Pastorpreneur

And God Came Down...

Wow.  It has been an amazing week.  Monday of this week, I was with my friends at Bayside Church working on a number of initiatives related to Thriving Churches.  I'll have more to report on that later.

After being part of staff worship on Tuesday, I traveled and spent Tuesday and Wednesday with Tim Avery, Phil Ling, and about 25 pastors from across the country at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in Charlotte to talk about the present and future of evangelism in the US.  

Thursday and one half day Friday were spent in leadership meetings.  Friday afternoon and evening were spent with family and football practice.  Saturday morning was lazy (and refreshing!).

THEN, the weekend happened.  GOD CAME DOWN....at CVC, the church I'm priviledged to lead, we had an amazing final weekend to our "Essentials" series.  I don't have a video link for you...if we do decide to post it, I'll will add it here.  We did "Cardboard Testimonies" as a finale to our Essentials teaching series...probably 25-30 people on our stage at each service sharing their before and after story of God's work in their lives.  Then...at least a FEW HUNDRED people responded by putting their own stories in the chest as an act of response at the end of the service.  Massive Kudos to Sunny Cain,   Tina Temple,  Mark Marsella and   Evan Jones for doing the heavy lifting that make the Cardboard testimonies experience really work.

God continuing on the move.  Can't wait to see what He does this week!   

Ministry and Book News

Some fun staff happening on the ministry and book side of the ledger!  Here are 3 fun things:

1)  Carson Valley Christian Center, the church we started about 10.5 years ago is experiencing some amazing God things right now.  We are having powerful weekend services during our teaching series, "Essentials", and an outbreak of God just rocking people's worlds.  Then, we just launched Equip U with 3 different tracks:  Foundations, Family, and Freedom.  God at work in all the classes.  Plus, we are having strong participation in our growth groups and other studies taking place.  Yeah God!

2)  I am consolidating all my "outside CVC" activities and partnering with my dear friend, Ray Johnston of Bayside Church to establish a new organization called Thriving Churches International   When you visit the website now, you'll see the Thrive 2009 conference.  Much more to come.  This is really a great priviledge to be part of and watch God work to develop thriving churches with a passion for Outreach, Spiritual Growth, and Leadership Development.

3)  On the book front...WOW!  God is on the move...here are 3 things happening in the next few weeks:

I have about 3 books coming out in the next two months and God seems to be super-charging the environment for them.  You can get all these at my Pastorpreneur website.  And, listed below are Amazon links for those that are in the release process. Anything you can do to help me get the word out is GREATLY appreciated.

1) After a year in paperback release, Leveraging Your Leadership Style is being re-released in hardback for the marketplace.  HUGE opportunity here to reach into the workplace environment with this helpful and manageable resource (yes, it is small on purpose!).

2) Leveraging Your Communication Style is also coming out in hardback in October.  Since public speaking and team conflict are such big fears and realities, I think this book will serve to equip LOTS of people in their work and ministry lives.

 

3) God-Size Your Church will make, I believe, a significant contribution to leaders struggling with the numerical growth/discipleship issues of church leadership and will equip readers with barrier breaking tools. 

 

If you want copies of any of the above in bulk for ministry use, contact me directly at john@cvcwired.com and Ill get you the cheapest possible price on quantity.  THANKS!

Staff Time

We have an Executive Team of 7 people at the church where I serve as the Founding and Senior Pastor (CVC). Last week we had a very cool time away for about 27 hours. During that time we...

Ate

Played (and previewed Northstar at Tahoe's wonderful growth and facilities )

Studied & Prayed

Played some more (are you wondering who bowled a 200 game after not having bowled for 6 years..and promptly followed that up with a 135 game to keep me (oops!) humble....)

Talked and Prayed

Ate some more

Talked, Prayed, Worshipped until midnight

Talked and prayed some more

Ate some more and talked some more

During our time together, I said that I felt like we were "weaker and healthier than ever".  That is a really hard thing for my personality (I always want to be stronger and going further than everyone else).  But, I really am trying to live in the peace of where He has us...and move aggressively when He says to.  And sit still when  He says to.  And walk slowly when He says to.  It's hard though.

Probably the best staff retreat we have ever had in the past 11 years....good times with a Gracious Father and a team that is united around Him.

