therstblog

Not ME!!!

Leadership, leadership training and leadership opportunities comes in so many different forms these days. As youth it can take place on the football team or in the class room, as adults you can get a promotion on your job, or have a mentor that molds you to take their place at some point, I have been fortunate enough to be in all of these situations. God has ordained and ordered each experience, good or bad, to shape me into the leader He has called me to be, but the education does not stop there. I am not here to start or end the eternity long debate of whether a leadership is born or learned, but what I do know is that in anything, sports, your job, preaching, teaching and leadership if you want to be the best and not just mediocre then you have to put in work!

Here are a list of seven practices for an effective ministry that i have gotten from Andy Stanley and North Point’sPractically Speaking website:

Practice #1 - Clarify The Win
Even the best team can’t score if it can’t find home plate. In this conversation, we’ll discuss the importance of clearly defining wins at every level of your organization.

Practice #2 - Think Steps, Not Programs
Before you start anything, make sure it takes you where you want to go. In this conversation, we’ll discuss the importance of a clear ministry strategy.

Practice #3 - Narrow The Focus
The longer a ministry operates, the more complex it becomes. In order to maintain a winning organization, we must continually face the challenge of narrowing its focus.

Practice #4 - Teach Less For More
People are bombarded by thousands of messages every week. If the local church is going to be effective, it must cut through the noise. It must learn to say only what needs to be said to the people who need to hear it.

Practice #5 - Listen To Outsiders
Why don’t the unchurched people in your area go to church? Could it be because you’re focusing on who you’re trying to keep instead of who you’re trying to reach?

Practice #6 - Replace Yourself
We are all replaced eventually. The wisest leaders will extend their influence by finding and mentoring their replacements.

Practice #7 - Work On It
All of us work in ministry every day, but is that enough? Working on your ministry requires time to evaluate your work and to celebrate your wins.

What are your thoughts on church leadership, leadership in general and how to be more effective?

Read any good books on either topics? (please share!)

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

and no! it is not gas!!!

What is it? It is EXCITEMENT!!!!

This weekend the core team and I are making our first trip of four to churches in our area who exemplify the excellence in a number of areas that we, a young church plant, desire to posses.

Our first stop, Northpoint, where Andy Stanley and his staff have created an AWESOME worship experience, and some of the most sound leadership practices in the game today!!!

I look forward to this trip and the others. Each Sunday this month we will be visiting with local congregations in our area to see just how it is done. We will be going to Mountain Lake, Revolution Church (Canton), Revolution Church (Atlanta), and Oakleaf Church.

My desire is for the core team to get a taste of whats possible, to see first hand what God is doing in the body of Christ for His Kingdom, and to touch, talk, and build relationships with those who like them have committed to the things of God!

Early next year I am planning a trip to two other church outside of Atlanta, and it cant get here fast enough!!! Those two churches, along with the four we are visiting here, embody the excellence in worship, leadership, and outreach that we should all desire to attain. They are NewSpring Church and Elevation Church.

CAN YOU FEEL IT!!!?

Can you think of anywhere we haven’t listed that we should consider going?

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Subscribing to Therst will allow you to automatically receive every new article whenever they are published. This provides a great deal of convenience for you, because you won’t even have to visit this website to access all the latest articles or news.

The benefit of this is that it will save you a lot of time and effort; All of the new content on this site will be delivered to you directly for free and all you have to do is to read it at your own leisure.

There are two main ways of subscribing to Therst:

1. Web Feed Subscriptions. New articles will be sent to a web feed reader.
2. Email Subscriptions. New articles will be sent directly to your email inbox.

What is a ‘Web Feed Reader’ and How Can I Use it?

Web feeds are document formats which allow you to keep up to date with content on all blogs and some websites you come across while surfing the net.

When you subscribe to a web feed, the feed reader (which is an online tool) will check the website you subscribe to for new content. If there are any new articles, they will be displayed within the reader itself.

It’s just a easy 3 step process:

1. Sign up for a Free Feedreader (I recommend Google Reader or Bloglines).
2. Come back to this page and click on this link to subscribe to Therst.
3. And you’re done! Remember to check your feed reader daily to see if new articles from Therst has been published.

All the published articles from Therst will show up automatically in your feed reader. If you’ll like to, start subscribing to other blogs or websites you fancy as well.

