If you want your church to make an impact for your city, you might think you have to go it alone. But partnering with organizations in your area can strengthen your networks and provide opportunities for you to make connections. Partnering with your city and its organizations uses Missional muscles and takes advantage of existing structures in your local setting. You can work with proven, established services, while using their resources to help accomplish your church’s mission in making disciples.

Many civic and non-profit agencies have great budgets but run short on volunteers. By helping them out, you can use their resources to accomplish your goals.  Some of these local organizations might be:

• Better Business Bureau
• Main Street Associations
• Chamber of Commerce
• Your local city government (City Council)
• Farmer’s Markets
• Parades
• State & County Fairs
• Food Banks
• Homeless Associations
• School Districts & Community Colleges

Start with connections across a cross section of your community. Don’t limit yourself to working with only one organization. Partnerships tend to grow and deepen with time, but it’s hard to know up front which partnerships will yield the best fruit.
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1. Partner in ways that are mutually beneficial. Neither you nor the community organization should feel like you’re only giving and not receiving.
2. Work with people, not just organizations. Be sure there is a specific person in each organization who is your go-to person.
3. Share the vision, share the load. Develop your vision collaboratively so both parties carry ownership. Include both parties in decision making.
4. Communicate progress. When you experience a victory—or a failure—be sure to communicate with your partner organization. Shared information helps everyone adjust as needed.
5. Be available. Be willing and open to serve on committees and boards. Attend city council meetings. Show you care by investing in your community.
6. Think big. Dream big. Act big. Momentum is your friend. When an activity looks like it is succeeding, it is more likely to draw more volunteers and participants.
7. Remember who you are. Partnerships are amazing, but there’s a danger of losing your own identity, your own mission, in the partnership. Always keep in mind what your goal is in partnering with community organizations and don’t let it get lost.

If you want more ideas on building and maintaining community partnerships, Andy Coe wrote a terrific article for the International Nonprofit Development Council, which is available on Convergent Nonprofit Solution’s website.

I’ve been blessed to coach great leaders who are starting new missional churches around the country.  The best leaders are hungry for wisdom and insight!  Here are things I’ve noticed in them.  Look for these qualities in yourself and other leaders you are trying to add to your team.

What are the first impressions of your church worship event?
·       Do people know where to park?
·       Do people know where to enter the building?
·       Is there significant amount of signage that will help guide guests to the best area of greeting and information?
·       Is the entrance inviting or awkward?
·       How many people do guests interact with before the Worship Experience Starts?
·       During the worship experience, can they understand what is happening?

Below are some specifics things to put in place to help make a great first impression.

C.T.U. (Chairs, Tables & Ushers)
These teams serve in snow, rain and sunshine to assist guests in finding an open parking space.. They also provide security during the services, throughout the facility. They welcome guests with greetings from the curb to the front doors to the entry of the auditorium. Once inside the auditorium CTU offer assistance in finding a seat.
 
E.P.A. (Environmental Protection Assistance) Guest Services
These teams provide information at the information table, hand out bulletins to partners, attenders, and guests.  Coffee & refreshment tables are catered and prepped.  These tables are maintained throughout the service by the EPA.  During setup the EPA also makes sure all signage (I,e, Children’s areas, bathrooms, and specialty tables are prepared and manned throughout the service.

Here are some tips for your EPA team:

Main Door Greeters:
·       Smile!
·       Greet every person coming through the doors
·       Shaking hands is not required – read body language
·     If someone needs further help of any kind, offer personal assistance if possible, or take them to another team member who can help them
·       Minimum of 2 greeters at the main doors
·       Remain at door 15 minutes after service begins; longer if traffic flow dictates
·       Return to your door position immediately following the service to hold the door for those leaving

Auditorium Door Greeters:
·       Smile!
·       Distribute bulletins or handouts
·     If someone needs further help of any kind, offer personal assistance if possible, or take them to another team member who can help them.
·       Offer assistance to parents with young children; direct them to age-appropriate ministry
·       Encourage people to sit toward the front, even though there may be adequate seating elsewhere. They’ll be able to see full facial expression up close! Remember, the front row is always open!
 
