Greg Atkinson

It happens every Sunday in churches around North America. It’s something I look for every time I visit, consult with or secret shop a church – it’s the keeper of the vibe and how he uses that position of influence. I’m talking about the FOH audio engineer and his use of pre and post-service music.

As both a worship pastor and a tech pastor, I used to intentionally and strategically (plus creatively) put together a pre-service and a post-service mix. I thought through what we wanted people to feel when they walked in the room and what we wanted them to feel upon exiting.

I dare say the most crucial part of execution on a given Sunday is the sound engineer hitting play as soon as the service ends (cued by the pastor saying, “See you next week.” or something like that). I know that sensitivity is key and knowing the vibe, feel and spirit of the service is crucial.

Maybe it’s not appropriate to rock their faces off. Maybe it’s Good Friday and you want people to leave in silence or you just finished taking communion and you want to tone it down and go with something more chill. I used to have a chill version of well-known worship songs that we used at Bent Tree a lot.

But 9 times out of 10, you want your sound engineer to hit play on something upbeat and positive as people file out. Have a great song cued and ready to go as most people will only hear that first song you play. Choose it well.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, people sit through several songs before the service begins. Choose them well. I’ve seen churches use chill versions of songs like we did at Bent Tree, well known songs from the radio, instrumental versions of songs by Coldplay and U2 (like my friends at Lake Pointe in Rockwell, TX) and anything from Owl City to DJ Andy Hunter. Something like Postal Service or the Sunsets and Sushi album from David Crowder Band can be great, too. What are your practices at your church?

Do you use the same old CD every week? Do you use the same playlist on iTunes? Do you put together a special weekly playlist? Do you incorporate songs that people will hear in the upcoming service? Do you (at the end of the service) play a reprise and bring back a key song from the set that day?

The key is to not take these special and influential moments lightly. Choose your songs wisely and creatively. Be intentional and strategic. You, my friend, are the keeper of the vibe!

Please share what songs and genre of music you use in the comment section. How loud do you play the music when people are walking in? One thing I love about visiting NewSpring in Anderson, SC is that they rock your face off during the prelude time. They honestly, have the loudest walk-in music of any church I’ve been to. They also have a female voice-over that shares a few announcements with the music still playing underneath at about a minute or two before the service begins. So… What’s the vibe like at your church?

LifeChurch.tv (through their OPEN Network) has done it again! Known for years for offering free resources to the Church, now they are helping you with your church’s Facebook page through a series of training videos.

With training videos on how to do events, extras and configurations, fan updates, insights/metrics, moderation, notes, photos, videos and wall updates – they have you and your Facebook team (which can be made up totally of volunteers) covered on how to create, manage and lead an effective and attractive Facebook page for your church.

Check out their resources and videos HERE. Now you have no excuse for not having a great Facebook presence!

The following is a guest post from Randy Elrod. Randy hosts a gathering for creatives called re:create – which my worship pastor friends tell me is their favorite conference/event of their year. Check it and him out! Here’s what Randy wrote about leadership this week on his blog:

Three professors in Harvard Business School’s Entrepreneurial Management unit who focus on the study of creativity—recognize the romantic allure of believing it’s a rare quality bestowed on a chosen few, but all agree that notion has been debunked long ago, and rightfully so.

“Creativity does have a reputation for being magical,” says Harvard professor Teresa Amabile.

“One myth is that it’s associated with the particular personality or genius of a person—and in fact, creativity does depend to some extent on the intelligence, expertise, talent, and experience of an individual. Of course it does.

But it also depends on creative thinking as a skill.

“The desire to do something because you find it deeply satisfying and personally challenging inspires the highest levels of creativity, whether it’s in the arts, sciences, or business,” she says.

So what can leaders, managers and entrepreneurs do to promote a healthy, positive inner work life among employees?

Sure, a pat on the back or a company Ping-Pong table is always welcome, but what these Harvard Business School professors discovered was much simpler:

People have their best days and do their best work when they are allowed to make progress.

So…

1.) If you are leading, give your team room to make progress.

2.) If you are in a situation where your progress, your creativity is stifled, don’t hang on just for the paycheck.

Instead, look for the place where your passion intersects a need, and there you will find opportunity—that job, that calling—that will give you deep satisfaction while being personally challenging which results in the highest creativity.

Leaders that recognize this simple fact almost always have extraordinary teams!

Thoughts? Takeaway?

*** This is Greg and this blog post from Randy plays well into what I was trying to get across in my recent blog post about StrengthsFinder2.0. If you haven’t read that post, read it HERE. When you know your strengths, talents and how God has created and wired you, you can find a job that suits who you are and let your employer know how to best manage you.

