One my top posts of all-time is 10 Things That Drive Me Crazy About Working for a Church. I had no idea what a nerve I would hit with it when I posted it nearly 2 years ago. It has made rounds around the interwebs and was even featured on The Christian Post. Recently, my friend Tyler Braun asked if he could add to my list. I gladly obliged, so here are 10 other things that drive someone else crazy about working for a church.
All posts tagged REWORK
Quick Update
- Happy Monday! It’s been a few weeks since I’ve done a Monday Mind Dump and I’ve literally been living out of a suitcase. Here’s a quick update…
- The first leg of my journey was to Nashville speaking with Cynthia Ware at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention on innovation in the church. It was great to connect with friends, meet new ones, and an absolute honor to speak at NRB.
- I flew back from Nashville to Chicago for about 16 hours before boarding a flight to Orange County for Catalyst West.
- Catalyst West was incredible. This was my first time going and loved the relaxed nature and smaller crowd compared to Catalyst East. All of my notes from the main sessions are here and here’s an article that I wrote for Pastors.com about the event.
- While at CatWest, the Center for Church Communication hosted our first Meet Up! It was great to connect with other church communications leaders from the SoCal area and share more about the heart and story of CFCC.
- CFCC founder Brad Abare and my fellow co-director Justin Wise and I met for an afternoon of planning about the future of the Center for Church Communication, and I have to say I’m very excited about what’s ahead.
- I made a quick trek back to Chicago before heading BACK to Nashville to hang with my friend Christian do some brand consulting with Oasis Church. There’s some great things going on there and I’m excited to be apart of their journey.
- Also, I managed to squeeze in a quick trip to Birmingham, Alabama, while I was there to see Hillsong United on their AFTERMATH tour. Having seen the United team a number of times, I have to say this was one of the best. With new songs and fresh mixes of some of their favorites, United led us in an amazing time of worship where God’s presence was so evident.
- On Wednesday I did a webinar with Anthony Coppedge and the team at Fellowship One on Proactive Communication for Churches. Read more and check out the audio.
- For some reason I’ve been reading A LOT lately… I’ve recently finished Guy Kawasaki’s Enchantment, Poke the Box by Seth Godin and The Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuck. I’ll be reviewing all three shortly, but if you want my unbiased opinion, Thank You Economy is a must-read for church communicators. Last year my pick was REWORK, this year it’s Thank You.
- I am continually amazed at God’s way of orchestrating things. When Jack Dorsey, co-creator of twitter, spoke at Catalyst West, he said, “It’s not important to be lucky but to cultivate an awareness when fortunate situations arise.” I don’t believe in luck but have faith that we we live our lives in obedience to the Spirit of God’s leading in our lives that God will place us in circumstances and situations that are beyond our comprehension [in a good way!]. I’ve had a few of those moments lately and have decided that there’s no better way to live life but then to be led by the whispers of God… listening for His voice, being led by His Spirit and seeing His presence in our everyday lives. So, back to what Jack said, I think that we need to cultivate an awareness of when God is speaking to us and to be willing to respond. I’m in awe of how God has brought some crazy connections together in my life and am excited to see what happens next.
Top 10 of 2010
Well, since it’s that time of the year for lists…
This year over 200,000 people visited this little blog… thanks for reading, I’m blown away! I posted exactly 189 blog posts [about 1/3 of which were conference notes!], but only 10 could make the Top 10 of 2010!
#10 Decisions
All of our lives are marked by moments of decision. In this post I shared about a step of faith I took in making a decision to leave Park staff without having another job. Fortunately, God provided and I start the new adventure next week!
#9 Stop Speaking in Tongues
It’s not what you think I mean, I’m a charismatic kid at heart. However, many churches are speaking in tongues, using language that’s hard for people to understand. In this post I share some ideas on how to make sure you’re clearly communicating and not leaving people scratching their heads.
#8 What Happened to Wonder?
As my friend Blaine Hogan says, “the artist is the new pastor.” In this rant I share some thoughts on the loss of wonder in churches and the role the arts will play in saving the Church.
#7 REWORK-ing Church Communications
I was honored to do a breakout session at the ECHO Church Media Conference inspired by this post where I shared ideas to help church communications directors rework the way their churches communicate. You can read notes from the session here or grab an audio copy, along with other great content from ECHO 2010 here.
#6 No One Cares About Your Church
Again, the contrarian in me. Synopsis: People don’t trust advertising and definitely don’t like the church, so why do we try and market the Church? I argue that we have to earn the right to be heard. This article was also republished by Catalyst.
#5 Delivering Happiness :: Q&A with Tony Hsieh, Jason Fried, and David Heinemeier-Hansson
As a part of the Delivering Happiness Tour, Tony Hsieh from Zappos.com made a stop at the 37signals offices in Chicago to do a Q&A with 37signals’ Jason Fried and David Heinemeier-Hansson. I was one of 37 lucky people who was able to sit in on the Q&A and I was sure to take some notes! There’s some great insights here on office culture, hiring, customer service, and more.
#4 Willow Creek Association Global Leadership Summit Notes
Ok, so this isn’t an individual post but a collection of all of my notes from the Global Leadership Summit. I was honored to serve with the Willow Creek Association team helping to lead social media and blogging for the Summit. There was some great content from people like Bill Hybels, Jim Collins, Christine Caine, T.D. Jakes, Daniel Pink, and more!
#3 Announcing OUTSPOKEN
Probably one of the big highlights of the year for me personally was announcing the collaborative book project I’m heading up called OUTSPOKEN: Conversations on Church Communications. Over 60 church communications leaders from around the globe are contributing to one of the most comprehensive books on church communication. Release date is Spring 2011!
#2 10 Things That Drive Me Crazy About Working for a Church
Let me be clear: I LOVED working for a church but in this post that was inspired by my favorite book of 2010, REWORK, I shared some of the things that drove me crazy about working for a church. This post went on to be featured on the Catalyst blog, the Christian Post,Monday Morning Insight, and even garnered a counter-post from Tim Stevens of Granger Community Church.
#1 A Different Kind of Demonstration at Gay Pride
With over 106,000 views, 27,000 Facebook “Likes”, and over 1,000 tweets, this post took the prize for #1 by a long shot. In this post, I shared the moving story of a group of Christians who took the streets with during Chicago’s gay pride with a different message… an apology. I also wrote a follow-up to this post, Church Communications Lessons from the Gay Pride Demonstration.
It’s been an amazing year, that’s for sure.
I’ve had some amazing experiences and opportunities and am thankful to have had you join me along the way. Thanks for reading, Liking, commenting, tweeitng, and sharing!!
2010 has been a great year and I am so excited for what’s ahead in 2011!
