Free E Book on Resources

Fill out this survey on church planting and download a free E-Book.  The E Book, Grant Teams that Win helps to describe how you can build non-traditional funding of for your community service efforts.  Raising funding can be a team activity too!   I have used this approach with dozens of successfully funded organizations.  The survey takes about 5 minutes and will help us to get a better picture of the values that surround church planting.  Feel Free to forward the link (not the E Book) so that others can fill out the survey as well.

Three Wise Groups

While we don’t claim to rise to the level of the Three Wise Men, we would like to invite you to consider joining one of our coaching groups in 2009.  Here is some of the wisdom from our 2008 participants:

“We are discovering that beginning with community needs instead of a preconceived plan is producing churches that are stronger and more connected to the needs Jesus would probably meet.”  Phil T. Stevenson, Director of Evangelism & Church Growth, The Wesleyan Church.

“Community service is our opportunity to engage people - regardless of their religious background - into a life-style of generosity and self-less living.”  Ron Klabunde, NOVA Church Planter

“FWC has made community service a central component to all of our outreach endeavors because we believe that this model best represents the example given to us by Christ. If we are going to be true to Scriptures, we cannot divorce ourselves from community service.”  Dennis Bachman, Pastor

2009 Coaching Groups

As we get ready to launch the new coaching groups described below, consider joining us…

1. New Churches Going Missional. The whole process of developing sustainable community service starting with needs assessment, growing a missional leadership and DNA in the church and ending with community transformation that is fundable from non-traditional sources. Group meets twice per month for 12 months via teleconference, and in person for two days to get started. This group will complete the whole Compassion by Design Development Framework and is designed for church planters at various stages in the process (pre-birth through 10 years). Learn more on a Free Conference Call.

2. Needs Assessment for New and Existing Churches. A monthly group that starts with intensive training and journeys together for the needs assessment process.  This 6 month group will build real skills with the the starting point–needs assessment through expert coaching and group learning. This group will focus on Need Assessment. Learn more on a Free Conference Call

3. Building Support for Your Community Organization.  This group will develop services that attract new support from community and corporations.  The ability of a faith based non profit to attract new funding, especially in these economic times is found in the way it presents and organizes its services.  This group will take concrete steps to make itself more attractive to donors and grant funding with expert coaching. This group will focus on funding. Learn more on a Free Conference Call

Why Coaching

Compassion by Design has adopted a coaching approach to helping for two important reasons:  1) we are committed to equipping that develops missional leadership and 2) the challenge of  building healthy and sustainable community ministry that is meaningfully integrated into church life is best met with internal leadership and external support from those who have already done it.

Three Conference Calls.

Join David Mills in exploring these three coaching groups on a free conference call during the month of January.  Register Here.

Crowd Out

When Customs or Short Term Resources Force Priorities Aside

It seems like a war between the Christmas marketeers and my soul.  They are vying for my time, my emotional focus and my money.  It is a battle being waged against the real priorities of my life: communion with God, time with my family and caring for others.  But, it is more than just the madness of the holiday season,

It is the season of crowd out.

It happens at other places besides Walmart.  I first learned the term “crowd out” while working in the faith based initiative.  In the non profit world, this is when public money, like government grants take all the time and attention away from other priorities like fundraising and volunteer development.  It is a trade in which a short term resource or opportunity is received at the expense of long term mission priorities and sustainable funding strategies.  And I have seen it happen, as it left me feeling like a person in a dream pointing and yelling at a unseen monster unable to make the words come out.  The difference here is that crowd out is real.

Crowd out also happens in church planting and pastoral work.  For the church planters this happens when the desire to reach the community, and even some pre-church launch outreach activities aren’t kept alive over time.  The demands of church life crowd out the priorities of reaching the community.  And since most people we are attracting to our churches are  ”pre-churched” the pressure is on to “do church” in the way that people expect it.  The real heart of the planter and the calling from the Lord is to reach a community, but that priory gets crowded out by doing church.  

The surest way to tell if you have suffered from crowd out is to complete a simple test.  If you are a church planter or pastor simply look at the 3 barometers of priority: calendar, budget and staff roster.  If you don’t see community represented in more than a token way in those three areas– then even if you say you are about community, and you have it your name or in your slogan, community as a real priority has beenthe victim of crowd out.

The good news is that it is not too late to get the priority of outreach and community back into your ministry.  Of course, the earlier in the church life that you make this a real focus, the easier it will be to become truly externally focused.  For church planters who now discover that the priority of community engagement has been the victim of crowd out, they can and should work to turn the corner as soon as they can.  For existing churches, this corner may take longer to turn.  In either case, the real hope for moving the church into an externally focused mode is found in the nature of God.  God is missional, with the permanent character of reaching out and sending.  The more we get to know him and allow his character to rub off on us, the more like him we become.  There is always hope for us when we focus on being like Jesus.

