ThiS WeekS LooSe EndS

It has been a crazy week, but something triggered yesterday. The “Forgiveness” post yesterday got a lot of traffic. If your week was like mine, and you missed it yesterday, take some time this morning and add your comments. There is some great stuff on the comment section, and most likely you will resonate with something on it. I want to hear your stories!

Other great blogs I read this week were:

This was an incredible post about leading yourself from Warren Buffet

I am thinking of the benifits of doing what Carlos does here

Phil Cooke (another far away mentor of mine, he has no idea who I am by the way) posted great tips for bloggers here

I wish our church’s website looked like one of these

And finally, I have really enjoyed reading Nick the Rockstar Intern’s post here. Side note; he is no longer an intern, now he is a Youth Pastor and blogs about real life as a young leader – but he is still a Rockstar – he dresses better than Ed Young Junior!

OH WAIT!!! Join with me today in celebrating the King of Pop’s 50th birthday! Yes you heard right it is Michael Jackson’s birthday today… Can’t wait to see how he continues to live his life! I don’t think we have heard the last from him.

Forgiveness

I am often surprised at how difficult preparing a message can be. This week I am talking about forgiveness and it has actually been a struggle. Sometimes the topics I think are going to be the hardest are the easiest, and I thought this one would be easy – well, guess what? Where do I start? What do people need to know? What kinds of issues are people struggling with either from the “I can’t possibly forgive that,” or, “I wish they could forgive me for…”

So talk to me a little about forgiveness from your perspective;

What do you want to know about it?

What have you been forgiven from that you thought you would never get over?

When was the last time you needed to forgive someone?

I know this can be a sensitive and personal discussion so I will gladly post anonymous comments. Or you can email me at www.grahamprouty@gmail.com but I really want your input. A lot of you browse this site, now it is time to leave your comment!

Why Do You Go (Or Don’t Go) To Church | I Really Want To Know!

Earlier this week I blogged about wanting people to connect and be a part of our church. One of the blogs I read that started me thinking more and more about this was from Kent Shaffer at Churchrelevance.com. read what they found were reasons behind church attendance and staying at church and then SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS in the comment section.

Q+A :: Top Reasons for Church Attendance
from churchrelevance.com by Kent Shaffer
QUESTION:
Do you have any statistics that show the top 5 reasons why people stay or connect with a church?
- Debbie :: California

ANSWER:
In recent years, there have been several research studies hoping to discover what motivates church attendance. I previously blogged about research from LifeWay Research and Gallup. Both of those studies offer good insights but can be general.

My favorite resource on the topic is Thom S. Ranier’s book Surprising Insights from the Unchurched. It discusses the following three surveys.

Top 13 Reasons that Unchurched People Choose a Church
(research conducted by Ranier)

90% – Pastor/Preaching
88% – Doctrines
49% – Friendliness of Members
42% – Other Issues
41% – Someone Church Witnessed to Me
38% – Family Member
37% – Sensed God’s Presence/Atmosphere of Church
25% – Relationship Other than Family Member
25% – Sunday School Class
25% – Children’s/Youth Ministry
12% – Other Groups/Ministries
11% – Worship Style/Music
7% – Location
Top 9 Reasons that Church-Attenders Choose a Church
(research conducted by the Barna Group in 1999)

58% – Doctrine/Theology
53% – People Caring for Each Other
52% – Preaching
45% – Friendliness
45% – Children’s Programs
43% – Helping the Poor
36% – Denomination
35% – Like the Pastor
26% – Sunday School
Top 6 Things that Keep the Formerly Unchurched Active in the Church
(research conducted by Ranier)

62% – Ministry Involvement
55% – Sunday School
54% – Obedience to God
49% – Fellowship of Members
38% – Pastor/Preaching
14% – Worship Services
The statistics speak for themselves. Overall, doctrine, the pastor and his preaching, and the friendliness and fellowship of the congregation are the most influential qualities.

For Discussion:
- Subjectively speaking, what do you think are the top reasons why people stay or connect with a church?

For me;
Why do you go to church – or if you don’t go, why not? What kind of church would you go to? what was one of the coolest things you saw a church doing? What was one of the un-coolest things you saw a church do?

An Unexpected Surprise (in a good way)

Yesterday afternoon I had a walk through meeting with our General Contractor in the new building our church is building. It is in framing, and we were discussing electricity needs for all the different things we need – sound system and lighting things. We walked around the property looking at the entrances and grading, and we walked through the upstairs portion of the building that will be leased to the school. It was great to see progress being made, but it is never enough for me – there are so many things that need to be finished quickly to allow ease of access to the school’s temporary buildings that are situated next to our building until it is finished. They start classes next Tuesday, so it is really crunch time.

