I am doing a series of personal journal-type entries on the blog focusing on my role as the Pastor of Lifeplace.

I remember before we started Lifeplace, we spent a lot of time trying to distil our core values into a small list. This process of discovery felt at times like grasping at a mist as it was so hard to narrow down the kind of church we were to become before we had even had one meeting!

Looking back at that process, and then looking at our church now, it would feel as if the process of discovery is much more dynamic than just a static list of values on paper.

Yes we have core values of Relevance and Depth, and they have helped be a navigation tool for us. And yet simultaneously it feels we are only on the first leg of discovering the kind of church God has called us to be. I believe the reason for this is that values are contextualised to the city and the people that comprise the church community. It is not just the Pastors values, but those shared values that resonate with us all broadly.

Our true core values are not just words, they are who we are and what we actually do. Some interesting observations thus far on our values:

• Our church has a strong relational feel to it. People typically stay an hour after services at our cafes talking and building friendships. This is a value that is authentic and has developed organically.
• Our church values practical teaching from the Bible. As much as I may personally like more theological subjects, it would seem that I always get the most response from very practical messages.
• Our church loves volunteering. We have a very high percentage of people involved in serving.
• Our church responds to worship and the presence of God. There is a faith-hunger in people’s lives.
• Our church truly is generous financially. People tithe, they give offerings, and they give regularly.

Some of these values we have worked at intentionally since we started, but bear in mind we worked at many other things that didn’t catch. These are some of the ones that we worked at and they connected with the people God has placed in our church.

For someone as myself that is driven by logic and being systematic, it is a wonderful surprise to see our church develop and take its own shape over time.

Our values – not that which we hope we like – that which we actually are.

I welcome your feedback and thoughts and questions on this.

Lifeplace

At Lifeplace, one of our main focuses is training and releasing people to serve. I came across this great article by my friend Pastor Marc Estes and thought it gave some great keys. You can check out his blog at http://www.marcestes.com.

There are some general principles that you can apply to ensure that your ministry area is filled with people excited to serve on an ongoing basis. Here are ten areas to consider and questions to ask yourself regarding your ability to motivate volunteers in your area of ministry:

1. Build Relationships:

“Do those serving in my ministry area experience genuine community?”

In most cases, serving together should allow people to bond together. Those who have genuine relationships desire to spend time together, especially when they share common vision.

2. Have Fun:

“Do those serving in my ministry area seem to be happy? Is the environment filled with fun and laughter regularly?

Having fun is a sure recipe for great volunteer satisfaction. Laughter and fun can be a great measuring rod to the health of your ministry area. People must realize that “Jesus is our joy and not our job.” If people seemed stressed out it might be time to re-evaluate what is taking place in your ministry area.

3. Have Defined Roles:

“Does each volunteer have a clear understanding as to what is expected of them?

People are down on what they are not up on! One of the greatest ways to discourage a volunteer is to not have clear duties and responsibilities defined for them when they show up to serve. Volunteers want to know exactly what you expect from them. Have a defined description of every position and spend the time to discuss each point in detail.

4. Proper Tools and Equipment:

“Does each volunteer have the proper tools and training necessary to be the best at what they do?”

It is discouraging to a volunteer to be asked to accomplish a task or work on a project but not have the proper training or adequate tools necessary to complete the job. Each volunteer should be adequately trained in every area they are asked to serve BEFORE releasing them to serve. In addition, make sure to have the right tools (computer, teaching materials, finances, people, etc) to complete the job.

5. Encouragement and Appreciation

“Do I regularly encourage my volunteers publicly? Do I show them appreciation through practical and meaningful acts?

The most important two words you can ever say to a volunteer is, “thank you.” Encouragement and appreciation are the two components needed to keep volunteers to serve long term. People want to be appreciated for their sacrifice. You may also look for ways to honor them regularly. Take them out for a meal, invite them over to your home, bring them a latte’, or even present them with an award or certificate.

6. Give Ownership

“Do I allow my volunteers to be a part of shaping their area of service? Do I give them the opportunity to share creative ideas and ways to improve their ministry area?

