Discovery Lab Out On the RangeDiscovery Lab #24 was our first lab we've held in Texas. But for sure it won't be our last. The clear skies and warm days were a welcome break from winter for our mostly northern team. And the warm Texas welcome made us feel right at home. We had the privilege of assessing 3 couples as future church planters and campus ministers. This is the work we love. To listen to what God has been doing in these young leaders and to speak truth into their futures brings us great joy.  Bruce Bates, our lab leader, reflected on the week with these words: "It's inspiring what we do. Lifting up leaders, letting God build their platform and then letting them fly. Sometimes we truly have the best job in the world." The work of discovery is both invigorating and exhausting. Interviews and observations are interspersed with personal stories and worship. Nights are short and days are long. Above, one of our candidate couples leads us in a time of praise.  We were blessed to have some interviewers join us who are not part of the regular work of Kairos. Among them was Tod Vogt, executive director of Mission Alive, a sister organization to Kairos, and a partner in the Gospel. Also on the team were Aaron and Tricia Vann, counselors from WV who are a regular asset to these labs, and Brad Perrigo, whose work with helping hire our new director sealed him as one of our champions. And let's not forget Kevin, a former Discovery Lab participant, who returned to bless us as our lab cook!
By Joe Carr A couple of days before the new year, I got a call from a local ministry friend. He told me that a minister he knows in California had met a young man in need of help. The young man (we'll call him, "Seth") had grown up in New Hampshire but had been living on the street after losing his job and all of his money due to his addictions. Seth had recently had something of a mystical experience where he felt as if he was suddenly awakened by someone while sleeping alone in an abandoned warehouse. This experience also seemed to awaken a desire in him for getting sober and putting his life back together. And so Seth went searching for help, and that is when he ran into this man that knows my friend. It was Christmas day. He and this minister met over lunch at Burger King. After hearing his story, this man offered to buy Seth a plane ticket home if he thought there would be someone there to see him get the help he needed.  I couldn't help but wonder why I was getting the pleasure of this nice story. That's when my buddy added, "So apparently this guy is standing on the curb at Logan airport and the folks who were supposed to meet him have changed their minds." Seth, not knowing who else to call, had reached back out to the minister in CA who had in turn called my friend who was out of town for the week. Since we live six minutes from the airport, I guess I was the obvious next phone call. "Yeah, give me his number and I'll arrange to pick him up." I found Seth where we agreed to meet and he climbed into the car. After exchanging some pleasantry, he began telling me his story. His genuineness and authenticity drew me in. In fact, I was so enthralled by his story that I missed my exit and turned a six minute drive into twenty. It was Sunday and lunch at home was already being prepared. Seth was so happy to eat with us, meet our children and my parents who were still visiting after Christmas. We offered that he stay with us for the afternoon, join our Bible discussion group, and then we'd get him a place to stay. The next morning, Seth and I got into our van and began driving towards New Hampshire. The whole time we were on the road, he was attempting to get in touch with old friends. He was looking for work and a temporary place to stay. (Yes, I was driving and I had no idea where he was needing me to take him!) Seth must have made 8 or 10 phone calls and wrote twice as many text messages. Eventually someone answered. This person knew Seth's situation, was glad to hear from him, and wanted to help. But the friend had a condition. "He wants me to call this other guy I know who runs a sober living house and see if I can get into the program," he relayed. There was a sudden silence in the car. I sensed hesitation. I guess I assumed that maybe Seth wasn't ready to make a permanent change. I was wrong. "I really want to do this, but I'm a little afraid that I won't get into the program since I don't have any insurance or any money." I encouraged him to call and find out more information. Seth got off the phone. "He has a bed for me. It is two hundred a week." I nodded and said, "That's very reasonable; if your other friend has work for you, you could totally swing that. And maybe I can help with the first week's fee." His immediate gratitude showed and he started to cry. It was one of the moments we long for in ministry. We want to help, but we're not sure if our small aid will make a difference or lead to lasting change. But you know that you never really know. What if helping a person this one time doesn't last? Does it mean we wasted our kindness? I mean, how many people can name the ONE act of love in our lives that keeps us going years later? It is possible for one moment to shape us, but it is much more likely that we have experienced a COLLECTION of kind acts that remind us of our worth and push us to move forward. Even if one demonstration of grace doesn't solely change a person, it could start to tip the scale. And if it not now, maybe it could be a difference-maker in the future. The amazing news is that the kindness we were able to give to Seth--alongside that of many others--put him on a path toward lasting change. He told me so himself when I asked this morning if I could share his story. May we be about the business of tipping scales with our radical love and generosity this, and every, day. Thank you for your love and support and prayers as we do what we can. Joe and Lauryn Carr To Follow the Carrs' ministry in East Boston, visit their blog. 8 Steps To Ministry Apprenticeships That Are Good for Your Church AND Your Apprentice Purposeful apprenticeships are one of the best ways to raise up new leaders for the future of the church. But having an apprentice at your church as a go-fer or a warm body can lead quickly to boredom, frustration, and stagnation. Below are some ideas to help engage apprentices in your church's work and prepare them for ministry beyond their time with you.  Andrew Jones signing his integrity document for his ministry apprenticeship 1. Appoint a Director