Can I Choose to Subscribe Via Email Instead?

Definitely. It’s not a problem. If you’ll like articles from Therst to be sent directly to your email inbox, just open this link in a new window. You’ll see this page:

Fill in a legitimate email address and enter the captcha as it is displayed on the page. Don’t worry if you get an error message while typing in the captcha the first time. It happens occasionally. Just type in the captcha one more time.

Once you see the screen below, visit your email inbox to verify your email address. Be sure to check your spam folder if you don’t receive any verification emails.

You’ll only receive one email every day regardless of the number of articles published. For example, if I publish 5 articles, you’ll get them all in one email newsletter. This will be the same even if I publish only one article in a day.

All email subscriptions are managed by Feedburner.com and you can unsubscribe anytime with a click of a mouse. For your convenience, instructions for unsubscribing are included in each email newsletter as well.

Please be assured that your email will kept in the strictest confidence and will never be used for spam, so please use one that you check regularly.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Just got off the phone with a very dear friend and big brother and shared with him something that I recently shared with my wife and that it would be good to share with you.

I am in no way PERFECT!!!!!!!

I make mistakes, take things for granted (forgive me Lord), can be selfish, and have forgotten myself.

How did i forget myself? That is the reason for this post.

I have joined the ranks of so many other preachers, teachers, ministers, pastors, evenagelist (most of whom may never admit what im about to admit) and I no longer want to be in or with this crowd!

I have gotten accustomed to only studying for Sunday or for my next “ASSIGNMENT”.

The Word of God is filled with so much, that is impossible to preach every sermon, teach every lesson, share every revelation embedded in the pages of this awesome conversation between God and US.

So today I make the committment to study not only for “SUNDAYS”, but to study for ME! To study, to learn, to share and to get to know God for myself, not just to teach other people about the latest greatest revelation i got. I want the promises, the phrophesy, the Word to be true and come to life in my life. I want the REALITY of the scriptures to be my reality!!!

Will you join me?

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

We started this series several weeks ago and are now just able to get back to it. The first idea was simple, the bible is often referred to as a how-to guide or better a book of instructions and my thought was, how many men read the instructions?

Today we will look at the “Book of Promises”. This I very well cannot argue with. From Genesis to Revelation, the bible is laiden with promise after promise. Some good Deut. 28:1-14 for example has promises that are VERY GOOD, while 15-68 of the same chapter of Deut. has promises that I would not wish on my worst enemy.

So to refer to the bible as a book of promises is a good thing. Or is it?

How many of you have been promised things in your lifetime, by parents, friends, teachers, bosses or jobs, only to walk away with a sad face and nothing to show for it. So how easy is it to believe God whom you cannot see, when the very father or teacher or friend whom you can see could not keep a promise to save their life? Is this why it is so hard to believe David when he says, “THE LORD is my Shepherd [to feed, guide, and shield me], I shall not lack.”, a verse whose meaning and translation is so powerful. The Lord is MY Shepherd, He is my caretaker, and I dont lack, I dont have a want or need that goes unfulfilled; yet, daily we seem to go with those things that we want and need.

Are you receiving the promises? Do you believe that you will have ALL that you are promised?

So how will you refer to the bible?

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

A new trend, well technically not so new, is taking over in terms of marketing and promotion and it goes by the name of viral marketing. What is it? well I have found some information that will give us the basics and some insight to what it is and how we can use it to promote ourselves or a product we deem viable!

Definition: Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence.

Now Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, E-Commerce Consultant has compiled a list of six simple principles of viral marketing, i will share the six he has listed on the site, but for a more detailed look at each one of these principles click here.

• Gives away products or services

• Provides for effortless transfer to others

• Scales easily from small to very large

• Exploits common motivations and behaviors

• Utilizes existing communication networks

• Takes advantage of others’ resources

How has youtube, myspace, faceboook, and other sites encouraged viral marketing practices or even better made this type of marketing an outlet for the average person to use in marketing themselves, their church, or a product?

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I recently have had to slow down on my subscribing to blogs. I mean just how many can one person read in the morning or all day for that matter. It reminds of my dad grabbing the paper occasionally and sitting down and reading it, starting with the sports page of course, then making his way through the entire paper.

