Executive Pastor Online - June 2008

Church Planting in the Northeast

kevin@moviechurch.com — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:00:00 +0100

In addition to my duties as Executive Pastor at Christ's Church of the Valley, I am a Regional Director leading church planting efforts for the Philadelphia region of the Orchard Group.

I haven't often blogged about church planting and should probably change that.

Let me start with our strategy ...

Church Planting Strategy
At Christ's Church of the Valley we feel called to grow a strong community of Christ followers that collectively helps to plant churches all over the Philadelphia region. In order to accomplish this we are currently focused on growing our Royersford congregation to 3,000+ before asking 200-400 to commit to being part of our first plant. We would very much like to plant a "flagship" church somewhere in the Philadelphia region that is fully equipped with volunteers and staff to adequately reach its target, growing to more than 500 in its first 2 years and reaching 1,000 within its first 5 years.

In 20 or 30 years we want to be used by God to help make the Northeast an area of the country much like the Midwest's tri-state area (Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky). Why would anyone want to plant a church in the tri-state? There are plenty of churches there!

We have taken the Philadelphia region (as far north and east as Princeton, New Jersey and south and west as Wilmington, Delaware), more than 5,000,000 people, and divided it into 20 different "mini-regions." Below is a map of what we've defined as the Philadelphia Region.

In each mini-region we want to plant a flagship church. By flagship we mean a church that is strategically planted to exist on its own as an Independent Christian Church with "ownership" for planting more churches in its mini-region. These churches will most likely (due to proximity) be campuses of the flagship, but not necessarily.

Knowing that this is a pretty ambitious strategy, we're anxious to get started. We're already working to network with other churches, creating a network of leaders interested in being involved in implementing this strategy. We hope to hire our first lead planter in late 2009 to begin working on our first plant now planned for sometime in the second half of 2010.

The Orchard Group regional directors have setup a Google Group to facilitate communication and networking to find planters and others interested in being a part of what's happening here in the northeast. If you are interested in getting involved as a planter, part of a planting team, or can offer financial support in any way ... send an e-mail to the Orchard Group Regional Directors at this e-mail address: orchard-group-regional-directors@googlegroups.com. Of course you can also e-mail me directly at kevin@moviechurch.com.

Solving the Supply Replenishment Challenge

kevin@moviechurch.com — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:00:00 +0100

A continuous challenge in the growing church is making sure every area has what it needs at all times in terms of supplies. You know ... paper towels, cleaning materials, paper, and the myriad of other items required to sustain the ministry week to week. Have you ever sent someone to the convenience store on Sunday morning (right before the service starts) for AA batteries? Or how about running out of grape juice during the 2nd of 3 services?

Every ministry, no matter the size, has a continuous need for supplies. And, just like any other area of church operations a system has to be developed and implemented that ensures that supplies are stocked and replenished as needed. In the manufacturing industry, where this is also an on-going challenge, implementation of a Reorder Point Based Supply System has been the solution.

It's pretty simple really. When the amount of supply (grape juice, batteries, paper, pens, diapers, baby wipes, crayons, etc.) gets to a pre-established quantity (reorder point) a demand signal is generated and the supply is replenished.

The simplest way to implement your own Reorder Point Based Supply System is to establish a location in your facility you'll call the stockroom. Equip the stockroom with shelving upon which you will place containers (plastic bins, boxes, etc.) to hold the supply items. The size of the container is determined by the size of the item and the amount of the item stocked at the maximum. (I'll explain how to determine this a little later.) The container is then labeled and a card is created with the same label to go along with the container. An individual (staff member or volunteer) is then assigned to go through the stockroom on the same day each week (Monday or Tuesday?) to look at each container to determine if the Reorder Point (ROP) has been reached. If it has, the card is "pulled" and given to the individual responsible for ordering supplies. The other thing that individual does on that day of the week is open newly received supplies from the previous week and put them in their designated container. It's as simple as that.

All that is left is to establish 3 very important variables: ROP, Order Quantity, and Stock Quantity. The ROP is calculated based on the usage. Basically, you have to make sure more supply is ordered and received before you run out. Let's take AA batteries for example. If your church has 10 wireless microphones, each using 2 AA batteries per week, the usage (assuming this is the only place AA batteries are used in your church) is 20 AA batteries per week. If it takes 2 weeks total time from order placement to receipt and restock to get more batteries, then you must generate your "demand signal" when you reach 40 (at a minimum) batteries left in stock. The ROP is of course 40.