One of the books that shaped me and my philosophy of ministry is The Purpose Driven Church. Another way of identifying or describing a purpose-driven leader is as an intentional or strategic leader. It’s no accident that Jesus instructed us to be “shrewd as serpents” (Matthew 10:16). Purposeful, intentional and strategic should be words in the vocabulary and arsenal of every church leader.

I don’t think what I’m about to say is black and white or cut and dry, but in my experience and travels, the biggest difference I see between small church leaders and mega-church leaders is grasping this concept of equipping others.

I know I’ll take some heat for this, but most small church leaders are doers and that’s why most churches in America never grow beyond 200 people. I mean really – how many people do you think one person can handle? 200 is it. Mega-church leaders know that they have to multiply themselves, understand Ephesians 4 and the equipping style of leadership and lead accordingly.

The reason I say this isn’t cut and dry is because as I’ve blogged about before, another huge difference between small churches and fast-growing churches is fast-growing churches are externally focused – that’s another issue all together, but for the purpose of this blog series, I want to focus on the leadership style of a doer vs an equipper and how that affects one’s capacity for leadership.

Moses is a revered leader in our Bible and seen as one who accomplished much in his time, but even he had to learn this lesson from his father-in-law Jethro.

Moses’ father-in-law said, “This is no way to go about it. You’ll burn out, and the people right along with you. This is way too much for you—you can’t do this alone. Now listen to me. Let me tell you how to do this so that God will be in this with you. Be there for the people before God, but let the matters of concern be presented to God. Your job is to teach them the rules and instructions, to show them how to live, what to do. And then you need to keep a sharp eye out for competent men—men who fear God, men of integrity, men who are incorruptible—and appoint them as leaders over groups organized by the thousand, by the hundred, by fifty, and by ten. They’ll be responsible for the everyday work of judging among the people. They’ll bring the hard cases to you, but in the routine cases they’ll be the judges. They will share your load and that will make it easier for you. If you handle the work this way, you’ll have the strength to carry out whatever God commands you, and the people in their settings will flourish also.” Moses listened to the counsel of his father-in-law and did everything he said. – Exodus 18:17-24 (MSG)

Thanks to Moses’ father-in-law speaking the truth in love to him and opening his eyes to effective leadership, Moses learned a valuable lesson and because it was recorded in Scripture, it’s there for us to learn as well. Moses became an intentional and strategic leader.

I use these words in the context of our discussion on Equipper vs Doer in order to bring clarity to our calling as pastors and in light of the Ephesians 4 passage we looked at earlier. If we are intentional about what we do and don’t do and strategic about who we delegate to, empower and free up to lead and take risks, we can experience unbelievable fruit in our ministries and the joy that only comes from doing what you were created and called to do. Not only that, we get to watch others get to use their gifts and talents for God’s glory, too.

My prayer for and encouragement to  you is to be intentional and strategic in your leadership. Ask yourself daily, “Is this something I alone can do? OR “Is there someone who is more passionate and gifted to do this that I can hand this off to?” So, with our 3 day look at being an equipper vs a doer, where do you see yourself now? I’ll ask the original question: Are you an equipper or doer? And today’s question: Are you intentional and strategic as a leader?

I introduced this discussion of Equipper vs Doer yesterday. If you haven’t read that yet, please go back and read that first, as it sets up what we’ll be looking at today.

First let’s talk about what leadership is: “Leadership has been described as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task”. (Wikipedia)

I see leadership as both influence and a process, meaning you have to be intentional and strategic – two words I use often in my consulting and work with churches, organizations and businesses.

“Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen.” - Alan Keith of Genentech

Now on to the title of this blog post: “Why a hard worker is not always a good leader.” Am I against a strong and hard work ethic? Absolutely not. I have a very strong work ethic myself, but I’d rather work smart than hard. I’ve seen way too many leaders that are burned out and frustrated in their life and job and often times they are reaping what they have sewn. Andy Stanley’s book The Principle of the Path is a great read for more on this.

There are many hard workers across the country in churches, organizations and businesses that are working their tail off, but not experiencing health, growth, joy and the unmistakable test of being effective at what they do. If you’re flying solo in your area of ministry and playing the lone ranger, I can guarantee you that you’re not being as effective as you could be. You’re not reaching your full potential and worst yet, your organization will never be all it can be until you make some intentional and strategic changes in how you work and lead. Let’s look at this in more depth: In Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges book Servant Leadership they say:

“One of the quickest ways you can tell the difference between a servant leader and a self-serving leader is how they handle feedback, because one of the biggest fears that self-serving leaders have is to lose their position.”

Insecurity is at the root of many doers. Pride is at the root of other doers. Let’s look at both: First, insecurity is the downfall of many leaders from senior pastors to executive pastors to mid-level leaders and beyond. I’ve told several leaders over the years: In a small church, job security is “I’m the only one that can do this.” Think of that one sound man that runs sound every week, makes no effort to duplicate himself and thinks “They couldn’t make it without me.” Leaders in many small churches, do everything themselves because they think that secures their job. Leaders in large churches lead others to do the work of the ministry and empower those under their authority- that’s their job security.