Here are some practical ways that you can uncrowd your new or existing church:

• Take some time during the holidays to compare your lifestyle to your real priorities.
• Get around people who are on the same journey.  There are great conferences that can help with this including Externally Focused and Exponential.  There is also a growing list of books on this topic.  You can join a small group of leaders participating in a 6 month needs assessment coaching group (the first step toward engaging community through service) or a 12 month group that is walking through the whole process of going missional.  These groups will give you both information as well as accountability–with fellow leaders asking about and encouraging your progress.
• Take the intentional step of scheduling a needs assessment for your church (now available online and in English or Spanish).  This process can move a whole group of your team toward greater insight and compassion, in preparation for action in serving, while forging new community relationships.

What if the Manger was just an E-card?

Surely, Hallmark would have been pleased.

Somehow the season and the great significance of the incarnation would be lost if Christ had come as an e-card.  I like them as much as the next person, but even if it was one of those cool jib-jab videos where your put his face in the video it wouldn’t have come close to the kind of impact that followed the in-person birth and life of Jesus.  While I know that is obvious,but

in our techy world, we can sometimes be lulled into believing that in-tech is the same as in-touch.

To quote David Olson of The American Church Crisis, in a conversation that we had last week at the Multiplicity Conference, “physicality is still very important.”  Our technology can lead us to believe that we are now to superior to mere mortals who have to do things in person, or person to person. The incarnation teaches us that hanging out together is important.

So those who follow the Christian tradition believe that the incarnation– God personally showing up in the person of Jesus, was important. Somehow we needed to meet God in human form. The writers of the New Testament and leaders of the early church believed that not only was this important in the revelation of God’s plan for humanity, but that the principle also holds true  in our efforts to transform people today. The person who was arguably the closest to Jesus writes,

1  ”We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. 2 This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him…3 We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” (I John 1:1-4, TLB)

The invitation of the writer is to join them in a shared relationship. This basic belief influences much about the way we approach life and serving in our communities.  For one thing, we can’t do it from a distance.  We have to be there in people’s lives, and there is really no school of e-card social work or urban ministry.   This is a key characteristic of transformative community service.

While we certainly do get benefit from what we read or view, some of the growth that we need only comes from being around other people in a real relationship.  Over the past year, I have had the opportunity to spend time with two coaching groups comprised of pastors and church planters.  It has been an incredible learning experience that I have counted as a real honor.

2008 Coaching Groups:

One group was comprised of Wesleyan pastors from across the country in which we met together first in person and then by teleconference to explore how to initiate community service through needs assessment.  The second group, which still continues, is a group of church planters from all over the nation.  This group has meet twice monthly after getting started at a meeting together in CO at Lifebridge Christian Church. The report from each member of the group, and from its leader (me), is that this has been an important and transformative experience.  We have discussed lots of information, but more importantly we have shared,

listened, prayed and encouraged each other in personal and leadership growth around the topic of  becoming healthy &

externally focused new churches.  I have been enriched as have the other group members by this personal experience.

Doesn’t it make sense that we could learn best how to improve community, while we do that learning in the context of community?

I am convinced that this group coaching approach is one of the best learning environments that I have experienced in my many long years of school and leadership.  My insights into the value of coaching were also enhanced as I spent a couple of Days with Ted Cornelius at Coachnet training.

2009 Coaching Groups

As we get ready to launch the new coaching groups described below, consider joining us…

1. New Churches Going Missional. The whole process of developing sustainable community service starting with needs assessment, growing a missional leadership and DNA in the church and ending with community transformation that is fundable from non-traditional sources. Group meets twice per month for 12 months via teleconference, and in person for two days to get started. This group will complete the whole Compassion by Design Development Framework and is designed for church planters at various stages in the process (pre-birth through 10 years).

2. Needs Assessment for New and Existing Churches. A monthly group that starts with intensive training and journeys together for the needs assessment process.  This 6 month group will build real skills with the the starting point–needs assessment through expert coaching and group learning. This group will focus on Need Assessment.

3. Building Support for Your Community Organization.  This group will develop services that attract new support from community and corporations.  The ability of a faith based non profit to attract new funding, especially in these economic times is found in the way it presents and organizes its services.  This group will take concrete steps to make itself more attractive to donors and grant funding with expert coaching. This group will focus on funding.

If you are interested in participating in coaching, click here.