The adage "If it's everybody's responsibility, it's nobody's responsibility" is certainly true for apprentices. You can't assume that an apprentice will find his or her own way around and will figure out how to spend time. Having an intern with no director can easily lead to one of two extremes: someone who ends up sitting around with nothing to do or a someone who ends up inundated with all the tasks no one else wants to do. One extreme leads to stagnation and the other leads to resentment and burnout. In order to make the apprenticeship a positive experience for everyone, your apprentice should have a director or supervisor. The director should establish expectations and schedule regular meeting times. Consider setting up a weekly one hour meeting just before or after your regular staff meetings to go over the past week and set goals for the coming one. 2. Expose Your Apprentice to a Variety of Ministries Your apprentice should be exposed to as many ministries as possible. This might take the form of a weekly rotation (Mondays in the preschool, Tuesday at Alpha, etc.) or could be set on the calendar according to the church's cycle of busy seasons. The children's minister will need help planning VBS. The youth group can always use a chaperone on summer mission trips. And there's always room for someone to take responsibility during busy holiday seasons like Christmas and Easter. 3. Assign Your Apprentice Quality Reading Material There are so many great books on developing leadership. We highly recommend "Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership" by Ruth Haley Barton. A couple other books to consider are "The Hero Maker" by Dave Ferguson (this one is for the director, too!) and "Evangelism as Exiles" by Elliot Clark on sharing faith in a culture that no longer welcomes Jesus. 4. Give Your Apprentice Opportunities To Meet Your Congregation The first chunk of time can be spent getting to know your church and its culture. Get your apprentice a stack of index cards to write down the names of the people they meet, what their life situation is, and any other snippets of personal story each person offers. Have them visit your various Bible classes, small groups, and other regular activities to get an overview of what your church is about and who your people are. 5. Ramp Up the Responsibility Your apprentice might start out just getting to know people, but as time goes on, responsibilities should increase. Move your apprentice from basic faith conversations to leading classes or groups. Not sure how to do that? Consider working through the Emerging Leadership Training Course on Sharing Faith. It gives regular assignments that will increase your apprentice's involvement and level of responsibility. 6. Teach Your Apprentice How to Have Spiritual Conversations One of the skills covered in the Sharing Faith ELT is how to have 3 question conversations that move you from asking polite questions to interest questions to caring questions. Give your apprentice opportunities to speak with strangers and move them from small talk to real talk. During your weekly debrief, ask about these conversations. What went right? What went wrong? What will he do differently next time? 7. Expect Your Apprentice to Establish Regular Spiritual Rhythms Of course, you can't expect to form a new habit in someone you're training if you don't practice it yourself. Encourage your apprentice to establish a daily office of prayer and study, weekly rhythms of prayer, and regularly scheduled chunks of time spent in silence, stillness, and solitude. 8. Help Your Apprentice Figure Out "What's Next" As you get to know your apprentice, you'll start to see giftings, strengths, and weaknesses. Pay attention to these and encourage him or her to seek out the next step that will play to their strengths, but also have room for growth in areas of weakness or inexperience. A Year of KairosLast year was a busy year in the Kairos network--but what year isn't? A new church born, another closed. Planters assessed. Apprentices trained. A new staff member. And more forward movement for the future of God's kingdom across America. We hope you enjoy the slideshow that gives a quick visual of what Kairos Church Planting is all about. See the Full Article on the Wineskins SiteA disturbing prospect looms before us as the fact of our decline of Churches of Christ (CoC) has moved from unbelievable to undeniable. The question we must answer is no longer, “How are we doing;” our question is now, “What shall we do about it?”  I've written articles for The Great Commission Journal and in collaboration with Tim Woodroof addressing the urgent need to plan for the future of Churches of Christ before it's too late. In my most recent article at wineskins.org, I offer 3 of the biggest challenges facing the Churches of Christ and 3 strategies to meet those challenges. If God has invested heavily in this branch of the tree of Christianity, can't we do the same?
