In the big picture, a toolbox with all hammers isn’t very effective. You can hit nails, pry, and not much more. A good toolbox has hammers, wrenches, files, and screwdrivers. It has a drill, some pliers, and plenty of other tools.

So why do so many churches try to be a hammer?

Eugene Cho of Quest Church (Seattle, WA) recently blogged about the pursuit so many churches have to be a megachurch. He states:

Megachurches only comprise 1% of the churches in North America. But then why do the majority of the conferences revolve around the megachurches and their pastors?

I think megachurches and their leaders are doing phenomenal ministry.  I really do.  But we’ve elevated this 1% as the epitome and face of a successful ministry and created a machine of conferences, publishers, books, and networks based on this very limited expression.

Craig Groeschel of LifeChurch.tv (Edmond, OK) puts it this way:

In order to reach people that no one is reaching, you will have to do things that no one is doing. But in order to do things that no one is doing, you can’t do what everyone else is doing.

We each have a unique God-given calling, but many of us want to live the calling of  the ministers in the limelight. Likewise, each church has a unique God-given calling, but too many churches distract themselves by pursuing the calling of famous megachurches. Consider how 1 Corinthians 12 reads when substituting church terms:

The Church has many different parts, not just one part. If the house church says, “I am not a part of the Church because I am not a megachurch,” that does not make it any less a part of the Church. And if the rural church says, “I am not part of the Church because I am not a gigachurch,” would that make it any less a part of the Church? If the whole Church were a gigachurch, how would you reach rural areas? Or if the whole Church were a rural church, how would you reach urban areas?

But the Church has many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. How strange the Church would be if it had only one part! Yes, there are many parts, but only one Church. The gigachurch can never say to the megachurch, “I don’t need you.” The Internet church can’t say to the church plant, “I don’t need you.”

In fact, some parts of the Church that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary.

To clarify, I do think it is good to study successful churches when the principles learned are considered within the context of your church’s unique calling. And I do believe that good ministry typically grows churches. However, some of the greatest ministries have the smallest numbers. Sometimes small is needed to be effective. Sometimes huge is needed.

I recommend that you study them all. Learn from megachurches, house churches, rural churches, and the rest.

Above all else, never lose focus of staying true to your church’s purpose. If God wants you to be a hammer, be a hammer. If God wants you to be a wrench, be a wrench.

[Photo credit: dipster1]

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.

One of the most intriguing and challenging books for me in recent years is Shane Hipps’ Flickering Pixels. It takes a fascinating look at how media affect content and faith. It is a bit of a big concept, so I will use some of Shane’s words to give you a glimpse of what is all about.

It is commonly assumed that as long as we protect the unchanging message of the gospel, the method of communicating doesn’t much matter.

The logic is pretty straightforward. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make it true.

If the first truth is that our methods necessarily change, the second truth is whenever our methods change, the message automatically changes along with them. You can’t change methods without changing your methods - they’re inseparable.

Throughout the book, Shane discusses the complexities of how the medium affects the content and the audience. For example, Shane writes:

Images focus our attention on the realm of cosmetics. Often, it is for the sake of showcasing beauty and talent.

The radio returned our culture to the experience of the tribal campfire with its shared stories, songs, and banter.

The Internet has a natural bias towards exhibitionism and thus the erosion of real intimacy.

Printing put the left hemisphere of the brain on steroids.

If you communicate with people through any medium, you need to understand the pros and cons of that medium and how it influences your communication. You are just as much responsible for the medium you choose as you are for the words you use (or whatever content you communicate).

Sometimes blunt, crude words are the only things that can shock a person out of a rut and motivate him to improve to the next level. This four-part blog series is for the church worker who needs such forthright words.

What if you die today? Would you be pleased with your legacy?

If the answer is “no,” then you need to figure out how to change it. Life is short. Some of us need to increase our tempo. Some need to act instead of waiting for tomorrow. Some need training. Some of us are doing everything right, but we need time to achieve it. You need to take care of your body by eating right and working out so that you will have that time.

Is there anything distracting you from pursuing your purpose?
Is anything slowing you down?

At the same time, some of us need to be patient, wait for God’s timing, and not ruin things by forcing it on our own. You know the answers to these questions.

For Discussion:
- How do you keep yourself effectively working on a legacy?

Stay tuned for more crude words.

Read Part 1 - You Deserve to Go to Hell
Read Part 2 - You Will Die Unless…

Sometimes we create easy-to-use yet complex systems to work around the Bible’s difficult-to-do yet simple mandates.

In children’s ministry, teaching good spiritual truths is the essential foundation. It is the basics. So if your children’s ministry already has the basics covered, here are four areas of children’s ministry excellence that will make you more effective and efficient.

#1 - KNOW (Rules, Culture, & Science)
You need to know your church’s rules for children’s ministry. In other words, you need to know the policies, procedures, and what is expected of you. And of course, you should follow the rules, too. Examples:

• Your church may have a policy for no food in the classroom other than a preapproved snack. Disregarding that policy may evolve into a situation where a child with allergies eats some food he finds and must be rushed to the hospital.
• Your church may require all volunteers to wear official uniforms and identification badges. Disregarding that policy may make the ministry seem less professional or secure to some parents. And regularly disregarding it, may create a security vulnerability that entices a child predator (rare but it has happened).