Information Table
·       Set up all brochures in an attractive, eye catchy yet not eye obtrusive manner.
·       Read up on and familiarize yourself with all information in the bulletin so that you can answer guests’ questions and provide the best possible guest service.
·       Be ready for guests by 1/2 hour before services start.
-      Smile! Look approachable, friendly, and willing to help at all times.
·       All other guest service volunteers should come out from behind the kiosk to intermingle with the guests without the kiosk as a barrier.
·       When the auditorium is full, help usher/greeters with the set up of the Atrium (chairs, noise level, worship atmosphere, taking the offering, etc.)
·       Be able to free yourself up to assist newcomers to the downstairs area for their children, provide a tour of the facility, etc.

Remember, first impressions matter. Don't let a bad first impression be a lasting impression.

As a culture, we've become wary of making the ask. We're afraid of offending someone or pushing too hard, but often the response is, "I would have done it sooner, but no one asked me." Below are some ideas to help you make the ask to call people into life with God.
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Ways You Personally Can Practice Reaping

1. Share your personal faith story and ask for a response.
2. Write a reaping letter to a friend.
3. Share the “One-Verse” Gospel presentation from Romans 6:23.

Ways to Reap as a Small Group
Pick an activity that everyone in the group enjoys. This could include:

• A common interest event (e.g., sports events, shopping, meals, bowling, arts and crafts, board game nights
•  A thought-provoking movie

 In the last two blog posts, we covered cultivation and planting. Next comes reaping. Simply put, reaping takes place when you challenge friends to respond to the truth of God's Word. It is the natural result of cultivating and planting. If we cultivate in love and plant in God's truth, the result will be the challenge and joy of the harvest. (​Ecclesiastes 3:1–2, 2 Corinthians 9:6, Galatians 6:9)

Reaping a response to God’s truth involves an understanding of the difference between our job and God’s job in the reaping process.
Our job in the reaping process of evangelism is to:

1. Clearly and concisely present the Good News message about Christ.  
2. Call people to respond to that message.

God’s job in the reaping process of evangelism is to:

1. Convict the spiritually lost of sin and convince them of their need for right (righteous) living. (“He will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment.” John 16:8)
2. Draw the spiritually lost to Himself. (“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” John 6:44)

This partnership with God calls for bold proclamation with prayerful dependence.

Skills That Need to Be Developed to Do Our Job
To fulfill our part of the reaping process there are two skills that can be developed to enhance our effectiveness.

1. Presenting the Good News.
2. Calling for a response.

Enhancing Our Reaping Skills—Presenting the Gospel
One of the hindrances to reaping is best expressed by this statement: “I would love to tell my peers about Christ but I don’t know how to share the essential elements of a Gospel presentation.”

I suggest starting by memorizing Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Do you believe it? Then, live it!

Enhancing Our Reaping Skills—Calling for a Response
Jesus was a master communicator when it came to getting individuals to respond to spiritual truths. He would often paint a word picture and then ask people questions that caused them to evaluate their spiritual condition. He always made space for their response.

Calling for a Response in Practice
You can use the same two steps to call for a response. First, paint a word picture, like this:​

2. Share It Again
Maximize every opportunity for your friend to hear God’s truth and meet other Christ-followers. Remember, most people need to hear the Gospel seven times and know several Christians before they are ready to trust Christ.

3. Confess
We can plant seeds of God’s truth as we live out genuine Christianity by confessing our sins and seeking restoration in relationships.

• If you lose your temper, confess that it is wrong. Admit that as a Christian your display of unrighteous anger was not right.
• If you gossip or lie, confess your sin and ask for forgiveness from the person you wronged.
• Invite friends over to your home and include them in your time of prayer before a meal or a nightly Bible reading.

By modeling true Christianity, we help our spiritually lost friends see what it means to follow Christ. God has not called us to model perfection, but progress.