The Order Quantity is determined item by item. It's a combination of how the particular item is ordered (each, box, sleeve, case, etc.), the usage, and how frequently you want to order it. Let's use our batteries as an example again. Batteries are usually sold in a package and the larger the package the lower the price. So, let's say we are going to order batteries by the "package." The next thing to consider is the usage. In this case we use 20 batteries per week. If we only want to order batteries once per month, then our order quantity is going to be a minimum of 80 (4 weeks x 20 batteries). The 80, of course, can be 8 packages of 10, 4 packages of 20, etc. This decision is based on best cost and availability.

I said I would address how to determine the size of the container earlier in this article. By now it should be pretty obvious to most. You have to base the size of the container on the Stock Quantity ... the maximum amount of stock, worst case. Sticking with the batteries ... if an order is placed when the stock is down to 40 and the order quantity is 80, the container should be sized to hold 120 batteries at a maximum. You might be thinking, "But the original 40 are gone by the time the 80 are received, so why not size the container for 80 instead of 120." This is a good question especially if space is limited in your stockroom. But what if things don't go exactly according to plan? For example, after the ROP is reached and an order is placed, weekend services are canceled due to the weather and the usage drops. Or the amount of microphones normally used on a Sunday is reduced to only one for some reason. The point is that things don't always go according to plan. And, the last thing you want is to receive a bunch of batteries and not have anywhere to put them. (Reference my article entitled A Place For Everything ... And Everything In Its Place.)

If you're really thinking this through, you've probably already observed that the opposite could happen as well ... usage could increase. What if you get a bad batch of batteries and they don't last as long, or more services are planned for a particular 2 week period? Obviously the ROP is reached faster which results in an order being placed sooner. If the increase in usage continues, the supply of AA batteries could run out before the new batteries are received. There are a number of ways to approach this situation, but my experience has told me that establishing an adjustment percentage is a good way to go. For example, the ROP of 40 could be increased to 50 to improve the system's ability to handle changes in demand.

Once the system is implemented it is continuously evaluated and quantities are adjusted. Like many other systems, tweaking and adjustment is required over time.

Give it a try, make adjustments, and watch your supply issues go away!

A Place For Everything ... And Everything In Its Place

kevin@moviechurch.com — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:00:00 +0100

The more I do this job, the more I realize that much of what I've learned over my years in corporate applies to managing the church. "Doing church" each weekend is a lot about logistics. You know ... having everything you need, where you need it, when you need it. Pulling this off, though, in a multi-purpose facility is difficult to say the least. Over time, everything gets shuffled and before you know it, you are stifled by the clutter and inefficiency.

In the manufacturing industry not only is efficiency important, high quality is a concern. It's difficult to build high quality products in a cluttered, inefficient environment. Enter the concept of "a place for everything and everything in its place."

It's really pretty simple. Everything that it takes to build a product (materials, tools, fixtures, equipment, etc.) has a designated location, and nothing that is not needed is allowed to be at the workstation. Sounds pretty simple, right?

While I was a Plant Manager in Mexico, I used to go down to the production floor and "rifle through" the various workstations (drawers, shelves, etc.). I remember being amazed at the amount of "stuff" that would accumulate. In some cases it was just due to the employee at the workstation being a "pack rat." Correcting this was a matter of setting expectations and accountability.

The more difficult situations were those where an employee was trying to get the job done and leadership hadn't provided them with what they needed. In this case, a place for everything they needed to get the job done wasn't provided. They, therefore, stuffed it in a drawer or otherwise "found a place" for it.

I've learned over and over that people will find a way to get the job done. They will find a way, despite the obstacles, to get done what you are asking of them. The challenge is that most of the time we as their leaders don't like the way they've found to "work around" the obstacles. If you put them in a situation where they are expected to create an exciting, dynamic production every Sunday without space to store props, supplies, and equipment they will get it done anyway and end up stuffing things in every available space.