A common trait found in most every person is the desire to make a difference. Although many will serve simply out of the goodness of their heart, long-term there is the quest for significance. People, who feel like they own a part of a ministry, will give their life for it. Provide plenty of opportunity for your volunteers to assist you in shaping and molding their ministry areas. You never know, they just might do it better than you!

7. Emphasize The Big Picture

“Do my volunteers understand how significant their area of ministry plays in the church’s ability to fulfill its purpose and vision?”

When volunteers in the church-regardless of where they are serving-really understand how their service makes a significant contribution to the accomplishment of the church’s overall mission and vision-then they tend to be motivated to serve! To say it another way, volunteers who understand the big picture and their role in seeing that picture realized – those are the motivated volunteers!

8. Communicate

“Do I regularly communicate with my volunteers regarding ministry details, directions and decisions?”

Lack of communication will always result in a lack of motivation. Be sure to communicate clearly and regularly with volunteers regarding all aspects of your ministry area.

9. Care

“Do I know enough about my volunteers to effectively care for any needs that may arise in their life?

It has been said, “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” One of the primary responsibilities of a Ministry Leader is to shepherd those entrusted into your care. We can never be too busy to get involved in the lives of those who have dedicated themselves to serve our ministry areas and us. Be sure and take the pulse of each of your volunteers in every area of their life.

10. Pray

“Do I pray regularly for each volunteer by name?” “Do I pray regularly for each volunteer needed?

The most powerful tool you have to build and motivate your ministry team is prayer. Prayer moves the heart of God to move the hearts of men. More prayer for your volunteer team will always result in happier, healthier people.

http://www.lifeplace.com.au

It is our volunteers that make our church happen every week.

We have people who during the week do a very broad variety of things. Engineers, teachers, child care, students, IT, sales, business owners, mangers, tradies…

Yet despite coming from different journeys, every week this great group of people come together to form an amazing team.

You help set up for church, clean, make visitors feel welcome, lead us in worship, train our children, pray and set the atmosphere, serve food at the cafe… the list goes on. Basically you make church possible every week!

Our roster for a lot of people has been quite complicated. Many of you do different services each week, or one week you will rostered on for all 3 services, and then the next week rostered on one.

We wanted to improve this so you have a much more consistent volunteer roster.

Basically, now you will be rostered on one service every week. It will be the same service. And our phrase we are using is this – serve at one service, attend another. That means for that one service your entire goal is to serve and make church happen. But at the same time there is also a service on Sunday where you can go and have a church experience where you are able to fully participate in the worship and teaching.

There are a few reasons why we have gone with this approach:

1.     It will help us build service specific teams. That means you will develop a sense of ownership and passion over the service you are on.

2.     It serves the people better. For example, if John is a host one week and meets a visitor at our 11am service, next week they will see John again and it build relationship and consistency. Instead of them seeing a new person they have never met, John can say “Great to see you again.”

3.     Team development is accelerated. Because you will be working with the same team each week, you will start to build better team work and build lasting friendships.

4.     Sustainability. Serving in one service helps us spread the work. And 1 service is a very sustainable load. Currently, just due to the roster, some don’t get to be in a church service for weeks in a row. This improvement means you can serve diligently, but also know it is sustainable long term.

We will still have some leaders in our church that will serve in more than one service. That is totally fine. This is more an improvement for the general church and volunteers at large. In fact, our staff will continue to serve in all 3 services, and many people from worship and children will do multiple services. For Children and Worship you have a separate roster given to you by Dilys and Ants.

This is the first time we have done this roster. We know being the first time we have probably left some people off, and made some errors despite our best attempt. Please just let us know if this is the case – we will change it immediately.

Just email info@lifeplace.com.au

2010 is going to be an amazing year for us. I cannot wait to see God moving powerfully, more lives changed, and the church built to new levels.

This week we start our brand new series called Hope in God. It will be powerful.

It is with great excitement that we open enrolments to the first year of our Lifeplace Internship today.

The purpose of this internship is to train you in ministry, and to develop your character.

Our approach is to blend two essential elements of training: formal education and practical apprenticeship.

We have also added an extremely unique and innovative piece to the internship. We will be hearing from world class leaders from around the country and the United States via Skype. This technology enables us to hear live in real time from some amazing pastors.