What belongs on your website?In the olden days of a decade or more ago, the internet was the Wild, Wild West. Everyone “needed” a website, but didn’t know what to put on it. So, they included everything. At Kairos, we over cluttered our website with the best of them. But web audiences have changed and tastes have become more refined. If you want your church website to work for you, here are a few tips for clean and effective design.  There are two main camps when it comes to church website design. One camp says that your website is the main vehicle of communication. You should put everything your church does up on there. You should have a blog, a church calendar, streaming videos, every outreach ministry should have their own page and blog. And on, and on. The other camp says a website should be simple, well-designed, and have just the essential information about your church. That’s the camp that I belong to, and here’s why. Technology changes all the time! When you build a large website that has all the bells and whistles, it is difficult to keep up to date and it takes a LOT of work. Because of all that it becomes old very quickly. Who Is Your Website For? One way to view your website is as a glorified billboard. It should have just the basic information that people are looking for and they should be able to find that information quickly and on any device. That should make you ask two questions: 1. Who are the people looking at your website? 2. What information are they looking for? You might be surprised that the majority of people that view your website are not your members, but people that are trying to find a church. It’s guests that look at your website. And what information are they looking for? • When are the services? • Where is the church located? • What are the church’s core beliefs? • How can I and my kids get involved? That’s it! That’s your churches website. You don’t need any more than that. Now, there is an obvious piece missing from this idea, and that is the interaction between the church and the members. How do you tell people what events are going on, how to volunteer for those events, what prayer requests are there, what Bible studies are going on, and so on? In today's world, those things are done through a church app. (More on that in a future post.) What Should Your Website Look Like?Color Your Website should have, at most, 3 colors—one primary, one secondary, and one for accent or Pop! If you don’t know how to find a trio of colors that matches, coolors.co can help you pick out a great, contemporary color palette. Fonts Fonts, like colors, can work for you or against you. Limit yourself to three fonts. More than that is just too visually confusing. Just like with colors, there is a great website to help you out. FontPair.co has all the latest fonts already paired up for you to use. Platform Running a website can be super complicated, where you hire a designer or a developer and any time you want to make changes, you have to run them through that person. If I may be so bold, just stop it! We want to be 21st -century churches, so let’s use 21st -century technology. Two companies that I think are great for a church are SquareSpace and Wix. Both of these companies provide hosting and have great looking templates for your site. They are basically a one stop shop and are very reasonable prices. If you just really want more flexibility you can use Wordpress. You can get go a lot more in depth on website design, logo design, and choosing a theme or template, but these basics will get you started. Use your website as a way to delegate and develop leaders. And use it to give potential guests a first glance of what visiting church might look like.