To illustrate my point I'll describe the exercise I am now leading our staff through. Due to lack of financial resources and our insistence that "the ministry come first" we built a building that has very little if any storage space. In fact, it doesn't even have enough office space for our staff. We did this for the right reasons, but the result is not very pleasant. In fact, we were "busted" pretty seriously by our local Fire Marshal during a recent inspection for having "stuff" crammed everywhere!

So, as I've always found to be the case, our staff is doing what is necessary to get their jobs done. You've got to admire their tenacity. Unfortunately there is "stuff" everywhere.

The solution? As leaders we must evaluate the real need for equipment and supplies and provide "a place for everything." In our case, this means offsite storage. It's interesting. Making a decision not to provide proper storage space in a building is only a decision to increase operating costs through storage space rental. In other words, it really doesn't save money. The space is needed regardless and storage space isn't free.

Once a place for everything has been established and communicated, it's necessary to instill the discipline of putting "everything in its place." I hear it all the time, "Do we really have to put that in storage? I'm going to need it in 2 weeks." Where are you going to put it for the 2 weeks it's not needed? I can tell you. It will be leaned up against the back of the building outside and never be put in storage. Before you know it, it's rusted (or otherwise damaged) and has to be replaced. The staff has to get used to the idea that they are going to have to use the 6 days between Sundays to go to and from storage as needed to prepare for the coming weekend.

Of course a vehicle has to be provided and the storage space has to be organized in such a way as to make everything easy to store and retrieve. Again, this costs money and takes time.

A place for everything and everything in its place is an operational must!

Casas Por Cristo Trip - Video

kevin@moviechurch.com — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:00:00 +0100

Check it out! Our long awaited Casas trip video ...

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uWIvVwzgR0 425x344]

Awesome!

You've Got to Have a Hobby

kevin@moviechurch.com — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:00:00 +0100

“Work hard, play hard.” Right?

I don’t care who you are or what kind of business you’re in, you’ve got to have something you do outside of work that you enjoy. You know … a hobby (or something).

For me, it’s my house. I’m sort of a “handy man” and have realized lately that working on the house is not only what I do most of the time when I’m off, it’s something I really enjoy doing. Imagine that!

I think my wife is pretty happy about my hobby choice as well. You know, versus riding a motorcycle, golfing, fishing, or something else like that.

Seriously … as leaders we have to put our computers away, and not answer our cell phones once in a while. I would say sitting on the couch and watching TV is good relaxation as well, but you almost have to have something let's say a little more active you do just for the enjoyment. Right?

What’s your hobby?

Technology and the Church

kevin@moviechurch.com — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 20:00:00 +0100

I have often said that developing a strong Information Technology (IT) infrastructure is a key to helping an organization accomplish its goals. Does this extend to the church? Absolutely!

Where else is accomplishing the goal (mission) more important? While doing some research on the topic of Technology for Executive Pastor Online, I found this post dealing with this topic and how a commitment to strengthening the IT infrastructure directly translates into a church's ability to evangelize.

The stats are a little old but the point is made very well. Read on ...

Ten Evangelism and IT Lessons from One of America's Biggest Churches

How did Dallas' Fellowship Church become America's fifth largest church in less than 15 years?

CTO Terry Storch has the answer: information technology investments designed to attract a new kind of churchgoer that other churches were ignoring.

Who said IT doesn't matter? Certainly not the people running this church.

Every weekend 18,000 to 19,000 people walk through the doors. Thousands more watch on the church's TV or radio shows.

Brian Bailey, Internet technology manager, heard I was in town and invited me over to see the secrets behind this church's massive success. Hey, I'm a technology evangelist and I wanted to see how the professionals do it.

Even before I got in, I could see this church was something different. The only thing visible on the side of one of their two huge buildings, from the freeway, is the church's URL. Even in Silicon Valley I haven't seen that approach taken on a church sign.

Lesson one: make it easy for everyone to learn about you -- on their terms. Coming in the doors I noticed something else: plasma screens everywhere. I felt like I was in a rock concert, or a sports event. That's on purpose, Bailey told me. The church knows it's competing against video games, rock concerts, mass media like ESPN, and sporting events, he said. When the church started, they decided to appeal to a new generation of church goers who feel uncomfortable in the traditional churches most of us attend. So, they invested in video, audio, computers, multimedia, and making the end-to-end church experience better than their competitors. "Our services are a lot like attending a concert," Bailey told me -- he handed me some DVDs so I could check it out for myself.