The theme for our internship is “Descending into Greatness” because we know it is through hands on serving that you will in fact grow and develop into your potential.

At Lifeplace we have a dream to raise up incredible men and women who know how to be pillars in the House of God.

This internship will stretch you and grow you. I want you to seriously consider giving a year of your life to God.

It is a government accredited certificate IV in Ministry, which means it is also Austudy approved.

Find out more at our Facebook group here, or on our church website here.

If you have any questions just email us info@lifeplace.com.au and we would love to answer any questions.

2010: Build yourself. Build the church.

The word ministry means serve. So knowing how to serve is vitally important to our potential. I have found the heart of serving is in fact an attitude. Here are 10 attitudes that will help make you more effective in your ministry as your serve.

1.      A do anything attitude

2.      A positive attitude

3.      A humble attitude

4.      A gracious attitude

5.      A big thinking attitude

6.      An honoring attitude

7.      An encouraging attitude

8.      A consistent attitude

9.      An excellence attitude

10.  An unto the Lord attitude

Salvation is obtained through grace. Leadership is obtained through character.

If you confuse the two, you will try and earn your salvation and lower the bar of leadership.

Want to develop your leadership? Then give yourself to character development – they go hand in hand.

Proverbs 25:3 (The Message)

Like the horizons for breadth and the ocean for depth,

the understanding of a good leader is broad and deep.

Sometimes the Bible just speaks for itself. I don’t want to mess it up. Great proverb for every leader and leader-in-training!

Think you need a lot to achieve a lot?

Not always.

Faith in numbers is often faith in the wrong thing.

No doubt God wanted to teach this lesson to a young man names Gideon in the Bible. He was just starting as a leader, and he was not only drastically outnumbered, but also suffered insecurity due to repeated failures.

Here’s how it went down. His army is outnumbered. He only has 32,000, and he is up against an enemy of over 100,000.

10,000 leave him. He’s left with 22,000. Most of those are probably wondering if they made the right move to stay faithful as the odds have just gotten worse.

By the time the battle comes only 300 are left.

And here’s the thing – it was God that whittled the numbers down.

Why did God do that? What was he trying to teach his new young leader?

Perhaps something along the lines of faith in God, not faith in numbers.

It is a good leadership reminder to business owners, managers, supervisors, pastors, volunteers, and workers – don’t just look at the numbers, look to God.

If you are outnumbered, outsized, and just plain outdone, then with God history is in your favour!

For anyone involved in church, Psalm 127 is perhaps one of the most striking scriptures in the Bible. “Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain.”

Why? It gives a blunt warning to us, that despite hard work, vision, sacrifice, strategies, ideas, and all kinds of human ingenuity, if God is not at the centre of it then it is all in vain.

In fact, it uses the imagery of building a house. I built our first house in the US (well I chose the paint colours!) and the whole process was a lot of work for the builders who laboured on it for months in the rain. Now imagine going to all that work and not being able to live in it. Imagine being told all the effort was in vain!

This applies to church – let’s make sure we are building a “God house”. But it also applies to our lives personally. As we are building the “house” that is the sum total of all our life’s work, let’s be sure it is Jesus that is the centre.

Here are 5 quick keys to building a “God House”:

1.    The right blueprint (the Bible)
2.    The right materials (the people)
3.    The right foundation (core values and DNA)
4.    The right workers (mature trained leaders)
5.    The right purpose (what will this house be used for? Build accordingly)

The heartbeat of starting a new church can be captured in one word: pioneer.

It’s a powerful word.

It is not just the pastor that requires this quality – it is the entire congregation. After all, it is the average church goer that is going to be the one giving up some of his or her previous luxuries to help create something new.

But that’s the same reason people leave careers in corporations to hammer out a prototype in a dimly lit garage. It’s the reason people pass on money and opportunity to follow a dream.

Sometimes luxuries only hold us back from changing the world.

If you want luxury go to a 5 star hotel for a night. If you want legacy then dare to pioneer.

If you look at history, it is always pioneers that brought change and caused breakthrough in society. Imagine that applied to church. Creative ideas, breakthroughs in effectiveness, new approaches, more people reached for Jesus.

