Greg Atkinson

Today, I want to introduce you to something that is fascinating, different and hopefully stretch and challenge to really think outside the box. Take a look:

You can’t pastor people from afar! Wait … can you? Most churches say that Small Groups are very important and strategic to their growth. Yet, when push comes to shove … they saddle the “Youth Guy” or the “Admin Pastor” to coach/shepherd group(s) in their church. Then, that poor guy who is saddled with two jobs … walks around feeling guilty that he stinks at both jobs and isn’t getting to his group leaders like he needs to.

Sound familiar?

You are not alone. Tons and tons of churches around the US … need a scalable small groups pastor model that grows with the church based on need.

MAG now offers Virtual Groups Pastors (both male & female Virtual Groups Pastors) to churches that need a scalable model of handling/managing/coaching small group leaders at the local church level.

MAG Virtual Groups Pastors serve the local church & church leadership … by meeting (virtual/remote) with small group leader(s) on a consistent basis and reporting those experiences. MAG Virtual Groups Pastors report to the Lead Pastor of the church with reports and “download calls” so that the Lead Pastor can now get a deeper sense of what is really going on at the small group level. Additionally, MAG Virtual Groups Pastors are available (eMail, phone, & text) to your small group leader(s) anytime in a “one-off” format … for questions, concerns, and coaching. Need help with a small group leader orientation? Lack visibility at the small group level? Concerned your small group leaders are not being coached well?

Make small groups REALLY work in your church! For more information (format, pricing, experience, & etc) on this innovative virtual service … please fill out the CONTACT US form … and they will set up a time to chat with you in detail! This service works and they have churches all over the US using their MAG Virtual Groups Pastors in their churches.

While turnover is a reality of “doing the business-side” of church … a church cannot afford to go any length of time without handling its payroll or financial records properly. A third-party firm that you can trust can eliminate risk and exposure due to staff turnover. One thing as a church leader that you do not want to mess up is payroll.

At a time when the IRS and other government agencies are looking more closely at non-profit organizations, it is essential that your church is constantly meeting all legal, accounting, and taxation requirements. Being a good steward of your resources your attendees expect … also means that you and your church remain in regulatory compliance.

Have housing allowances? Want to be paid via direct deposit? Need to see an accurate pay stub? Is your church reporting the necessary forms to the government on a quarterly & annual basis? Need to send out W-2(s) or 1099(s)? Stressed yet?

Need help? Go HERE.

Need a bookkeeper? Current bookkeeper leaving? Can’t find an accounting report on Budget vs. Actual? Are you on top of your cash flow? Need financial oversight & counsel? Balance Sheet is not balanced? Going to a 2^nd or 3^rd campus and need help scaling your bookkeeping?

Emerging churches of all sizes (and larger ones too) often struggle with the cumbersome duties associated with bookkeeping. MAG works with churches that are pre-launch to in excess of several million in annual income/budget. MAG Bookkeeping performs bank reconciliation, accounts payable, and produces financial statements … all in an effort to reduce the possibility for fraud or mishandling of funds and bring you peace of mind. While leveraging significant technology, MAG eliminates the risk of inconsistencies in record-keeping. Our ministry-minded team knows church finance inside and out.

MAG Bookkeeping offers objective perspectives that produce insights which are vital for a church to reach its potential. We assign a team of outsourced bookkeepers, which costs you less than hiring a part-time bookkeeper on staff. Imagine reducing your staff costs and not needing to lead/develop another staff member.

Want more info? Watch a short video on MAG Bookkeeping HERE.

Hello and welcome to MAG week on my blog. I had the pleasure of breaking bread with Bryan Miles about a month ago and I was fascinated to learn of what a resource they are to the local church. I thought I would take this entire week to tell you all about the Miles Advisory Group.

You should know up front that MAG is not a sponsor and is not paying me to say this. I’ve always tried to be a resource to the Church by telling you all of resources available and that’s what we’re going to do this week. Today we’re going to focus on the bread and butter of MAG and that is their MAG EAs. Let’s dive in…

Do your voicemails need answered? E-Mail inbox blowing up? Staff and attendees need your time? Calendar out of control? Have time to prep for your next message/series? When is the last time you posted to your blog? Need to travel somewhere? Feel the stress yet?

Many churches have the need for a qualified, professional Executive Assistant (EA) to support a senior-level leader, such as a Sr. Pastor, Lead Pastor, Campus Pastor, and/or Executive Pastor but cannot find or afford a full-time person. A virtual/remote EA represents the Pastor, so it’s a position that requires poise, discretion, confidentiality, and exceptional people skills. In addition to the clerical, reporting, and administrative duties required of an assistant, an EA job description also typically includes a working knowledge of the leader’s duties/habits/preferences, so as to be able to effectively schedule the leader’s calendar and time. MAG can help.