Essentials Teaching Series

At my church (CVC), we are in a new teaching series we called, "Essentials".  That series is based on an experience/growth process that I went  through in 2006 called, "Restoring the Foundations".  The first week we talked about the importance of a solid foundation and the competing worldviews out there, the second week we talked about "First Things" where I shared the 4 key prayers of CVC for people:

God wants you saved

God wants you grounded

God wants you healed

God wants you equipped

These last two weeks have been really awesome as we have had opportunity for people to make decisions about Christ (18 decisions last weekend) as I talked about the fact that we are all "downstream" of our past (and "upstream" of our kids and grandkids) with the promise that you can be:

MORE FREE OF YOUR PAST THAN YOU EVER DREAMED POSSIBLE

and then when had people praying at all services this weekend as I taught about the Ungodly Beliefs that often affect all of us, with the truth that:

WHAT YOU BELIEVE CAN HURT YOU MORE THAN YOU KNOW.

God has been on the move and we are seeing great things!  The weekends, many of our home groups, Bible Studies, and ministry teams, and Equip U are all starting to show signs of health.  It's exciting! 

For the Love of the Fall Vortex...

I think ministry has rhythms.  Synchronicity in those rhythms is a cool deal.  So here is my basic take on the typical annual ministry rhythm that I try to align our preaching and ministry resources towards at CVC (recognizing that there is no such thing as a "typical" year)

January-February:  MONSTER KICK OFF and energy season.  Many people open to new disciplines, new focus in their lives.

March-April:  EASTER focus and huge outreach potential.  INVITE season to be sure

May-June...Finishing well, Mother's Day, and preparing for summer.

July-August...Summer...we live in a high intensity recreation area (15 miles from Lake Tahoe) so we tend to utilize special events and special series during this season

September-November...FALL KICK-OFF...back to routines...my experience is that Fall is a "double clutch" season with an initial kick-off in September and then a second kick-off in October.  People are ready for depth and focus during the fall.  No matter if you are in a year round area or not (like we have been), the traditional calendar still rules.  People will do depth during the fall and they are ready for it. 

Thanksgiving-December 31...Holidays, stress, fast paced, family (or absence of it), power of story, power of mystery.  Christmas Eve equalling or surpassing Easter as an Inviting opportunity.  My colleagues at Bayside Church see Christmas Eve as a major outreach experience and they plan accordingly.

So...that's my sense of the yearly ministry rhythm....match up with yours or is your sense different?

Books and MORE books!

Sometimes it seems like I go in spurts..or that things end up coming to fruition in spurts.  That is certainly the way it has been with my writing of books.  If you'd like to see a complete set of books that I have or are in process of coming out, you can visit my Pastorpreneur Website.  If you want to order any book in bulk (10 or more), please contact me at john@cvcwired.com and I'll hook you up with a special deal!

By way of review, here are books that I have already written and released or will be released shortly.  I'll be posting more about them individually in the near future:

Pastorpreneur is the book I wrote for pastors and marketplace leaders to be entrepreneurial about reaching their communities for Christ.  You can find it at Pastorpreneur or at   Amazon.  If you are interested in bulk purchase for ministry or classroom use, check out our bulk purchase options for Pastorpreneur here for 10 copies and  here for a case of 26 copies.   Both of these prices are at VERY STEEP discounts to retail costs. 

Leveraging Your Leadership Style will equip you to understand your style and that of your team members.  You can find it at Pastorpreneur or at Amazon

Leveraging Your Leadership Style Workbook gives specific and practical tools to help your workplace or ministry team understand and apply LYLS.  You can find it at Pastorpreneur or at  Amazon

Leveraging Your Communication Style will be released this month!  I'm excited about this companion volume to LYLS; both it and LYLS will be in hardback--look for them at Barnes and Noble, Borders, or you can find it a Pastorpreneur or at  Amazon

God-Size Your Church will be released in October.  This book is a great resource for all pastors and church leaders who want to see their church reach more people AND be spiritually healthy.  It chronicles much of what we have learned at CVC in what I call versions 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0.  Much of what I have done in seminars regarding church growth barriers and church health is found here.  You can PRE-ORDER at Pastorpreneur or at Amazon

 Finally, you can still find copies of High Impact Church Planting , which tells the story of how we planted CVC and principles we learned,  at Amazon

  

The Presence of God in Worship...

Flat out, God showed up at CVC this weekend!  We started our series called, "Essentials" last week and this week I gave people a chance to respond for forgiveness and freedom.  We had 7 first time decisions in Minden, and 11 rededications.  We probably had about 30 people total who raised their hands, but the 18 are those who specifically visited the table.  At our Dayton campus we had 7 who went to the table, but about 18 who raised their hand.

Our Worship Teams did an "all sing" with most of the vocal team members participating and it was very powerful.  The presence and power of God were very real and I know that many people sensed His movement!