Tag Archive - assimilation

7 ways effective assimilation will impact your church

November 29, 2011 in ChMS, community, leadership, ministry, technology, volunteers with 3 Comments

Assimilation is a funny word. Outside of church, the only people who actually use that word are corporate marketers and military personnel. It’s not one of those words that “just comes up” during causal conversation (unless you’re a Star Trek nerd!). 

However, assimilation is a core function of church growth that often falls in the shadow of outreach. Most church leaders are satisfied as long as new visitors outpace the number of people slipping out the back door. The inherent flaw in that thinking is that it assumes a steady growth of new visitors. That model also ignores the pent up potential of people who want to go deeper but can’t find the path that best aligns with their unique gifts and passions. A well-designed assimilation process can make a huge impact on helping people engage and stick long-term. But it goes beyond that.

Here are seven specific ways I’ve seen churches benefit from greater intentionality around assimilation: Continue Reading…

3 Common Ruts Churches Fall Into

November 3, 2011 in community, leadership, ministry, technology, volunteers with 6 Comments

Rut.

Not a particularly attractive word. Not really an encouraging definition either. Check this out:  “…a settled or established habit or course of action, especially a boring one.” There are many things I don’t want to be boring… my marriage, my job, my friends, my church! However, when we implement new habits and don’t continually re-evaluate their effectiveness, boring is where we end up.

Tony Morgan addresses this in the second installment of his Leisure Suit eBook series, How to Get Unstuck. I love Tony’s focus on processes and systems. He gets how important they are. He also realizes churches often develop processes but don’t know how to measure their effectiveness, letting them stagnate without even realizing it. The result is a rut.

Continue Reading…

Tony Morgan and the next “Leisure Suit” eBook

October 4, 2011 in ChMS, community, leadership, metrics, ministry, technology with 0 Comments

Tony Morgan just released the second of four eBooks in his Leisure Suit Series. This is an excerpt from the introduction:
The Leisure Suit Series is not about updating your Web site, becoming a more seeker-friendly congregation, changing the kind of worship songs (or hymns) you sing, or even what a leadership team structure should look like. Some of those things may need to be addressed, but only after you take a look below the surface to figure out why things are done a certain way and what God is calling you to do to live out the gospel message.

8 reasons to rethink your assimilation process

September 15, 2011 in community, leadership, ministry, technology with 0 Comments

Assimilation sounds like a big, scary word. But, it’s a vital part of any healthy church that is thriving in ministry. Do assimilation well and you will have the people and money you need to continue to move your church forward. Do assimilation poorly and you will lose people and ministry funding…only you will never know because there won’t be a system in place to steward the people God brings through the doors of your church.

 

You might need to rethink your assimilation process if…

Continue Reading…

Thanks for coming…now go figure it out

August 6, 2011 in ChMS, community, leadership, ministry, spiritual formation, technology with 2 Comments

Too often our implicit message to regular attenders and even new members is, “Thanks for coming…now go figure it out.” We sit and wait for people to think deeply about how their deepest yearning can fit within our ministry when what people really want is for someone to show enough interest in them that they feel valued, included, and special.

It sounds simple, but so many…too many…churches miss this one big time. And they pay for it in more ways than the offering.

If churches spent as much time and energy thinking through things like “How do we steward our people more effectively?” as they thinking about how they can get more things done with volunteers, the results would be astonishing. Stewarding people more effectively means “knowing” them more deeply and helping them touch and feel impact that matters to them. It also means taking the time to understand their “wiring” and proactively helping them serve in places that align with who God created them to be.

When we take the steps to steward our people, it often leads to more committed, engaged, passionate church communities which….SURPRISE!…gives more!

We must treat every person who comes through our doors as a gift from God. Wherever God is calling us next, he is presently resourcing us through the people in our pews with the time, talents, and treasure to take us there. Our job as leaders is to develop or cultivate that for greater Kingdom advancement.

This isn’t SOMETHING ELSE we add to our daily responsibilities. It IS our daily responsibility as people who hold leadership positions within churches. The unfortunate reality is that the gift God intended to bless our church through a particular family or individual is often wasted because we missed being intentional about connecting with them.

What systems and process does your church have in place to ensure people don’t have to figure out on their own how they can serve, grow, and lead within your church community?