Lesson two: make it easy to experience your product's special attributes. You'll see this investment in all areas, from the time you walk into the church and are registered by one of the volunteers manning 50 computer stations. Plus, massive investments in audio, lighting, video technology -- this church has an all-digital sound system that is better than many rock shows have.

Lesson three: to get word-of-mouth advertising you need to be remarkable. If you are bringing kids, the volunteer will guide you to the right room (and, will print out a name tag and a receipt that guarantees that only you will be able to take a child out of the classroom). They custom designed the system (yes, it's a multi-tier .NET app written in C# and backed by SQL Server) to be extremely efficient, even in a noisy attrium with thousands of people talking "we only need the last four digits of your phone number," Storch said. Why a phone number? They found that was easier to understand than asking someone to spell their name. The screens are touch-screen and a volunteer can be taught the basics in minutes. Funny enough, though it sounds like it treats visitors like a number, the end result is that each person gets paid attention to and has individual attention that they couldn't get in such a large church without IT investments.

Lesson four: use IT to efficiently get close to your customers and take care of their needs. The atrium, by the way, doesn't look like your traditional church. A baseball or football fan would feel right at home here. In the middle is circular information desk surrounded by eight plasma screens. "The minute the service starts we switch four of them to the service," Storch said. The rest of the time there's a set of information screens that play (different ones on each screen). All high-definition.

Lesson five: if you want to be better, make sure you're better from the first minutes of someone's experience. Speaking of HD, this church was the first in the world to film all of its services in high-definition TV format. They worked with Sony on their HDTV system and, Storch says they learned so much that now the church is consulted on HDTV projects around the world.

Lesson six: if you want to be seen as bleeding edge, invest to be bleeding edge and do so throughout your company. The church's store also uses plasma screens throughout the store to display information and to set the mood. Of course there's WiFi available in the atrium and other parts of the church (not in the main worship hall, though. "We haven't yet pushed the edge there," Storch admits, but says they are looking into it). He said they invested in WiFi because they wanted to give church members a way to hang out at the church during the week and be able to stay in touch with work and family.

Lesson seven: extend the usefulness of your plant. Other IT investments they've made? A sizeable fiber-optic network that was designed to take the HDTV video load, not to mention the church's Web traffic, and other needs (there's computers in nearly every room I toured, including the children's play areas). Plus, they designed the network for future growth -- the church is now working on building satellite campuses that will share video feeds. To do that, they needed to make sure their network would never go down and have a good backbone to allow for future growth. Every system has redundancy, too (there are two digital sound boards, for instance, in case one goes down). Imagine what would happen if the computer system went down on a Sunday with 5,000 people arriving for the next service and trying to get their kids into the right classroom.

Lesson eight: design your systems so they never go down and can expand for future growth. Several years ago, the church almost went with a database back end from Oracle, but switched to Microsoft several years ago because of Microsoft's special non-profit pricing, which saved the church tens of thousands of dollars, Storch said. Plus, they liked the quality, performance, and productivity that they got with Visual Studio and .NET. "We're extremely happy with Microsoft and .NET," Bailey said. How happy? Well, one of their staff members is 15-year-old James Reggio -- he's been programming for more than five years and is working on multimedia applications for the church's TV studio. Amazing kid. I asked him "so, are you the next Bill Gates?" Answer: he has bigger goals. He says that .NET lets him get a lot more done for the church than other programming environments. While most of the computers at this church are running Windows, there are a couple of Macs (their radio show engineer was editing on a Mac when I was given a tour), most of the video is running on a Windows front end, but the back end is an SGI set of computers, along with a stack of computers running Linux that do the hard-core video rendering. "Why did you use Linux for that?" I asked. Storch answered that most the bleeding-edge video rendering apps were designed for Linux.

Lesson nine: don't be religious about technology, choose what gets the job done best for the least amount of money and staff time. By the way, now the church is selling their software that they wrote to run their church. Named Fellowship One, it looks to become as successful in helping churches run themselves as the chu [...]