The meeting went well, and then at the end the contractor handed me tickets to the minor league baseball game. We have a large family of six, and usually when you are offered something like this there are only four tickets… This time a vendor had given the contractor six tickets and since he couldn’t make it he passed them along to me! I am not a huge baseball fan, but going to these minor league games can be fun, so I went home rallied the troops and we headed out to the game. The stadium is close enough to our house that we can see the lights from our porch, we could nearly walk. As we entered the stadium and found our section, we kept walking and walking down closer and closer to the field. It turns out these tickets were on the FRONT ROW! We were just to the right of home plate, behind the foul ball net, and close enough that we could talk to the players as they were in the on deck circle! It was really cool! I checked the tickets again and again, asked Trish if she was sure we were in the right seats, and waited expecting someone else to show up and tell us we were in the wrong seats… but that never happened, so we enjoyed these great seats and had a great night – and it was free!

After all the stress and complexity of life, having this unexpected surprise that was good for a change (usually unexpected surprises mean more money or more time). And spending great family time at the game was a whole lot of fun.

What was the last good unexpected surprise you had?

Help Wanted: We Love New People

Our church is growing. It is fun to watch, and I am so thrilled! Every week for the past three we have had visitors show up. Several times they have cited this blog as being one of the reasons they felt comfortable enough to come. I want more and more people to be a part of what we are doing – church in a new way about 2 miles from one of the biggest most traditional churches in Colorado Springs. We are going to help people in the community with their problems. We don’t even know what all the problems are yet, but I know we can help. We want to help parents be better parents, help families to handle their finances better during this economic downturn, we want to partner with people overcoming addictions, we want to give their kids confidence and positive activities like hip-hop dance classes and maybe some kind of karate classes. We want to come alongside single mothers with practical help. We want to help people up and set things right. This world is a difficult and confusing place, and we believe that the hope we have is contagious, and that the God we serve has a deep interest for every person we come across…

We want your help to do this… we need your help. There are all kinds of ways you can help. You can join our group – you don’t even need “church” experience! I love it when people come that have no idea what to expect in church! We have had several people come that have no or little church background, and honestly I would much rather hang around with those of you that don’t have experience with church than the group down the street that has no idea of what life is like outside their church! And if you have church experience DON’T COME to our church UNLESS you want to be a part of meeting people where they are and helping them take the next step!

What if you don’t live in the Springs? How can you help? That is easy too. You may have a skill that makes the difference between our being an average ordinary organization and a world-class need meeting movement! We want to reach out to help people; maybe you can help us design a marketing campaign, helping us with our media – all types; print, video, web… we need help with it all! Maybe you know people that can give us insight or ideas on how to make a difference in single mother’s lives, what they most need, how can we make their lives a little easier! Maybe you can help me get my Mac to run my PC based Bible software so I can stop using two computers every week! Maybe you can use your interior decorating ability to help us create an atmosphere in our auditorium that is so cool all your friends want to come! Maybe you play an instrument and can be a part of our music team… maybe you know someone that can help with these things or others… Regardless, I want you to be a part of what we are doing. Even if it is just sharing your experiences or hopes of what church could be with me on line… don’t be shy!

What kind of church do you want to be a part of? What turns you off to church?

Directions | “Mission Drift”

This week started with a lot of frustration on my part. If you remember I wrote about a friend reminding me that a lot of the problems we were facing were good problems. The person that I was most frustrated with was me. I have learned this lesson again and again. I seem to constantly forget, and when I am reminded of it I feel stupid. Here it is: Clairify, clarify, clarify. As a leader it is easy to keep your eyes focused on where you are going. I can see it and so I assume others can too. But that is quite the opposite of what really happens. People forget, or they don’t quite get it, sometimes the experts call it “mission drift,” when you get off track from the goals and direction of the group.

I had to provide a lot of direction this week. I did a lot of reminding people around me who we are, where the goal is, and how we were going to get there. You can never do it enough, and assuming that others are picking up on it just because you refer to it in a sermon or an email doesn’t mean they are getting it. I have to remind myself that in all the conversations I have with people I need to purposefully point back to the direction we are going. But we are on track, this week anyway, I am sure we will do this again soon!

What mistakes do you find yourself making again and again? How do you feel when you are reminded? How do you fix the problem?

I Love Ice Cream

A few months ago I took the family to Baskin-Robbins for ice cream. They are the place that has 31 flavors. There weren’t many people in the store, so I was asking about the flavors; do they rotate them, why so many, which is the favorite… There apparently is a method to the madness of all the flavors – one for every day of the month. And the favorite flavor beating the other flavors 2-3 to one (according to the teenage ice cream specialist dipping out the good stuff from behind the glass patrician) was Mint Chocolate Chip.