*Please understand when I say “small churches”, I’m talking about small-minded churches and churches that have stopped growing. I work with many church planters and love churches of all sizes. Church plants won’t be small forever – they’re hungry and highly evangelistic and seek to grow. I’m referring to churches that have been small for decades.*

The other reason for a doer is pride. They think that they can do it better than anyone else and relish in the fantasy that they are the only one qualified to do a particular task or function. In truth, we all have a handful (maybe 3) of things that we alone can do. The majority of what you are in charge of can be given over to a team of volunteers to serve the church in that area of ministry. If you’re a senior pastor, obviously you don’t delegate the weekly preaching and sermon prep; however, you could put together a teaching team and start to share the pulpit with others, as many growing churches are doing.

The key is to not lead from a place of insecurity or pride – both are wrong. If you are to grow as a leader and be effective in your place of service, you must deal with these two issues head on. Emotional Intelligence is another great read that someone asked me to read in my 20′s. There’s no room for insecurity or pride in the church. This is a matter of character and knowing your identity in Christ as a Christ-follower first and leader second. In the beginning of Ken Blanchard’s Lead Like Jesus book he says,

“Every leader must answer two critical questions:

1. Whose am I?
2. Who am I?

The first question answers “Who am I trying to please?” The second question deals with your purpose in life. My encouragement to you is to wrestle with these two questions and two sins of insecurity and pride and leave them at the foot of the cross. You’ll be a better leader for it and those you lead will be glad you did. We’ll continue down this path tomorrow. For today, how do you handle areas of insecurity and pride as a leader? Do you ever sense them creeping into your life and ministry? Have you answered Blanchard’s two key questions? Where do you find your identity?

My philosophy of ministry can be summed up in one word: EQUIP. I’ve based my entire ministry career on this key principle: We, as shepherds and pastors, are not here to do the work of the ministry. As pastors and leaders, we are called to equip others to do the work of the ministry – thus allowing them to use their God-given spiritual gifts and find pure joy, satisfaction and peace in serving. All to often leaders rob their people of blessing by doing something solo and not allowing the people they lead to use their gifts.

As EACH ONE has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. – 1 Peter 4:10 (NKJV)

God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. – 1 Peter 4:10 (NLT)

The above passage was given to the Church (people), not just pastors. This theme of using our gifts and as leaders, encouraging others to use their gifts has been a recurring theme on my blog for years. I was changed forever 11 years ago, when I heard Ray Johnston (Senior Pastor of Bayside Church in Sacrament0) speak at a conference on the Body of Christ. He burned a crystal clear image into my brain and heart of what a healthy church looks like – each person using their individual gifts to benefit and complete the whole organization.

When I’m in the interview process with a potential church that I’m considering, this is something I say up front: “I’m an equipper, not a doer.” When I’m hiring a potential staff or team member, this is something I look for and anyone that’s worked for me can vouch for that. I know that when churches get to a super size, there can be the occasional “specialist” – someone hired to DO something because of their unique skill and giftedness (like a designer or a video editor) – but even then, I expect them to duplicate themselves and grow their ministry area.

When I was a tech pastor, I didn’t just hire a Front of House Sound Engineer, I purposely hired an Audio Coordinator. I made it clear to him that though he was gifted at sound and would be running FOH on most weekends, I expected him to grow the audio team by recruiting, training and empowering other sound engineers to be used at FOH, monitor world and in other venues throughout the campus (children, youth and special events such as weddings, funerals, concerts, etc.).

In the world of video, I always utilized volunteer video editors for various ministry projects, even when I had a paid video editor. I expect all my staff to grow their given areas of responsibility. I’m passionate about this ministry concept and principle based out of Ephesians 4.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherdst and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ… – Ephesians 4:11-12 (ESV)

At the last church I served (Bent Tree in Dallas), I developed a Technical Arts Ministry Leadership Team (which I blogged about in the past) that was made up of a mix of volunteers and paid staff. This leadership team ran the Technical Arts Ministry. I gave away the ministry to them and worked myself out of  a job. They still run the ministry to this day.

At each meeting, I would preach to them that the Technical Arts Ministry could not and would not be “Greg-centric.” I expressed my vision for each of them taking ownership of the ministry (which I’ve blogged about before) and told them that they were the reason that the ministry was being blessed, growing and healthy.

To me, this is Church Leadership 101 and something that growing, gifted and effective leaders grasp. Tomorrow, I’ll talk about why not all leaders grasp this and why a “doer” is  a “doer.” So, I’ll ask you – Are you an equipper or a doer?

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.

