wakebird » Consultant

One Thing Makes You Unable To Think

wakebird — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 13:54:00 +0000

It’s weird when you have something on your mind and that makes you unable to think creatively about anything else. That’s how I feel about blogging right now. I haven’t had much to say this week.

As everyone around Calvary Church knows, we have been in a consultant process for the past five months. The “Big Report” is going to be revealed to the elders next Tuesday night for the first time. The consultant has met with three elders and our Sr Pastor, but the big 50 page report will come out next week and the elders will be making recommendations. We are a “elder-ruled, staff-run” church so they aren’t supposed to tell us exactly what to do, but they will make broad recommendations or bigger decisions that staff can’t make. It should be interesting. I know that everyone is either scared about it or just really curious. I’m not scared or anything, but I am hyper-curious and I’m excited to move forward with the vision that God and our leadership have for our church. To be honest, I also wonder how it will affect my areas of ministry.

So it’s big stuff and I think about it a lot. Which makes it hard to have witty posts about other things.

Church Consultant Preliminary Meeting

wakebird — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 13:51:00 +0000

So the church consultant met with us last night and pointed out three areas of description.
1. Strong areas
2. Strong, but needs help
3. Concerns

I probably shouldn’t type everything he said here on the World Wide Web. But I will say a few.

He said Missions, Children’s, Jr. High, Worship Services, supportive members, and our history were our main strong areas. He was very supportive of the Celebration/Elevation services and even said Elevation was “as good as any he has ever seen” in his visits to younger-style worship services. It was weird to hear him commenting on my sermon in front of everyone. I got nervous in my seat when I realized he was going to make specific comments like that!! Yikes!! But it was all good.

He said that High School was strong but needs help and said the main problem is that they don’t have a room of their own. AMEN!! There were others in this area too.

For concerns he pointed out some of our obvious holes like assimilation of visitors, greeting newcomers, directional signs, and a bunch of other stuff we won’t discuss yet.

In three months they bring a more full report after more meetings with Elders, Sr. Leadership, a couple other staff members, congregation questionnaires, and a demographic study of the area.

Church Consultant Tomorrow

wakebird — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 01:10:00 +0000

We have something very interesting taking place tomorrow and the rest of this weekend at our church. We are having a church consultant come and analyze our church to help us be more effective in our big-picture ministry. We are having Gary McIntosh who founded the McIntosh Church Growth Network come with his team. He is also a professor at Biola and has written tons of books on Church Growth, Staffing Issues, Church Strategy, etc. They are going to interview one-on-one almost all (20) of the pastors and directors as well as 10 key administrative assistants. Then they are doing focus groups on Saturday with different segments of the church – lay leaders, regular attenders, people who have been at Calvary less than two years, elders, etc. Then on Sunday they come and observe the services and different ministries. Then they meet with elders and staff to give some preliminary thoughts on Sunday evening. After that, they do some demographic work of the surrounding community and do two different questionnaire surveys to a sample of the congregation – one is on worship services and the other is more general. Then in a few months they go over the complete findings and give us a big report.

It’s kind of a weird deal. My appointment is at 11am tomorrow with Gary McIntosh and it should be interesting. I want to be honest. I want to be real. I want to be kind. I want to not be the complainer. I want to show the things I love and the things that are frustrating. So I will post more thoughts on this after the process.

Oh yeah, and by the way, we have this huge Student Conference at our church this weekend called Planet Wisdom. It’s always a good thing, but a lot of work for us and kind of a pain in some ways. But I’m excited for the kids to grow from it. Mark Matlock, Sean McDowell, The Skit Guys, Addison Road, etc. Should be good. Should be tiring.

Oh yeah, and I preach on Sunday in Elevation with the consultant guy watching – eek!