The first century church didn’t like art all that much. In that time, it was too closely connected with their suppressors, the Roman Empire. Through the centuries, the church has, in turn, embraced the power of art, and rejected it. In 21st century America, it’s good to embrace it. Americans today are more aware of good and bad design than ever. We have grown into sophisticated consumers who are familiar with fonts and videos, colors, and photography. We know what we like and what we don’t like, even if we can’t put a finger of exactly why design or lack of it makes us feel a certain way.  1. Good design speaks to people who are not listening. The world these days is constantly changing. There’s always a new iPhone coming out, a redesign on your favorite website, a new display at the grocery store. When things look the same, they become invisible. By changing and refreshing your church’s design, you make the message visible in new and engaging ways. When we do the same things with the same look for years on end, old habits become old hat. Keep the message True, but use design to change the way it looks, whether it’s by changing worship order, stage design, web or print design. 2. Good design helps people receive your message Do you learn by seeing or by hearing? Some of us are visual learners and some of us are auditory learners. And to make things more complicated, however you gather information through any of your senses, you have to process it emotionally, socially, and intellectually. In that order. The first step to any of that, though, is in sensing. When someone visits your church, what they see, hear, smell, taste, and touch are giving them the information they need to make a judgment on whether your church is the right one for them. By choosing aesthetically pleasing, consistent design, whether on your website, in print, or on the screen at church, you are allowing the message of the Gospel to land easily where there are fewer barriers to it being received. 3. Good design matters to God. God is the ultimate designer. At the end of each phase of his ultimate design project (the creation of the universe), he stood back and said, “It is good.” Not, “it’s okay,” or “I’ll do better next time,” but “It is good.” In the same way that he put care and thought into the design of the earth, we can reflect Him by putting effort into design that moves people into deep, reflective, glorifying worship.
Impacting Your City With Your City's HelpIf 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:
8 Guidelines for Community PartnershipsStart 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.
3 Marks of Coachable LeadersI’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.  1. Coachable leaders get the concept of spiritual authority. Our world is full of authority based upon titles and position (the boss, the supervisor, my elders). In church work we tend to recognize Christ as our leader and everyone else is just on the same level as we are. But Scripture recognizes leaders based upon their accomplishments, their sufferings, and their character – whether they have a title or not. Good leaders will try something they don’t even want to do out of respect for the one asking them if the asker is one of spiritual authority. Peter was a good leader when he said, “Lord, they aren’t biting tonight; but because you have asked me, I’ll drop the nets again.” It’s no wonder Jesus was willing to entrust so much to Peter. Good leaders have an open spirit to doing hard things when asked by those who have earned the right to ask hard things. 2. Coachable leaders are action-oriented. Almost all the leaders I work with love discussing their work. Who doesn’t love a good coffee and brainstorming session? The good leaders though are bent toward doing something to show the love of God in a tangible way. In a coaching session I take notes of what I discuss with other leaders. At the bottom of the page is a title labeled “Assignments.” It’s just a list of what the leader has decided he is going to do based upon our coaching time. If that label is left blank, we may have a tremendous discussion, but we have not coached. Leaders catalyze activities. Paul urged a hesitant Timothy to not neglect his leadership giftings and get back to the doing side of his work. Few leaders will build the city of Rome, but all good leaders are active in building something. Do you just want to talk about God or do you want to serve him? 3. Coachable leaders are humble Regardless of endeavor, being coached can be a brutal exercise. You know the play you want to run. You know the outcome you desire. But somewhere between staring at our phones and parenting our kids, the play you said you would run does not happen. How are you going to respond afterwards when asked, “Say that conversation you said you were going to have, how come that did not happen?” Our response to accountability questions will reveal so much about our maturity. Satan bombards us with shame and criticism constantly. It’s very easy for him to twist a healthy question of accountability into an accusation. Will we puff up with pride or will we own the results of our declarations? This is one of the often overlooked strengths of having Christ inside of us. We no longer have to defend our ego; that is now Jesus’ job. Because of his faithful love we are now free to examine our gaps in follow-through and work on them without fear of condemnation or shame. So what kind of leader are you: are you easy to talk to or are you quick to cover up? Let's be an absolute pleasure for Jesus to coach.
Don't let a bad first impression be a lasting impressionWhen people step into a church worship event, they should come in contact with numerous volunteer teams that are all there to make sure the experience is a great experience. We want guests to say “Wow! I’m impressed,” within the first 10 minutes of their visit. We want people to know that they are important to us by providing a warm, and safe environment for them to take their next step toward Christ. First Impressions Matter First impressions are lasting impressions. We’ve left restaurants, hotels, and stores because of our initial impression. · It smelled badly. · It was dirty. Or worse, unsanitary. · It just seemed unsafe. · The first person we met didn’t care. · There was no one to meet. No one. · We waited. And waited. And waited no longer. · Some of these places we’ve endured for the first visit, but as we left we knew: we’d never be back!  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.
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