Should We Ask Guests at Church to Fill Out Connection Cards?

Do you ask guests to fill out a connection card in your church service?
Growing up in the church, we always had those little cards in the pews or seat-backs. I remember because I spent time in every service making little paper airplanes and passing notes written on the cards.

After graduating from paper airplane manufacturing, while visiting some other churches, I noticed they too had a similar card in their seat-backs. I filled them out occasionally. In most cases, I never heard from the church. In some cases, I heard too frequently.

At Watermarke Church where I lead, we do not ask guests to complete a card or provide us with any information. We do offer a gift at our information tables and specifically welcome guests at the top of our service, but we never ask for anything in return. We don’t publicly recognize them or ask that they identify themselves. For what it’s worth, here are a few reasons we don’t ask guests to complete cards:

6 Ways to Lead a Church When You Don’t Get To Preach

How do you publicly lead a church when you’re a Campus Pastor, not the Senior Pastor?

That’s an ever increasing question. With the rise of multi-site churches, more Campus Pastors are added to leadership circles every day. But leading as a Campus Pastor presents unique challenges. I want to address one of these challenges in this post:

How do you cast vision for your church when you do not preach weekly?

Why Are Christians So Angry?

I couldn’t believe the comments that people posted!

My friends at churchleaders.com recently reposted an article from my blog. They’ve done this a few times. I’m happy to allow them access to anything they believe is helpful. What I wasn’t ready for was the comments that ensued. Wow! I’m glad I have thick skin!

If I remember correctly, I was called a heretic. I believe one person questioned my salvation and even suggested I prayed to Satan. It was suggested that I was ruining God’s church. That was flattering, because I didn’t realize I had that much influence! I engaged with some of the responders, but I quickly realized the futility of open conversation with angry Christians.

How To Ensure Feedback Is Helpful, Not Harmful

Have you ever given great feedback in the wrong way or to the wrong person, virtually negating the feedback in total?
I sure have – like it was my job!

Actually, evaluating and providing feedback IS a huge part of my job. It is an important part of any leader’s job. As a Lead Pastor in a campus location with North Point Ministries, I am constantly evaluating our services, events, and programs. One of our staff covenants is “Make it Better,” so it’s safe to say evaluation and feedback is in our organizational DNA.

While evaluation alone is relatively innocent, the feedback mechanisms that carry our evaluations are ripe for harm – especially if you are a senior leader.

I learned this lesson the hard way a few times (I’m a slow learner). I remember two specifically:

I Start Every Meeting With The Same Question

What happened recently that makes you feel you’re accomplishing your mission and vision?

I love that question. I love it so much I begin every single meeting, lunch, coffee, or gathering at Watermarke with this one question.

At our staff meeting today, I began (as usual) with this question. The answers brought both cheers and tears! Here is a sampling:

One answer involved a brand new unbeliever who had not been to any church in decades. A few weeks ago, she walked into Watermarke for the first time. It just so happened we were launching a new Starting Point group that week, and she decided to give it a shot (you can read more about Starting Point HERE). Her life is changing, and she has not missed a single week of the group! That’s worth celebrating.

Our high school (InsideOut) ministry is at their summer camp. We celebrated how many students and leaders attended this year and what we have already seen happen in some of their lives over the past five days. That’s mission success.

Our elementary team (UpStreet) created an amazing summer competition with our children based on inviting new friends to Watermarke. We shared several of their stories, including some who had invited literally dozens of friends throughout the month of June!

We even shared how a staff member from another campus location came to Watermarke on Sunday morning to help run sound when our sound engineer showed up with a 103 degree fever.
There were several more…

Sure, in every meeting, there are lots of things to cover. And this question can at times take half the meeting. But whether I’m meeting individually with a direct report, with our staff team, or with a volunteer team, I begin the meeting with this one question. Here’s why:

When One Child Changes An Entire Community

Remember Whitney Houston’s song “Greatest Love of All?” The pre-Bobby Brown Whitney. That girl had some pipes!

The song starts with one of the greatest clichés of all time: “I believe the children are our future…” I guess it’s a true statement, even if it’s overused and abused (hence a cliché).

This past week, I traveled to Ecuador with Compassion International. As I left the Atlanta airport (after a 2+ hour delay, of course), I found myself singing Whitney’s song while searching for an open overhead bin for my slightly over packed carry-on luggage.

Compassion International is the real deal. This amazing organization provides hope for children, families, communities, and even countries primarily through their child sponsorship program. They do other things surrounding children, as well (rescuing babies and mothers, developing future leaders, etc.), but the sponsorship program is the flagship of Compassion. You should learn more about Compassion and sponsor a few children. Currently, there are nearly 1.5 million sponsored children around the world. Many more are receiving benefits through the local churches Compassion engages. And many more still need sponsors (hint, hint).

