All posts tagged Innovate Conference

Original or Recycled? :: Tim Stevens

by Tim Schraeder on 09/24/2009 in Innovate 2009, Notes with 1 Comment

For 14 years, Tim’s leadership has helped Granger connect with people who think church is irrelevant. He has done this through the creative blending of architecture, strategy and technology. He’s acutely tuned in to popular culture and is instrumental in balancing operations, building creative teams and inspiring artists to brand each message series and sharpen the weekend experience. He’s the author of the recently released book Pop Goes the Church(popgoesthechurch.com) that asks the question, “Should the Church engage pop culture?” He’s also co-authored the Simply Strategic book series using humor and practical principles to equip churches and ministry leaders. More from Tim: leadingsmart.com

  • Our churches are filled with stories of irreligious people who “sample” what the church is about and eventually make a commitment to Christ.
  • “Baby Christians” get excited and fanatical about their faith.
  • From there, they become “walkers”… people who are close to Christ. The emotion and excitement might have worn off, but they begin to take their own steps in their spiritual journey.
  • “Veterans” learn to be self-feeders… they don’t need church services to help them grow.
  • They are outward focused.
  • This pattern is exactly what the mission of most churches are striving for.
  • Helping people in their spiritual journey.

Why are we so concerned if we “recycle” what other churches have done?

  • We often have a desire to be trendy, cool, hip and original.
  • Sometimes we’re more concerned about being original instead of being effective.

Who Gives a Rip?

  • Who cares whether or not your idea is original?
  • The people in your church do not care.
  • We spend way too much time focusing on if things are original instead of being concerned about whether or not it’s going to be effective in helping people take their next steps towards Christ.

Recycling

  • Granger often looks to other churches and culture to see what’s working and create their own spin on it.
  • When it comes to finding elements for service the question isn’t,”is it original?” the question is, “is it’s effective?”
  • The arts have amazing power.

4 Ways to Use the Arts

Tim shared 4 ways the church can use the arts and examples of how Granger took outside ideas, “recycled” them and made them their own.

  • Use the arts to create buzz. Artistic elements can get people interested in what you’re doing so when they come you can present the truth and they can take a spiritual step.

  • Use the arts to educate. You can use the arts to educate and illustrate points as teaching elements.

  • Use the arts to create tension. In your services you need to present the tension and God’s solution. Often it’s quicker to use the arts to create tension.

  • Use the arts to get people to laugh. Sometimes people just need to laugh. Humor can disarm people and prepare them to hear spiritual truth.

This Isn’t Anti-Original…

  • It’s a celebration of the creative nature of God when people pursue God with their art and do something original.
  • God’s creation didn’t stop on Day 6.
  • When we elevate original over effective the focus moves off of our mission and onto the artist.
  • That’s a dangerous place to be.
  • If it’s effective, keep doing it!
  • The only question we need to be asking is: is it’s effective?

2 Things to Remember…

  • There’s a lot of pressure put on smaller churches… they feel the pressure to be original.
  • If you focus first on being effecitve, God will bring the artists.
  • A lot of our internal angst to be original comes from a place of pride.
  • Pride runs on a stealth level.
  • It doesn’t help the church.

You Don’t Have It All Together and Neither Do I :: Mark Beeson

by Tim Schraeder on 09/24/2009 in Innovate 2009, Notes with No comments
Five ways to describe him: Visionary. Gifted communicator. Committed to Christ. Passionate about his family. And as normal as your next door neighbor (but only if that’s a good thing).  What he does for Granger: No, not everything. He’s the first to admit that. Instead, he focuses on the areas in which he excels (have you heard him speak?) and gives Granger’s leadership team the freedom and encouragement to do what they do best, without micromanaging them. In 1986, Mark and his wife, Sheila, planted the seeds of Granger Community Church in their living room, with fewer than 10 people. Their dream was to reach out to those who weren’t currently attending church for whatever reason and share the truth that they mattered to God. And though it began without fanfare, Granger flourished at a phenomenal rate to become one of the top 30 fastest growing churches in the country. More from Mark: markbeeson.com
There has never been a time like this.
  • There is a new terrain we must nativage together.
  • Today in the world everything you do is instant, global and permanent.
  • Things are instantly captured and sent around the globe and forever there.
  • It’s a new day with new challenges.
  • We wonder what the role and place of the church is around the world and in our local communities.
  • Is there any significance in it at all?
  • Until this generation you needed teachers and masters to learn the craft and trade… today you don’t need a master, mentor or teacher, you’ve got google. You can get knowledge without human touch.
  • That’s never been the case until now.
  • We can get knowledge through the web, but can we get wisdom?
  • The Church is going to have to face one of the great challenges on the horizon… the challenge of technology.
  • We’re going to need a well-defined theology on the value of human touch, material world connection.
  • We are moving into a virtual society.
  • What is the value of incarnation?
  • What is the value of community?
  • It’s important that we leverage new technologies to seek it.
  • Where does the material world weigh in on physical touch and community?
  • If you don’t tweet, text, Facebook or blog, you need to… or you should maybe consider quitting your job.
  • Our business is the people business, so we must connect with technologies that make friends with people we’ve never seen.
  • If we’re going to have moral authority to speak into the lives of others, we need to be engaged and leveraging technologies they are using.
  • If we are going to be relevant today we better figure out what “that” is, how “it” works and what God has to say about it.
  • People today have friends they’ve never met, seen or touched. The definition of community is changing.
  • If we apply good theology to technology we can leverage it for good.
  • If we ignore it we might find ourselves without influence in culture because we can’t even communicate with culture.
  • Our great challenge is to figure out a way to be able to bring people together in creative fashion to bring the love of God to the world.
  • We should pray, regularly and continually.
  • As our culture changes, we need to build teams to communicate and connect so that Christ is glorified and everyone knows who He is… that He is Lord and King.
  • These innovations are so critical and we’re going to have to understand to get done what we need to get done, we need to collaborate and build teams.
  • We need to bring different people together around different projects to bring God glory.