“Even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” – Joel 2:12 (NIV)

This past Sunday at my church, the message was on worship and people were encouraged to text in questions at the end of the sermon for discussion. Here’s my question I texted in:

If worship is a lifestyle and the Bible encourages us to fast and pray, then why don’t we hear more about fasting in the American Church?

The answer I got didn’t satisfy. It was a “safe” answer and basically said that fasting was only something personal and not something that the church should talk about or do together. This disturbed me as I know some of the greatest churches in the country take fasting very seriously and have times of corporate prayer and fasting.

As a matter of fact, the last 2 churches listed as Outreach magazine’s “Fastest-growing Church in the US” (Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, AL and New Life in Conway, AR) both have annual times of fasting and prayer as a congregation.

I worked for a season with ARC (Association of Related Churches) and know how important prayer is to the foundation of a church planter. Prayer and fasting are drilled into the ARC church planters in their basic training and ARC (by no coincidence) has some of the fastest-growing churches in the country – including the two I listed above.

Throughout Scripture fasting plays a critical role in many God ordained events:

- Moses fasted for intimate fellowship with God (Exodus 34:28)
- David fasted for his sick child (2 Samuel 12:16)
- Ezra called a fast for humility and to ask for God’s provisions (Ezra 8:21-23)
- Daniel fasted to discern God’s will & seek God’s counsel (Daniel 10:2-3)
- Jesus fasted before beginning his public ministry (Matthew 4:2)
- Church leaders in Antioch fasted for God’s divine help (Acts 13:3)
- Paul fasted as servant of God for those he served (2 Corinthians 6:5)

If you’re interested in fasting, here are some resources I use HERE.

I believe the power of fasting as it relates to prayer is the spiritual atomic bomb that our Lord has given us to destroy the strongholds of evil and usher in a great revival and spiritual harvest around the world. —Bill Bright

So, if you invited your church to text in questions and I texted in my question you see above, how would you respond? Should the church as a whole fast and pray? Does your church participate in any kid of annual fast? Do you personally fast? Is this as one worship pastor friend of mine called a “lost art” in the Church?

As you know, I (Greg) consult with and secret shop for churches across the country. My friend, Will Mancini does the same thing with his company. Recently he wrote a great blog post on why he thinks this service for churches is vital and I loved it. I thought I’d share it with you here today:

Every month for the last decade, the Auxano team has conducted ministry observations during weekend services. They call it the Guest Perspective Evaluation. Here is why they keep this strategic component in Auxano’s toolbox. Okay, each reality by itself may not be mind blowing, but when you put them all together, the case is staggering and couldn’t be more compelling.

#1  You will have more guests in one year than you think. Our “information gathering” in churches doesn’t even capture the majority of guests. Auxano research shows that five to eight percent of your worshipping community will self-identify as guests. Therefore the number of guests in one year is:

[(Ave. weekly worship attendance) x (.05) x (52)]

#2 Many of your guests are going through situations that make them more responsive to God. These are the folks that are most likely to be moving, changing jobs, getting divorced, having kids, etc.

#3  Your guests are assessing very quickly whether or not they are coming back. This happens much faster than we think. For example, read The 11-Minute Difference.

#4  Your guests represent step one of accomplishing the Great Commission- these are the people coming to you! How much does your church spend on foreign missions? Compare that to how much we invest into the fish that swim to the boat before we cast a net.

#5  A guest who is attending may represent years of prayer, service, and invitation by a church member. My mom and I attended church without my father for 12 years. The first time my Dad came to church with us, imagine how I felt about the church and the hospitality of the people. All I could think was “Don’t screw up!”

#6  Studies show that guests will talk about their initial experiences 8-15 times with other people. Serve guests well and multiply your message.

#7  A welcoming ministry is a great “shallow end of the pool” to get people involved in service for the first time.Yes, you have plenty of intimidating places to serve like worship, small groups, and children’s ministry. So why not leverage an easy place to start?

#8  Building a great ministry to guests nourishes a culture of hospitality because of the concrete reminders to the entire congregation that guests matter.

#9 Investment in a welcoming ministry is an investment into every other ministry your church offers. I ask churches to dream about what ministry they might start. I then tell them to get it done by first having great guest services. Do you want an amazing prison ministry? Maybe the next Chuck Colson is visiting next week.

#10 We are commanded in Scripture to be hospitable. The Greek word philoxenia literally means to “love strangers” and is used in Romans 12:13 and Hebrews 13:2.

***The following was a guest post from Will Mancini. You can visit Will at www.willmancini.com/

I just came across this series intro video online and thought it should be seen and appreciated for the hard work, creativity and innovation that went into it. This is from Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC.

Momentum from Geoff Schultz on Vimeo.

I often wonder if senior pastors are aware of the countless hours that went into something like this? It’s a 50 second bumper, but probably took at least a week to create. Do you have a series bumper to share? Post the link here.