MAG recruits and vets highly qualified, responsive, skilled EAs to work in a remote/virtual capacity. We staff an EA specific to your church based on the types of duties they will need to perform. The EAs can work with your church as little as 5 hours a week, or as many as 40 hours a week, with most engagements averaging 15 to 20 hours a week per Pastor.

I’d just like to add that no one would ever know where your virtual EA is located. To the outside world/congregation, it would appear that she lives in your city and is a true part of your church’s staff. She, her phone number (with appropriate area code) and email address, would be listed on the church’s website and no one would know that they are talking to someone in Atlanta that is working for a pastor in Texas. Pretty cool.

To keep up with and get to know the MAG Group better, check out these links:

• www.milesadvisorygroup.com – main website
• www.MAGsays.com – blog
• http://www.youtube.com/user/MilesAdvisoryGroup – MAG’s YouTube site
• http://www.facebook.com/MilesAdvisoryGroup – MAG’s Facebook site
• www.twitter.com/bryanmiles
• www.twitter.com/shannonkmiles

The following is a guest post from Don Chapman of HymnCharts.com. Check out his Easter resources HERE. Here’s what Don had to say about using hymns in a contemporary praise set:

For churches with a steady diet of contemporary worship there are two times a year when we’re almost expected to do hymns – Christmas and Easter.

A pastor I know in a very contemporary church dreads the Christmas season for that very reason – his distorted electric guitar driven praise band pulls their hair out during the month of December. Hymns and carols aren’t very guitar friendly.

Because I like to arrange music I’ve solved this problem for myself by contemporizing hymns and making them a little easier for a praise band to play, and my website HymnCharts.com grew out of this.

Try it yourself – take a hymn and see if by making a few simple tweaks you can make it fit better in your praise set. Here are my five tips for making a hymn more contemporary:

1. Change the key. Many hymns are in awkward, flat, anti-guitar keys like F, Eb and Bb. Sure, a capo is handy in these situations, but hymns are usually too high for modern congregations anyway. Just transpose it down a half step.

2. Smooth out the chord structure. Classically based hymns can change chords on almost every beat. If possible, in my hymn arrangements I try to have no more than 2 chords per measure – and 1 per measure is best.

3. Substitute minor chords when possible. Play around with the song – the right minor chord substituted for a major chord can give the hymn a contemporary twist.

4. Avoid the 5th. Western harmony is built on the V to I cadence but pop songs often go from IV to I. It doesn’t work all the time with hymns, but see if you can substitute a IV chord for a V chord here and there. (If you’re in the key of D, the IV is a G chord and the V is an A chord.)

5. Add a drum loop. A quick, easy way to add a contemporary sound to a hymn is to play with subtle drum loop. I use Spectrasonic’s Stylus to quickly create my loops in Sonar audio software (or any recording software that will play VST instruments) render it as a WAV and play along with it as you would any stereo track or click track. Other websites offer premade downloadable drum loops in various tempos (Google drum loops.)

Visit the front page of HymnCharts.com and you’ll find an MP3 player in the middle of the page. Listen to “Are You Washed In the Blood,” “Christ Arose” and “Jesus Paid It All” for examples of how it’s possible to turn a song older than your grandma into something totally usable in a modern praise set.

Have you heard of TheCommon.org? Maybe you should! They are my newest sponsor and have a cool service for your church that you should consider. Check out this guest blog post:

TheCommon.org started with a need.  Actually it started as a list; an extremely inefficient list of things people needed help, being communicated to a huge audience of people who “might be able to help” that led to an idea.  You see, every community has both Needs and Abilities.  And we’ve found that, generally, People want to help each other.  But the process of connecting these needs with the people who want to help is severely broken.

What if there were a better way for people help each other, and for communities to help people help each other?  Not just another piece of software or a place to share photos, but a movement and a connecting point—something that has true value to the community.  Something that can embrace both philanthropy and simplicity.

Connecting people looks like a huge, complex system in most communities.  You have an entire ecosystem that is dependent upon a central system of administration to drive service, outreach, care.  And your system is then limited by the capacity of that individual or team.

But when you open communication—allow your community to connect directly with those opportunities—those limits go away. I can really only speak from personal experience.  In the three years that TheCommon has been a living, breathing resource for people to serve, there have been connections I have been able to make, places to serve and relationships formed that flat out wouldn’t have happened in whatever you consider the “current model” without it.

