GREAT post over at Terry Storch’s blog. It is so easy for church planters to do exactly what he is talking about. What is it that he is talking about? Click here to find out. I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

I am very blessed to have some great planters who have invested in my life and ministry with great wisdom. One of these men was Shawn Lovejoy, the pastor of Mountain Lake Church in Cumming, Ga. Shawn truly has a heart for church planters and has been a great ear for me on a couple of occasions.

Before we started Ridge Stone, we were taking our core group to visit other churches where they could get a vibe for what we were doing. I will never forget when we visited MLC because Shawn said something that I never forgot and have clung too a lot lately.

He looked at me in front of my core team and said, “Gary, the best advice I can give you is to be mean about your vision. Do not compromise even if these people here with you today want you too. Be mean.”

As of this week we have lost almost our entire core team since we started. It hurt and I love these people but one by one they have left. Our church has not noticed and we have continued to grow at a rapid rate but nevertheless it is frustrating that after a year of planning and 8 months of doing it, that they didn’t get it.

They never got the fact that it wasn’t about them. They said they wanted to reach unchurched but that wasn’t true. These people were my friends and we dreamed together but when they wanted the vision to change, I remembered those words that were spoken to me by Shawn.

It hasn’t been easy, but I have chosen to be mean about the vision here. I think that is another reason we have seen success.

I think church planters tell people what they want to hear and when those people start trying to get you to change to fit their needs for a church, we are so afraid of losing them, that we change the vision to keep them. That never works.

If God called you to plant, be mean about the vision God has given you. Don’t change it, don’t compromise it, be mean about it and God will bless it.

I can’t hide it anymore. At least I can’t, if I want to write this article for the blog. I’m a redneck. I prefer postmodern redneck, but really what I am is a high-tech redneck. As such, I spent today at the Nascar race in Atlanta. It was actually a Busch race. Nascar is huge business. Matter of fact it is the second most popular spectator sport in the world! As I was walking around the track today, I can’t help but notice some of the things that I thought were working to make this sport transition from a small time southeastern sport into a huge international sport. As I was thinking about these things, they struck me how Nascar gets “it” a lot better then we the church do.

So I thought I would share some RANDOM thoughts. These are just some things I thought the church should pick up and are in no particular order.

1.) NASCAR GETS MARKETING
The first thing you notice when you get to the track is the acres of souvenir trucks. They literally sale anything you could want with your favorite driver and their sponsor. I could buy shirts, bags, hats, cozies, die-cast cars, baby clothes, bandanas, bumper stickers, etc. The funny thing is Nascar fans PAY the companies to advertise their stuff. As I was walking around, I couldn’t help but notice how saturated Dale Earnhardt Jr. stuff was. Every where I turned I saw his stuff. It got me to thinking about our advertising in the church. To most new churches, bulk mail is our ticket. If it works, we get a crowd. But how effective is it? The number don’t lie, it isn’t that effective. The average mailer costs about $6,000 with postage. What if we spent that $6,000 on shirts, hats, window clings, baby clothes, etc.? In a town like ours, if we did that, you would see our name everywhere. Would that be more effective? It might not draw the large one time crowd but I do think long term we would see much better results. People would begin to learn our names because everywhere they would turn, it would be there.

2.) NASCAR GETS BRANDING
Not only do they get marketing, they get branding. There were 42 drivers running today. Yet it was very easy for me to tell the fans and the cars apart due to the image they had put together. From their company logos, to the font they used for their number, to their color, they all had their distinct brand. Church plants and churches don’t much money to spend on marketing. That is why branding is that much more important. Have a logo created and use the logo and colors until you are ready to scream. Get that image in their mind. Make sure your advertising all has the same vibe.

3.) THOSE WHO SHOULD WIN DO AS WELL AS THOSE WHO SHOLDN’T
There were some big dogs in the race today. There were guys with big time money and big time equipment. However, the mom and pop guys fared just as well. In racing anyone can win. You never know who is going to crash or who is going to blow an engine, so the “little” guys keep on keeping on. The same is true for church planting. We think those with the most money or most people before starting have the greatest success. Fact is, that isn’t true. In the town I pastor in there have been two heavily funded church plants in the last few years. Both were lead by “superstar” planters and had strong backing. One has closed down and the other is doing very little compared to what was expected. My point is not that I want to see anyone fail, however I do want guys to do what God has called them to do regardless of how much money they raise or how many people they have. Do what God called you to do and let him worry about the rest.

4.) NASCAR KNOWS THEIR DEMOGRAPHIC
It is very clear that Nascar is targeting a certain lifestyle. Notice, I didn’t say a certain age. There were people there from babies to 90 year old people. However, Nascar knows that its demographic for the most part is blue-collar to low white-collar people and they cater to those people. They aren’t trying to be something they are not. Church planters and pastors need to learn this. We are not called to be something we are not. LEARN your area more then anyone else. I get asked a lot what I see as the #1 reason behind our success. Besides God, I think it is because we are Canton, Georgia. I fit the area and I know the area. I love North Point and Fellowship but everything they are doing will not work in my area. I eat the meat and throw away the bones. I use what I think will work in my town and do it. What I don’t think will work, I try something new until I figure out what will work. Before trying to build a church, get out and learn your area. Figure out who you are going to be able to reach and be yourself.

5.) THE NASCAR COMMUNITY COULD TEACH THE CHURCH COMMUNITY SOMETHING
I watched people today who were really great guys. I expected it to be a bunch of drunks running around acting like fools. However, I watched 100,000+ people sit in traffic, stand in long lines, and never lose it. They talked about interests and talked about families and talked about jobs. They were some of the nicest people I have ever talked too. You can’t say that about most Christians and most churches.