4. Listen
Get to know where your friends are coming from… what’s their story?

• What’s your most important relationship?
• Where do you turn for comfort when you’re lonely?
• Do you think it’s possible to have a friendship with God?
• Can I pray for you?
• What do you think happens after we die?
• Does God seem close to you, or far away, distant and impersonal?
• Was Jesus a liar, lunatic, legend or Lord?

5. Persevere
“Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.” 1 Timothy 4:15–16

Sharing what God has done in your life is a persuasive tool for communicating God’s truth.
Revelation 12:11 affirms the power of personal experience: “They overcame [the accuser] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.” 

In The Great Commandment Principle, David Ferguson identifies ten needs that are met in different ways throughout life—by God through His Word and our relationship with Him. We can partner with God in meeting these horizontal needs in the lives of other people. These ten needs are:

1. ACCEPTANCE —dignifying others by accepting them
“Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.” Romans 15:7

2. AFFECTION —expressing care and closeness; saying “I love you.”
“Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. ‘I am willing,’ he said. ‘Be clean!’ And immediately the leprosy left him.” Luke 5:13

3. APPRECIATION —expressing thanks for the efforts of others
“Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.” Romans 12:10

4. APPROVAL —affirming the importance of a relationship
“And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’ ” Mark 1:11

5. ATTENTION — showing genuine interest in another’s interests
“We should have equal concern for each other.” 1 Corinthians 12:25 

6. COMFORT — easing the hurting with words, feelings and touch
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” 2 Corinthians 1:3–4

7. ENCOURAGEMENT — stimulating others to love and goodness
“Think of ways to encourage one another to outbursts of love and good deeds.” Hebrews 10:24

8. RESPECT — treating another as having importance and dignity 
 “Show proper respect to everyone.” 1 Peter 2:17

9. SECURITY — harmony in relationships
“Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” Romans 12:16, 18

10. SUPPORT — helping to carry another’s burdens
“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2

By partnering with God in meeting these valid needs of those around us in our horizontal relationships, we can fulfill the Great Commandment of loving God and loving others.

Within our Kairos Church Planting network we say, "Vision brings hope and a Plan brings confidence." This is a memorable way to recognize that we need to know where we headed and how we're going to get there.
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We also say, "If it's in your head it's a dream; if it's on paper it's a plan." The power of putting something down on paper (yeah, that's figurative, as I'm writing this on my iPad) is amazing. More things will actually get done when we see it written then when they just rattle around in our minds.

If making a plan and writing it down are so powerful why is it that so many of us don't do it? My answer is we often overthink planning. We think planning means spending days agonizing over the issues, researching all possible answers, and preparing that way too long, no one will ever read it, doorstop of a plan. If that's what it takes--count me out! I can't do that kind of planning. Let's leave that to the Pentagon.
Instead I use this very simple 5 question planning process:

1. What needs to happen to move the ball down the field? There are always many things that beg to be done. This question helps us clarify what will actually help us do what needs to be done.
2. Why do I think this goal will move the ball? Answering the why question raises our confidence that we're putting our energies into something that will actually help us make progress.
3. What is the measurable outcome I'm trying to achieve? If your outcome isn't measurable how in the world will you know when you've accomplished it and how well it was done? By having a measurable outcome you'll know it when it happens. (Oh, and this makes celebrating the victory so much more satisfying).
4. What actions will get me there? By creating an action list you take the big, overwhelming thing and break it down into pieces you can handle. It's the answer to the old African question. "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!"
5. What's the logical sequence for those actions? Now you sequence those actions into the logical order that you can put into your work calendar. Now you know not only what you need to do but when you have to have it done by. For about half of us (yeah, us iNtuitives and Perceivers in the Myers-Briggs or Influencers in the DiSC) it gives us that deadline we often need to get us going.

Most of the time, even for long term, complex processes, you should be able to put all this on one sheet of paper. Do that and you've got a pretty simple but darn good plan.

