I am moving to Oklahoma City to regularly volunteer at LifeChurch.tv’s central offices. Specifically, I will be working with LifeKIDS and the Digerati team (the creators of YouVersion, OPEN, ChurchMetrics, and VideoTeaching.com).

My wife and I are very excited about the move. I will still spend much of my time blogging and working on AcreScout.com. LifeChurch.tv is simply a great opportunity for me to weekly invest some hours into exciting projects.

In case you wonder what happened to Bombay Creative, we still do client work, but we have cut back to pursue several internal ventures.

Tony Morgan is a popular church blogger with years of experience from serving at Granger Community Church (Granger, IN) and NewSpring Church (Anderson, SC). The downside of blogging, however, is much of what is written rarely gets read after 36 hours of being published.

Tony writes good content and has brought his best work out of the digital archives and into a new book called Killing Cockroaches. It covers strategy, leadership, marketing, design, team building, worship planning, and more.

If you like Tony’s blog, do yourself a favor and get Killing Cockroaches.

If you need a church property, AcreScout.com is an excellent place to find church real estate. Look for the church building you need or find vacant land for building a church. Here are the latest church properties for sale:

NEW JERSEY

$1,250,000 :: International Church - Four Square Gospel (Mt. Olive, NJ)
12,000 square feet building size
4.3 acres lot size
200+ auditorium seating

Also, be sure to check out AcreScout.com/vacant-land to find the latest vacant land listings. Hopefully, there will be a property that is perfect for your church.

FREE CHURCH PROPERTY ADVERTISING
Do you want Church Relevance to highlight your church property for sale? Well, it is fast, free, and simple.

1. Get your licensed real estate agent to register for a free AcreScout account.
2. Have your agent add your church property to AcreScout’s listings.
3. Church Relevance will periodically highlight and link to the latest church properties for sale on AcreScout.

Dave Gibbons is the senior pastor of Newsong Church, an international multi-site church with 8 campuses located in California, Texas, Mexico, United Kingdom, India, and Thailand. He is an entrepreneur and owns YangDang and Xealot. And he is the author of The Monkey and the Fish.

ABOUT NEWSONG CHURCH

Year Began: 1994
Locations: 8 Campuses – Irvine, CA / Culver, CA / Fullerton, CA / Dallas, TX / Mexico / London / India / Bangkok

10Q WITH DAVE GIBBONS

1Q = What is Newsong Church’s chain of command from the senior pastor to the church volunteers?

The Leadership Team comprised of both volunteer leaders who represent the congregation and support staff guide the church but all under the submission to the Holy Spirit. The congregation affirms major decisions.

2Q = For big decisions, what is Newsong Church’s decision making process?

Depends. The big decisions can originate from our members or from the leaders of the church. But eventually, there is affirmation with Leadership teams, Management teams and the congregation.

3Q = How does Newsong Church market itself?

Mostly word of mouth and via technology.

4Q = What is the most effective thing Newsong Church has done to reach people?

Created an ethos that is dependent upon the Holy Spirit and empowers the people to be the front line of God’s movements locally and globally.

5Q = What is your leadership style?

Intuitive and collaborative.

6Q = Your book, The Monkey and the Fish, discusses third culture. What is it?

Third culture in a word is Adaptation. In two words, Painful Adaptation. The longer definition is “the mindset and will to love, learn and serve in any culture even in the midst of pain and discomfort.”
A short view of this can be found at 3culture.tv.

7Q = What is a Third-Culture Church?

It’s a church that is able to flow with the Holy Spirit, choosing to live out the two great purposes of the church: Loving God and Loving Her Neighbor. The Neighbor though being someone NOT like you even someone you would hate or not want to forgive. It’s a church that chooses obedience over passion  as well as radical sacrifice over comfort.

8Q = How can a church become a Third-Culture Church?

This process is definitely the work of the Holy Spirit! To ask people to enter into pain and suffering, eat foods they don’t like, hang out with people that make you uncomfortable is counter-cultural. I would say the key is for the one who does get it to start living out the third culture life. Personally, before the movement became church-wide, I felt God telling me I had to live it out more intentionally. So my family and I moved out to Bangkok. It starts with leadership and prayer.  As one engages real suffering and poverty, clarity emerges.

As you live out third culture, invite others with you on the journey. I still remember taking a group of friends with me on a third culture vision trip about 5 years ago. We have never been the same. The impact now goes beyond personal to people all over the world. These men embody third culture.

It’s a journey there are many other ideas contained in the book.

9Q = What is the greatest ministry lesson you have learned?

The Primary Task of a Leader is to “build trust and bear pain.”

10Q = What is the best advice you have for church leaders?

Explore the world. Listen, Observe, Ask Questions. Do it now. Then be willing to give it all away to act upon what you experience. The whole time praying, “Father, break my heart with the things that break your heart.”

Be sure to check out Church Relevance’s “10Q” category to read previous 10Q interviews.