Exposed… How it Really Is.

  • Exposed. Being exposed is threatening for many of us because we are in pain.
  • There are moments of difficulty and pain that can grow you and stretch you like never before.
  • In your valley, know we have all been there.
  • Time have been tough and this has been a challenging season.
  • You’re not alone.

Building Teams

  • Every one of you who is trying to build a team… how do you make a team out of people that are so different?
  • That’s what God is calling us to do.
  • He calls us to take people He’s brought to us and bring them together.
  • What do you do to build a team?
  • There are things that weave teams together… our mission, vision, values that we share.
  • Our mission weaves us together.
  • Our vision holds us together.
  • Our values bind us together.
  • It all creates unity.
  • Unity is not uniformity.
  • Everyone has a past… what you see isn’t always what you get.
  • Everyone has momentum. What’s behind it and what’s pushing people?
  • The laws of physics apply to humanity as well.
  • People need an outside force to change their course.
  • Sometimes all people need is clarity. Clarity on the mission, vision and values.
  • Specify the mission, vision and values of your local church.

2 Questions to Ask…

  • WHY should people go to church?
  • WHY do I think people should come to my church?
  • If you can’t answer that, you might need to rethink why people need church at all.
  • Is what we’re doing worth people changing their course for?

Teammates

  • When we all agree on the mission, vision and values, it creates a team.
  • We say, “I’d like to do this with you…”
  • Most people spend more time interacting with their teammates than with you, the leader.
  • If you have a bunch of knuckleheads around you that can’t play well with others… good luck finding people to join your team.
  • There’s no value in collaborating with people who can’t collaborate.

We have to understand that every group is a free association or a covenant community.

  • Free association society is something you are born into. You didn’t earn it.
  • This culture, has been for the church, favorable.
  • We’ve had people born in the culture that have had a bent toward the values we teach.
  • You can’t enter into a covenant community until you commit to it.
  • To get into the community you have to learn about it.
  • The Church in America free association… it’s not a covenant community. That’s why it’s been decline.
  • It’s become a free association culture in the church.
  • The early church never knew this. They were required to keep a covenant.
  • We’ve failed to insist on teaching covenant.
  • Anything goes and community has been lost… it can only be recovered by people who will do covenant.

To a world where anything goes, we’re inviting people to covenant community. Where people are known and loved, valued and cherished, and know God’s purpose for their life. And then they are able to invite people into the fabric of God’s Kingdom.

Exposed :: Innovate 2009

by Tim Schraeder on 08/10/2009 in Just For Fun with No comments

Granger Community Church is hosting their annual Innovate Conference coming up on September 24-25.

I’ve gone to Innovate three times now and each time have walked away completely blown away and inspired by my time there.

You can go to a lot of conferences and walk away with some great ideas but have no idea what your next steps are or how to make change happen in your own church… but one of the great things that the team at Granger does is not only show you the “what” but the “how” and the “why.”

One of the huge benefits of going to Innovate is that you’re not only getting a great experience, you’re practically equipped and get a behind-the-scenes, stripped down look at how Granger makes things happen. And from the looks of it, this year is going to be awesome…

Innovate is an incredibly valuable team experience… you can bring your whole team to hear general sessions then go to specific breakouts related to various areas of your church… your communications people can hear from Kem Meyer, Mark Waltz and his team can talk to your volunteer leaders and First Impressions people… Rob Wegner can talk to your missions people… Tim Stevens can talk to pastors… and many more.

Are you getting the idea yet? If you need more convincing, check out ALL of the sessions from last year’s conference online!

So here’s the deal.

You want to go?

I’ve got 2 sets of 2 tickets to give away… and thanks to my friends at Jarbyco, you can text to enter to win!

Text GrangerTix to 47201 for your chance to win!

Two winners will be randomly selected on Friday.

You’ll need to cover your own transportation and hotel while you’re there, but you’ll get 2 tickets to Innovate and get to have lunch with me at the conference.

Fire away, RT it, and good luck!

Congrats to the winners and thanks to all who entered!

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