6.) THE NASCAR DEMOGRAPHIC IS WIDE OPEN
You would be surprised who in your neighborhood is a Nascar fan. They are not the white collar boomers everyone is trying to reach. They are not the artsy pomo crowd everyone is on a kick about. They are just the average Joes. They are the majority. They are people who need people like us to keep planting churches that are doing things in creative ways and creating environments where they can hear God loves them.

Will I go to another one? I don’t know.

But I do think we can learn something from their success.

They are few and far between but there is a good thread going on at Pastors.com. The thread is talking about insecure leaders. I think this is something many of us struggle with. God has blessed me with a very good staff. I am thankful for them and I am excited when they receive praise from others but, that is something I have had to grow into. I have a great admin. pastor who does a GREAT job teaching. Our people love him and the first time he taught I hate to admit it but, I struggled with that. I know that is bad but, I am being honest. He has since taught many times and I am thankful that our people have someone else who can teach and I can get a break. As pastors and planters, we cannot be insecure. We don’t always have to be the one who gets the praise. Matter of fact, I love it more when the people at RSC praise my staff. They make me look good by all they do.

In the thread on p.com, Dan Southerland posted his thoughts on if you are an insecure leader. Here is his list to check yourself out with:
Insecure leaders:
1. Take all the credit.
2. Take none of the blame.
3. Surround themselves with “yes” men.
4. Surround themselves with less gifted staff.
5. Have to be in charge.
6. Have to keep their hand in everything.
7. Have to know everything that is going on.
8. Rarely take risks.
9. Rarely have intimate friends.
10. Need to leave ministry and go sell life insurance.

I don’t know about you but there was a time when that would have hurt me to read.

I wrote earlier about plaxo and what a valuable tool it has been for me. I made my staff all download it and they are loving life. I again say that I think it is hard for planters to be organized. It isn’t in our DNA. Therefore I have taken steps to do all I can to continue to be organized. I recently received a Kyocera 7135. It has taken a while to get use too but I LOVE it. It is so nice to have all of my contacts and appointments in my phone! The Kyocera is a HUGE phone and I am not a fan of that but, it serves its purpose. They make much smaller ones but I wanted the stylus because I am not the smarter when it comes to technology. There are some things I am learning you can’t skimp on and getting organized is one of those things. I download all of our new contacts every Monday to my phone and throughout the week I am able to send e-mails to them as I have time. That is nice!

One of the areas I have really had to evaluate since starting a church is the area of staff. I have made some major mistakes that have probably hindered us. When parting ways with staff, it is never easy and it is rarely pretty. As leaders, we must shield our people from a lot of the information we know. In our cases, there were major problems going on yet to the church everything was fine because I made sure that is what they saw. So when it came time to part ways, our staff decided to take the high road and say nothing negative. That isn’t easy when you are having things said about you. We had people upset and I have to admit, it felt very lonely. I never could put that into the right thought process until this morning when I read Bruce Johnson’s blog. Bruce is the pastor of Seneca Creek Community Church. I enjoy his blog a lot and he touched on this very subject today. For a good read, click here.

This story stuck out to me the most:

Back when I was in seminary in California, there was a major battle being fought between two groups of leaders at the seminary. Since I happened to know the leaders on both sides of the battle, i felt caught. I had information that others didn’t have. Yet it was also, confidential information that i couldn’t share with anyone else. So, one day as I was walking across the campus green, I mentioned to the Vice-President of the seminary my predicament. And his response to me was one I have never forgotten. He simply said, “Loneliness is the price of leadership no one tells you about.” And he was right.

We are gearing up for Easter! This is our first Easter so we really don’t know what to expect but we are pulling out the stops. Due to the fact we have so many people serving on Easter morning, we decided to do a Saturday night service for our workers. Well…my wife always says I can’t do anything small, so instead of it being just for the workers, I opened my mouth on stage and pushed it hard, not know what to expect. Well, our people have done their thing and it looks as if we will be having a good crowd on Saturday night. I’m stoked and looking forward to see how Saturday night goes. If Saddleback, Fellowship, North Point, and all the other Mega churches can have services all weekend, we should be able to pull off two. I am excited.

I think young pastors (I’m 28) and church planters often times make huge mistakes in pastoring and planting because they do what THEY think is cool and not what will connect with their community. I always laugh when I see people trying to do postmodern stuff in boomer communities and they wonder why they aren’t seeing success. Terry Storch has a great article about this.

This quote stuck out to me:
Designers get exited about design they like. This is bad. You must bust out of your design zone to meet the requirements of the customers/clients.

Don’t worry about what you think is cool. It isn’t about you at all, it is about your community and doing what connects with them.

Most church planters are big vision guys (especially the ones who make it). However, most of us are not detail people and we are not very organized. Start being organized from the start and it will save you a lot of headaches down the line. This week I discovered Plaxo. Now I am not a computer gadget guy but I love this thing. I automatically syncs with your outlook contact list and keeps them updated without you having to do anything. This is a must for church planters or pastors who need to stay organized.

I have the privilege of being part of the PDC Coaching network for Church planters. I meet once a month with Nelson Searcey who pastors Journey Church in New York City. I have to admit, I don’t always like what is said but I always leave challenged and under conviction that we can improve what we are doing. After being in the network, I don’t think a man should plant without being in one. It has been invaluable. It costs something but, sale your coat to pay for one if you have too. It is worth it. We had our meeting today and hit on the subject of service planning and marketing.

It was brought up that we as planters spend too much time marketing when really it is only 30% of getting people in the door. Over 70% of the people who come to church come because a friend invites them. We place a large emphasis on both but I tend to agree with the comments made about marketing.