Pioneers know that sacrifice is required to see success, that comfort is vastly over-rated, and that even the smallest of start can grow into something significant.

To all the pioneers who come to our church every Sunday: you are my heroes.

As a new church, we all come from different backgrounds and ministry experiences.

All of our journeys are unique. But that’s what makes unity such a powerful thing. It brings people together, no matter how diverse the group. A union is a collection of different perspectives and ideas but unity is having one heart.

In Kings 10:15-17 (ESV) we read an intriguing story:

And he greeted him and said to him, “Is your heart true to my heart as mine is to yours?” And Jehonadab answered, “It is.” Jehu said, “If it is, give me your hand.” So he gave him his hand. And Jehu took him up with him into the chariot.

Notice the order of the dialogue.

Before anything else, Jehu asked for his heart before he took his hand.

Our heart represents our loyalty, our unity, our commitment. It is the core of who we are.

Our hands represent the task or job that is required.

Jehu revealed to us a very powerful leadership principle: partnering with people is first a matter of the heart before it is a matter of the hand. In other words, the tasks will take care of themselves when somebody has a heart commitment to you.

The job is secondary to where a person’s loyalty lies.

Remember this: heart first, then hand.

1. Involvement. When we cross the line from being on the sidelines to getting in the game a powerful dynamic occurs. It is called ownership. Involvement causes us to own the vision, not just enjoy the vision.

2. Serving. When you serve you have the opportunity to develop the gifts God has given to you. We all have something to offer. It is important to express those gifts God has given us. All of us should find a place in the House of God to contribute and serve.

3. Fun. That’s right – fun. Volunteering at church is actually a fun thing to do. Perhaps your experience in the past has been anything but enjoyable. Well, why not consider giving it another go. Volunteering as part of a team of friendly people is a great experience and one that you will enjoy immensely.

We have many opportunities for volunteering at Lifeplace. From children’s ministry, to set up, door greeting, technical, sound, administration, worship, hospitality, and the list goes on. Even for people with very busy lives, perhaps you can serve once a month? Just go to our website and fill out the instant online form. It will only take a second. Interested? Go ahead and check out the form now!

Click here to volunteer

Here is a recent blog by Pastor Steven Furtick. His church is 5000+ in 3 locations in just 3 years. Oh – and he is in his twenties! Here it is:

It’s amazing how innovative people become when there’s no back door-and no option to quit.

One of the primary factors that contributed greatly to the success of Elevation (particularly in the first year) was the “come hell or high water” commitment of our core team.  We were going to birth a powerful church or die trying.  But giving up and trying something else was never on the radar.

These people had burned the proverbial bridges when they moved to Charlotte to start the church.  No plan B.  No diversification strategy.  No escape route.  No back door.

So we had to make it work.  Which meant we had to innovate.

When you leave yourself the option to quit if it gets too rough, it switches off your innovation mechanism.  Because when you run headlong into the kind of severe frustration that has the potential to spark a breakthrough concept, you start figuring out how to get out instead of how to fight through.

I know sometimes it’s wise and appropriate to cut your losses and move on.

But many people miss the blessings and breakthroughs born only by perseverance because they keep one hand on the back door.

There is a constant need for innovation within the church to meet the changing culture of a postmodern world.

Church innovation has 3 essential ingredients:

1. Respecting the past

Many of the freedoms we have in church today are no more than one generation old. For example, modern worship is a staple in churches these days, but even a basic study of modern church history will show this new dynamic has only really been developed in the last 50 years. Someone, somewhere, at sometime, took a step to pioneer.

2. Following the Bible

We shouldn’t ‘innovate’ the Bible to suit our needs or desires. When we forget that the Word is our foundation, then we have innovated the wrong thing, not remembering that it is God that is the source of creativity.

3. Finding new methods for timeless principles

As the world changes at a rapid rate and the needs of humanity deepen, it is essential that we find new ways of doing things. I believe we should utilize whatever tools we can to further the cause of building the local church and spreading the message of Jesus. The internet, mobile phones, new strategies, ideas, and solutions can help us reach more people.

Innovation is one of our core values at Lifeplace. Together we can use these 3 ingredients to reach Brisbane and Australia. Give me a shout out if you like it!