And in the last few months I’ve witnessed some incredible interactions on the Projects and Marketplace as well: from baby clothes and waffle makers, to cars, refrigerators, and computers being given away to help people—all because they were made aware of a need and stepped up to meet it.

So, what happens when people have easier access to the needs in their community and partner communities through blending?  Check out our Twitter feed.  Listen to the 73 year old woman who just received help packing boxes, or the guy who just got help with his car repair.  They share the stories of connections made and the good that is right therewaiting to be done.

We would love for you to test drive it in your community, and for a limited time are extending a FREE 60 day trial to all of Greg’s readers.  Click the link HERE and be sure to enter the code “ga2011” when you create a community account.  It’s simple to get started and we have some great resources to help you along the way.  If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at hello@thecommon.org.

This was a guest post from Jay Kroll who works in Marketing and Relationships at TheCommon.org.  Follow them on Twitter at @thecommon.

More and more, churches are turning to staffing specialists to get the right people on the bus. Last month, two of the leading search firms in the church world united. The Vanderbloemen Search Group (specializing in large church executive searches) and Help Staff Me (specializing in mid-level staff) have combined their resources and expanded their networks of relationships.

I recently asked the head of the firm, William Vanderbloemen, “What’s the best way to get promoted?” Here’s his answer:

“The single best piece of advice I’ve heard for succeeding in work didn’t come from a textbook or an expert; – it came from a most unlikely place….a job interview.

I was conducting an interview a while back for a search. The candidate, who had a good job, and had no reason to leave his secure setting sat in front of me, and I asked him why we were meeting. His response:

“I love my job. This is a good church. But I want to be somewhere where my ideas and vision are celebrated, not just tolerated.”

That’s a great lens for thinking about how to succeed in your work environment. Do you celebrate your work, or just tolerate it?

The best employees I see, and also the ones who get the most promotions, are the ones who don’t just tolerate, they celebrate. They celebrate their boss, even when that boss is imperfect. They celebrate their job, even if it isn’t the dream post for their life. They celebrate their church members, even when they act like they really, really need a Savior.

Think of Joseph serving while in prison. Think of David serving as a shepherd. Think of this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for the ungodly.

“God doesn’t just tolerate you. He celebrates you.”

Try the same attitude at your work, and I bet you’ll be more productive, more appreciated, and likely promoted.

Follow William (@wvanderbloemen) and Justin Lathrop, founder of Helpstaff (@justinlathrop) on Twitter to receive regular pointers and insights on trends they see in the church world.

If you read my blog via email or RSS, you may not have noticed several things – such as the new blog design and some of the new sponsors recently added to my blog homepage. Sponsors such as HymnCharts and their Easter resources and my newest sponsor: Interactive Worship Live.

I’ve known Phillip Edwards for several years and remember when he called me and several Church leaders together in Dallas to show us his new resource and give us all an up-close-and-personal demo.

At my current home church in Georgia (where I play keys with the praise band when I’m in town), we use IWL each week and love it. I asked our worship pastor, Michael Wells, to share his thoughts on this resource for our church. Here are Michael’s thoughts:

I have been an Interactive Worship Live user for some time and would highly recommend it. There are three areas that IWL has made us more effective in.

First, because you can isolate studio quality musicians, our musicians can clearly hear things like strumming patterns or vocal inflections which has improved their skill level and learning speed.

Second, you don’t have to worry when a musician has to cancel last minute. If our bass player calls in late Saturday night sick I can unmute the bass player channel and sleep well.

Last, IWL fills out the sound by adding instruments not on our team. I may have an electric guitar but I do not have five and many artist tracks today will have multiple layers of instruments.

All three of these areas have made use a more skillful team.

*** I agree with Michael and have personally witnessed this great worship resource in action. We’ve had weeks where the drummer was out and we just plugged in the drummer track on IWL. We had a week when the bass player was out and we did the same thing. I also resonate with the third point Michael made of filling out our sound. We have a basic band, but love having the added percussion sounds added in and it’s always good to add a couple more electric guitars to fill out our sound.

Have you heard of IWL? Why don’t you check them out HERE at their website? If you use IWL at your church, please comment and share with us why you like it/use it and if it’s ever saved the day.

Last night during the amazing Super Bowl commercials, Apple introduced the world to The Daily. I’ve already stated that I think this changes the game. It’s no secret that I’ve never been a fan of traditional newspapers. What say you?