Before I left, I assumed I would experience impoverished communities in the remote areas of Ecuador where Compassion is working through local churches to help individual children. And I did see that. But what I didn’t expect to see was the impact supporting one child has on those surrounding each child.

Setting Our Hearts and Minds on the Things of Leadership

Is there anything that tends to replace Christ in your life as a leader?

Just an early warning – it’s about to get personal (at least for me!). I’ve been processing this idea in my own life a lot lately. It’s a process so by nature somewhat incomplete. Here’s where I’m at today:

Paul, in Colossians 3, provides an important statement about the life of a believer. As a Christian, Paul’s instruction is a beautiful reminder of our new life that is found in Jesus. But I believe it has significant leadership implications – ones that I’ve struggled to maintain at times.

Here’s what Paul wrote to the believers in Colossae:

Colossians 3:1-4 (NIV)
1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

The church has become enamored with leadership. For good reason. Quality leadership is missing in far too many churches around the globe. Yes, pastors are shepherds. Yes, pastors are disciple-makers. But pastors are also leaders, and the church needs more great leaders. Without quality leadership, the church suffers. This will sound blasphemous, but a great leader can grow a church crowd without Jesus. Great leaders can make things happen on their own. Great leaders can attract followers.

Do Deep Messages Impress Your Seminary, but Confuse Your Church?

Why do we tend to over-complicate everything?

It’s not just you. I do it, too. In fact, I do it constantly.

Nowhere more than when I am writing a message. As a communicator and preacher, there’s something in me (and I bet I’m not alone) that intuitively believes a message is only good if it’s deep, layered, and rich. If we were baking a cake, that would be true. But this is a message. The reality is a deep, layered, and rich message might impress an audience or a seminary professor, but it typically doesn’t leave a lasting impression. Worse, it’s not memorable or easily applicable.

I have trouble seeing this in my own messages at times, but as is often the case, what’s difficult to see in the mirror is clear through a window. Recently I was helping a friend write a message. He had a GREAT idea. Very personal. Very helpful. And it was beautifully simple. But there was something in us both that wanted to complicate the content. We wanted to cover every angle and answer every issue.

Luckily, before he and his message hit the stage, we both remembered this basic preaching truth: Simple is better, because simple is digestible and applicable. Again, if you are trying to impress a crowd, go deep, layered, and rich. But, if you want people to understand and apply the truth you spent hours and hours studying and preparing, throw out the cake and work toward simplicity.

Here are a few steps I take when searching for message simplicity:

7 Tips To Encourage Singing in Your Church

Do people in your church sing?

I know you play music and invite them to sing, but do they sing?

This is an important question for a church. Worship is not limited to music, but praising God through song is an element of corporate church that communicates our gratitude toward God and our desire to know him more. Music touches our soul. When effective, music touches the lost soul, too. Music is very emotional. There’s no doubt that worship through singing is an important element in our church services.

But I’m afraid our approach to worship in the modern church MAY have moved worship from participation to observation. It certainly wasn’t our intention. But inadvertently, in our effort to make church more inviting to outsiders, we may have reduced the impact of corporate worship.

So how can you engage more people in worship without losing the ability to connect with current culture and introduce new people to corporate praise?

Here are 7 tips to better engage our churches in worship:

Hiring Part-Time or Full-Time, That Is The Question.

If you could hire a new employee, would you bring on a full-time or part-time staff member?

Until recently, I would have laughed at that question: Full-Time! Who in their right mind would prefer hiring part-time staff if full-time was an option?

– Full-time staff members provide full-time attention.
– Full-time staff members work until the job is done, not until their hours are up.
– Full-time staff members are available when you are available.

While all that is true, when I began evaluating staff options against FTEs (Full-Time Equivalents), I began to see staffing through a new lens. At Watermarke, we hire to attendance ratios and revenue allocations. I’m ultimately not as concerned with total staff members as I am with FTEs. That creates a different perspective, which provides for some new considerations.

For me and our church, organizationally speaking, our primary staff needs revolve around executing Sunday programming. It goes without saying the more bodies on Sunday the better. But, there is a lot of work that happens throughout the week, and more bodies doesn’t necessarily equate to more progress.

So how do you decide between hiring part-time and full-time staff? Here are 5 clarifying questions I use to help our church decide:

1. Do we need more people or more focus?

This might be the most critical question (Although you should read the others, too! Especially number 5). If you need more bodies, hiring two part-time employees over one full-time employee is the best solution. We have done this in many departments at Watermarke to help cover Sunday responsibilities.