "Questions for McChurch".  At the end he said:

"One writer recently wrote about his franchised church–calling it "McChurch–I'm loving it." 

That phrase came from an article in Christianity Today (on their blog here) which was about Eddie Johnson likening his church to a Chick-fil-a franchise.  Eddie is the lead pastor of Cumberland Church – a North Point Strategic Partner.  This method of "multisite" isn't really multisite to me.  Because, it's not one church, multiple locations.  It's two churches, one mission, vision, strategy, values and some of the same preaching on video.  (Not exactly a great tag line).  Each partner church shares all that with North Point but is it's own independent organization with it's own budget and leadership.

The only other church I know of that uses this model as well is Lifechurch.tv (called Network Churches).  If you know of others drop a comment and fill me in.  What do you think about the McChurch model? 

Page 1 of 212»