Recently, I had the opportunity to discuss the future of church websites over a video conference with Cleve Persinger and the team at The Chapel (Libertyville, IL). I spent some time sharing my thoughts on effective SEO church marketing, and Cleve was kind enough to archive the talk for your enjoyment.
[pardon the rocky audio]

To sum it up, optimize your church website content by using the keywords that are most often searched by the people your are called to reach. You can research these keywords with Google AdWords Keyword Tool.

For Discussion:
- What is your church marketing SEO strategy?

Skye Jethani manages Christianity Today’s Leadership Journal and is a pastor at Blanchard Alliance Church (Wheaton, IL). His new book, The Divine Commodity, discusses how consumerism has affected churches and Christ followers. Upon given the opportunity to ask Skye one question about his new book, I asked:

How can a church best avoid becoming a victim of consumer culture?

His response was:

The short answer is—it can’t. It’s rather like asking how a fish and avoid water or how a snake can avoid getting its stomach dirty. The reality is every person living in the North American culture has been impacted and shaped by consumerism. It is the air we breathe and the bowl we swim in. Therefore, every church is full of members and leaders shaped by the uncontested values and beliefs of consumerism. So, avoidance is not an option unless we abandon our missional calling and retreat to monastic cloisters removed from all popular cultural exposure.

We cannot avoid consumerism, but we can recover from it. This transformation requires processes of deconstruction and reconstruction. This is exactly what The Divine Commodity is about—uncovering how we have all been malformed by consumerism, and how we’ve misconstrued our faith in the process, and prescribing practices (corporate and individual) to reshape us with God’s help into communities that reflect his kingdom more brightly.

My book does not advocate a radical coup within the church or call for a revolution in the church’s structure. It’s not about strategy, systems, or programs. In fact, if nothing ever changes about the way your church operates, you are still able to engage and employ the lessons within The Divine Commodity. I don’t believe we can (or should) overturn our consumer culture. Nor do I believe churches (from the mini to the mega) should just radically revamp their structures. That wouldn’t solve the threat posed by consumerism—it’s a far more elusive foe because the battlefield between consumerism and the Kingdom of God is not external, but within the heart and imagination of every believer.

As consumerism’s grip over you begins to loosen, and you experience the transforming reality of “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” the way you worship, serve, and relate will begin to change. In time, through resources like The Divine Commodity and others, perhaps others will join you in your quest for a richer Christian life. The gospel has always been an incarnate reality, transmitted life to life across the medium of relationship. As this begins to take root within your church, regardless of what the leadership or programming is doing, the message of hope, liberty, and fullness in Christ will spread like yeast through a lump of dough. So, rather than criticizing those still enraptured with Consumer Christianity, save your energy and simply let your life reveal a fuller glory which does not fade.

For Discussion:
- How do you think consumerism has affected the church?
- How do you think a church can best avoid becoming a victim of consumer culture?

The University of Texas School of Public Health recently discovered that middle school sex happens more often than most think. According to their study:

• 1/3 of students experienced precoital touching behaviors
  >> 43% of these students experienced sexual intercourse
• 12% of students experienced vaginal sex by age 12
• 7.9% of students experienced oral sex by age 12
• 6.5% of students experienced anal sex by age 12
• 4% of students experienced all three types of sex by age 12

Among sexually active middle school students:

• 1/3 experienced vaginal or anal sex without a condom within the past three months
• 1/4 had four or more partners

Obviously, this trend is alarming morally. But researcher Christine Markham also states:

These findings are alarming because youth who start having sex before age 14 are much more likely to have multiple lifetime sexual partners, use alcohol or drugs before sex and have unprotected sex, all of which puts them at greater risk for getting a sexually transmitted disease or becoming pregnant.

I think middle school ministry is usually too soft. It is a difficult age to teach because some students are still years away from puberty while others are already beginning to experiment with sex, drugs, alcohol, and porn. Children’s ministers don’t like to touch taboo topics, but when 1 in 3 students are feeling each other up, how can they afford not to?

It takes tact, grace, and wisdom to discuss these things with students without offending or embarrassing them or their parents. It is challenging but worth it. It is much easier for a middle school minister to teach a preventive message than it is for a high school minister to rewire students’ established bad habits.

For Discussion:
- At what age does your church begin approaching tough topics?
- What do you think is the best way to teach tough topics to young students?

If you need a church property, AcreScout.com is an excellent place to find church real estate. Look for the church building you need or find vacant land for building a church. Here are the latest church properties for sale:

NEW JERSEY

$2,750,000 :: St. Casimir’s Convent and School (Riverside, NJ)
5,955 square feet convent size
27,311 square feet school and gymnasium size

Also, be sure to check out AcreScout.com/vacant-land to find the latest vacant land listings. Hopefully, there will be a property that is perfect for your church.

FREE CHURCH PROPERTY ADVERTISING
Do you want Church Relevance to highlight your church property for sale? Well, it is fast, free, and simple.

1. Get your licensed real estate agent to register for a free AcreScout account.
2. Have your agent add your church property to AcreScout’s listings.
3. Church Relevance will periodically highlight and link to the latest church properties for sale on AcreScout.