Today, i don’t read the newspaper, but I read several very informative blogs that fill my cup every morning before i truly get my day started. One of those blogs is called swerve. It is the blog of the senior pastor and the innovation leader and pastor of lifechurch.tv. It is an amazing thing that God is doing with this church, if you have not heard of them you might want to go see for yourself!!!

I digress. This week they spent most of their blog time on blogging. I learned a lot and wanted to share the link with you and hopefully you will grab something as well!! Blogging Week.

I will continue to share with you the knowledge these men and women of God so graciously share with me every morning!!!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Im referring to a list of the 15 top technology innovations that todays church MUST, well i know that is a bit strong, but why not must?, have in our local body NOW!

According to Monday Morning Insight there are 15 innovations the church should embrace. OK, I know what you are saying, Lloyd, just a minute ago you said we NEED them and we MUST have them, well i meant what i said, but MMI believes we should embrace them, so that works too.

Here are the top 5:

1.  Podcasting - circuit riding at the speed of light

In addition to your weekly messages, how about spicing it up with special editions? Try doing interviews with church neighbors, the mayor, volunteers, staff intros., etc. If it’s worth preaching it’s worth podcasting. Any church of any size can exponentially increase its impact via MP3 technology.

2.  Blogging - digital discipleship

Don’t blog for an audience, blog for you. The more you write about what’s on your head and heart, the more people will respond. Blogging increases your bandwidth and allows you to digitally disciple just about anybody, anywhere, anytime.

3.  Video Technologies - postmodern stained glass

The medieval church used stained glass to tell the gospel story in pictures. We’re using screens to tell the gospel story in moving pictures. Jesus isn’t just the Word of God. He is also the Image of God. The Church needs to communicate in images!

4.  Viral Video - get contagious quickly

Use YouTube to spread the love. There’s even a first-time visitor orientation.

Use it creatively for things like behind-the-scenes sermon prep, church staff meetings, or videos created by the congregation. There’s a reason why this is one of the top visual communication sites on the Web.

5.  Multi-Purpose Church Buildings - doing ministry in the marketplace

Jesus didn’t hang out at synagogues. He hung out at wells. Wells were natural gathering places in ancient culture. Coffeehouses are postmodern wells. That’s why National Community Church, in Washington, D.C., built a coffeehouse on Capitol Hill instead of a church building — to create a marketplace environment where the church and community could cross paths. Less than a year after it opened, “Ebenezers” was rated the #2 coffeehouse in the metro DC area by AOL CityGuide 2007. They serve 600+ customers seven days a week. Instead of asking people to come to them, the church is going to the people.

For a complete list click here.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

This post stems from an email i was sending my wife about an amazing blog i read yesterday, Reverse Offering. I started simply by telling her about the story and lost myself in her, and could not hold back my feelings for her… just read for yourself…
Link to blog was here, but if you click on name of blog above it will take you to a different type of Love Story that led to this Love Story…

i know i am sending these to you like crazy but they are blessing me,
so i figured i better bless you too…

i love you more than life and i could not think of anyone i would
rather be walking this walk o faith with!!!!!

I can see as clear as the night sky our future, and it is EVERYTHING
God promised it would be.. i want you t close your eyes and see it for
yourself… not just the stuff, that is the least important, not just
being able to pay bills and take trips, but more importantly we, you
and i, us adding to the Kingdom of God, transforming lives ( we got
three families to thank God for now), building relationships,
restoring marriages, providing hope to hopeless, giving people a way
out of their personal prisons… these things are what matters most
and we, you and i, us are doing just that… I’m so glad we walk by
faith and not by sight, I’m so glad that we are forgiven and we
forgive, I’m honored that God chose me, and just as important I’m
humbled that He allowed you to be my wife!!!

You are so so so so beautiful… from the inside out, our TWINS, Zoe
and Zion (We are not pregnant yet, but we are doing as Jesus
instructed us to do, Mark 11:23-24) will be the most beautiful girls
in the world (yes I’m biased) our boys Tyler and Jah will be the Men
of God He has ordained them to be, using their gifts for the Kingdom
of God, and we, you and i, us will reach teach preach and transform
those assigned to us by God in ways that only He could have us to!!!
From the US to Haiti and beyond!!! We are Peculiar, called out of
darkness into His marvelous LIGHT!!!

this is my next blog… i love you!!!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!