Remember even an idiot with a plan is more likely to succeed than a genius without one.
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Good luck. Why don't you sit down and make a plan right now. if it fits on one page (one side only) send it to me. I'll love seeing what you're working on.

It’s the time of year when resolutions and plans, hopes and dreams, are pasted on our mirrors, stuck on our walls, or presented in PPT strategy sessions. As an organizational leader and an individual the problem I have with resolutions is not the planning—it’s the execution!
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Recently I was at an event where the speaker had written “flawless execution” alongside the diagram of his talk. Wow, that got my attention. Can you believe the first thing he said was he wasn’t going to do the talk he had planned. He spent the next twenty minutes of his sixty-minute time slot talking about himself! His info, when he got to it, was good. But we lost one-third of his time! His problem wasn’t his planning—it was his execution!

Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy in their book Execution say, “Execution . . . is a discipline of its own.” Here are four ideas that can help you and your team practice the discipline of execution in a way that makes sense, gets the job done, and doesn’t make us feel like failures.

Fluid planning
I have a friend who was a naval navigator. He once told me, “Navigating is easy. As long as you know where you are leaving from and where you are going to everything in between is fluid.” Fluid planning has the why, the reason for our plan, as its starting point. Its ending point is what we want to accomplish. If our why is strong and our what is appropriate everything that lies between is the fluid plan.

Inconsistent Action
One of the major breakthrough events in my life was when I accepted the idea that consistency is not king. And that’s not an easy idea to accept. We’ve all been told the fable of the tortoise and the hare—right? But life doesn’t come at us consistently. Life comes in waves, in fits and starts. Inconsistent action gives us permission to let our energies and focus meet the demands of life while returning us again and again to the action necessary to achieve results. Inconsistent action reduces the guilt that paralyzes us and which can eventually so demotivate us that we quit.
Hurtful reality
Reality is hurtful because it’s the force we’re always having to adjust to. Reality refuses to leave us alone. It interferes with our plans (which are obviously great because we made them). The hurt of reality, however, is primarily felt in relation to our unwillingness to accept its presence. The more we resist reality the more pain it applies. Instead of viewing reality as the enemy accept reality as a constructive guide. Reality rewards us when we work with it and redirects us when we get out of sync.
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Fearful Courage
A plan is an act of courage in and of itself. But, as soon as we make a plan public, from the moment we take the first step, fear climbs onto the seat beside us. Fearful courage accepts the fact that fear and courage are companions. So when you feel the fear creeping up on you look around to see where courage is. Courage is not the absence of fear, it is acting in spite of it.
Flawless execution is probably the mythic unicorn of strategic planning. I pray these four ideas encourage you to keep on executing your plans for the good results you want to accomplish.
Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work. —Peter Drucker

Moving from Launch into the long growth phase of church planting means recasting vision over and over again. There’s no end date that you’re ramping up for, so you keep recasting vision for things like presence and deepening presence. It means developing a consistent rhythm for small groups, Sundays mornings, and service. It’s like creating a mini launch three times every year.

Remember back at the beginning of this story, we talked about Jared and Laura going to strategy lab? Initially it was to take their dream and turn it into a plan. But that plan was built on a framework that wasn’t there yet. So, after a couple of years, they went back to Strategy Lab with some experience under their belts, and rebuilt the plan using what they’d learned along the way.

Just recently, they went to Strategy Lab for a third time, this time not as a dream, but as a church. They were able to work on their yearly calendar and set goals for Christmas, Easter, and the start of school.

This little church has a big heart. Twice this year, they’ve given their whole contribution to support their neighborhood elementary school. They’re feeding hungry people, giving warm coats to people who need them, and shining God’s light in a corner of our country that proclaims itself to be “beyond” its need for God.

But light speaks.
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Here’s what one Google reviewer has to say:
“This place is the Light of God, pure and simple. All are welcome. Every single being. Which is what church ought to be everywhere in my oh so humble opinion. A far cry from what we see out there in much of the church these days. Here -one is received, nourished and so cannot help but want to deliver the same to those in their every day."