Visit Other Churches!

Yesterday, I took the Sunday off and visited Elevation Church and on my way home I stopped in at New Spring.

It was a GREAT decision!

Show me a church that is growing, fresh, alive, and got it going on and I will show you a church where the pastor has taken the time to miss a Sunday and visit and learn from other churches!

Show me a church that is stagnant, going through the motions, hasn’t changed in 2 years, and has lost a little something over time and I will show you a church where the pastor isn’t taking time to miss a Sunday and visit and learn from other churches!

God is doing some awesome things in His church and you are doing yourself and your church a disservice by not getting away and learning from others.  I left with 2 pages of notes from Elevation yesterday and even though I have been to New Spring a dozen times, I left with new thoughts, new ideas, and some things I want to change.

Seeing how others do their set-up, signage, children’s area, lobby areas, order of service, etc. is priceless.

I find that when I feel RSC is getting stale and going through the motions is when I have not been out learning and seeing how others are doing it.  I am not trying to reinvent the wheel here, I am just trying to impact my community and the most effective way is to watch others and see how what they do applies to us here at The Stone.

If you are a pastor, get out of your church world and realize that there are others out there doing awesome things and go see it for yourself and learn how to make your church more effective.

I even want to learn from those who are younger and smaller then us.  As much as I love Willow, Saddleback, Fellowship, and North Point, I am learning some of my greatest ideas by watching so many of the upcoming churches that are out there.

I will never forget a year ago when we had Troy Gramling in our morning service.  He was on vacation and stopped in because they were launching sites in movie theaters.  Here is the pastor of one of the largest churches and fastest growing churches in America and he is at our place learning.  Are you freaking kidding me?

Just this week, Shawn Lovejoy called me and was going to be in our service because he wanted to see how we do things.  That is one of the reasons his church is growing, because he is always learning.

Leaders are learners and you learn by taking time off and seeing what others are doing.  Those who don’t lose their edge and I can give you examples of those all day long.