Several in my family love this flavor, mine however is not Mint Chocolate Chip, but instead is Peanut-Butter Chocolate. What’s your flavor? (we love dollar scoop tuesdays by the way!)

REV RUN | RUN DMC

One of my all time favorite TV shows is a reality series about a rap star called “Run’s House” on MTV. Years ago before rap was cool a cross over group called Run DMC helped start the rap movement. Run’s fame partnered with his brother Russell Simmons (one of the past 25 years “most influential men”) spawned a clothing line called Russell Athletics and has had several spin off’s. He made a fortune, and helped shape the culture.

Now a couple decades later Joseph (Run) Simmons and his wife Justine are still pioneering culture. Run was influenced by the message of Jesus and has become a Reverend. Now they call him Rev Run. He and his wife have a best selling parenting book, have adopted a beautiful baby girl and every day Rev Run sends out words of wisdom. (They are highlighted in his TV show) their children are doing great things in the fashion and music industry, and they all have good values. It is a great family show. And I like it a lot because it isn’t often you see a Reverend driving a Bentley and living in a huge house that wasn’t paid for by pandering to a gullible audience but was bought with hard earned money from his previous career.

Today his words of wisdom hit me – this guy has seen huge success, beyond most, and this message shows exactly where his and all of our priorities should be…

Good morning. Is true success winning 7 gold medals? Or is it seeing your loved ones smile?… Tell the truth… Think about this…. Take it from me. I’ve tried many highs, Ive had many gold and platinum plaques. But the best success is seeing my home in order and my family and friends happy…(Remember) No one laying on their death bed has ever said.. Bring me my trophies, my news clippings, my awards… No! They want family and friends around them… Nobody has ever said… I wish I would have spent more time in the office… No! They say, I wish I would have spent more time with family and loved ones… Check your priorities today….
 
God is Love
Rev Run
 

Venting

I am an emotional guy. Not that I cry at all the sappy movies, although I have at some, but that there are times when my frustrations build up and spill over. Sometimes it is at the kids, sometimes the wife, usually I hear Trish say something like, “do you hear yourself?” and I try to bring my decibel level down a few notches. Yesterday it was about the church and the building. We are working really hard to bring people along, and to bring people to church, and when you do that there are times you feel overwhelmed because not enough is getting done fast enough. I am feeling a great deal of pressure because we don’t have some necessary systems in place. I feel the pressure because others are under pressure.

Yesterday morning the phone rang, and a conversation began with a good friend of mine. Luckily he is a solid guy that has good reasoning skills and management skills. He thinks more practically than I do (I think in big pictures) and he helped a lot. I vented. I complained. I shared concerns. I worried. I regretted. He listened. I am thankful for him. Now, I am not saying that everything is fixed, but I was able to voice those inner feelings, emotions and thoughts with someone that I know wont collapse under the pressure. We all need someone like that. Once I was told that venting is not good, but I completely disagree – venting to the wrong people can destroy you and them… so be wise in who you talk to, but talk. Everyone needs to.

The best part of the conversation came when he made me realize that all my frustrations, concerns and complaining were due to the fact we had doubled in size. Our church is a plant, a restart, a small group of people hoping that God will show up and we will grow. We averaged 34 people per weekend in July, and the last two weeks we have had sixty! This puts a lot of pressure on our systems and people running our programs – pressure I feel magnified, but it is good that we are growing… I am sure this will not be the last of our growing pains, so it is time to get used to it!

Who do you vent to and why do you vent? What causes you to vent?

Finding My Way Out

I didn’t appropriately introduce my wife’s blog to the world, (YES!!! She started writing!) so I thought I would take a minute and give her a little blog love.

She is one of the wisest people I know. She can see through the dust that clouds most people’s vision to the core issues. She has practical solutions to life’s problems. She is funny and loves to laugh. She builds close relationships with people, but it takes her a while to let people in. She has been through some of the most difficult times in her life the past few years, and her insight is getting even deeper.

I think her blog will be incredibly helpful to people who are…
• Struggling with making sense of life,
• Lonely,
• Raising children,
• Searching spiritually,
• Pastor’s wives – especially church planting pastor’s wives, and
• People that work with kids.

As she finds her voice you will find someone that is coming out of the desert into a land of rich relationship, beautiful wisdom, and funny stories… check it out…

Finding My Way Out

No pressure pook. I am proud of you, you are my best friend, and I know you are doing great things!