You should also know the cultures of the kids you are responsible for teaching. You should not only know where the cultures are now, but you should know how the cultures are evolving. Discover the answers to these questions:

• What TV shows, music, and family traditions drive the kids I teach?
• How do these influences change how these kids behave and think?

And know the science behind how kids learn. It does not matter whether you take care of babies or teach middle school students, there are things you can learn to help you better reach them. Examples:

• Nursery workers can become better by studying things like the Dunstan Baby Language, the 5 S’s, Baby Signs, or the latest research studies on educating babies. Read more>>
• Boys interpret the world as objects moving through space. Therefore, a teacher of all boys should move around the room constantly and be that object. But girls work well in circles, facing each other. Using descriptive phrases and lots of color in overhead presentations or on the chalkboard gets girls’ attention. Read more>>

#2 - IMPROVE (Yourself & the Ministry)
All you need to do to improve yourself is push yourself to do a better job than the week before. Always be looking for ways to improve what you do. This month should be better than last month. And this year should be better than last year.

It is also important that you work to improve the children’s ministry as a whole. Create a system for feedback and be sure everyone uses it. The volunteers in the trenches are the ones who best know what is needed, what works, and what does not work.

#3 - DUPLICATE (Yourself)
Imagine if God suddenly called you to a different role in ministry, would there be a replacement that could instantly do the same job as well or better than you?

If you are a leader, you need to always be “working yourself out of a job” by teaching those you lead how to do what you do. You are duplicating yourself but not cloning yourself. Others need to be able to achieve the same results or better but through their own God-given mix of talents and strengths. Read more>>

#4 - STICKINESS (Lessons & Relationships)
A study by the United States Air Force discovered that we forget 95% of what we hear within 72 hours. So how do we get our lessons to stick?

I believe that as long as you have the basics covered and are teaching quality spiritual truths, adding some “wow” factor to your ministry significantly helps a lesson to stick. Without quality teaching, you are wowing for the sake of “wow,” which is superficial and often fleeting.

I still remember spiritual lessons from my childhood that were taught with the “wow” of throwing darts, flash paper, and great storytelling. You can wow kids by delivering an incredibly creative, engaging, multi-sensory lesson. The goal is to make the lesson stick and be memorable so that when the child is older and needing the lesson, they can be equipped with that spiritual truth

Making your children’s ministry “sticky” does not have to have all the “whiz,” “bang,” and gadgets. One of the greatest opportunities that children’s ministries have is to wow their kids relationally. Even some preschoolers are already hurting from broken families or a lack of love. Go the extra mile to make your kids feel loved. At the very least, when they are teenagers or in college, they think fondly about church and say, “Wow, they really loved me!”

For Discussion:
- What tips or areas of focus would you add to this list?

I regularly get asked questions about how to start and maintain a successful blog. Here is my beginner’s blogging tutorial - How to Blog 101.

#1 :: CHOOSE A BLOGGING PLATFORM
I recommend self-hosting your blog and using WordPress. It the most popular platform among Technorati’s top 100 blogs and among Church Relevance’s top church blogs.

Self-Hosted Blogging Software:

• WordPress
• Movable Type
• Drupal
• Expression Engine

Blogging Services (hosting provided):

• TypePad
• WordPress.com
• Blogger

#2 :: CHOOSE A DOMAIN (if allowed)
As long as it is relevant, the shorter the domain is the better. A short domain is quick and easy to type, which will save you time in the long run and reduce the probability of you and your visitors mistyping it.

• Domize - immediately checks a domain’s availability as you type it into the query box
• DomainsBot - suggests domains based on your search keywords
• Domain Pigeon - lists available domain names which you can use for your websites
• MakeWords - generates domain ideas based on your suggestions, linguistics, and semantic databases

#3 :: DESIGN YOUR BLOG
Being a web designer or hiring one is not necessary for having a good looking blog, but it definitely helps. WordPress has thousands of template designs for sale and for free that are not too complicated to implement.

For Inspiration:

• A Small Design Study Of Big Blogs
• 45 Excellent Blog Designs
• 50 More Excellent Blog Designs
• 60+ Unusual WP Blog Designs

For Templates:

• 20 Free Corporate WordPress Themes
• 20 Great Free WordPress 2.7 Themes
• 21 Mindblowing Premium-Like Free WordPress Themes
• 30 Free High Quality WordPress Themes
• 50 Beautiful Free WordPress Themes
• 83 Beautiful WordPress Themes You (Probably) Haven’t Seen
• 100 Excellent Free WordPress Themes

#4 :: USE TOOLS
WordPress is a great platform, but there are tools and plugins that can make it even better. I recommend at least using the following tools:

• Akismet Plugin - tracks spammers and helps keep them off your blog
• All in One SEO Plugin - optimizes your Wordpress blog for search engines
• FeedBurner - tools to help you promote, deliver, and profit from your Web content
• Google Analytics - free stats about where your visitors come from and how they interact with your site
• StatCounter - a free yet reliable tool for real-time detailed web stats
• WordPress Database Backup Plugin - easily backup your core WordPress database

Other Tools:

• Bad Neighborhood Text Link Checker - detect links that hurt your SEO
• ClickTale - provides movies and heatmaps of your visitors’ actual browsing sessions
• Crazy Egg - supplement your analytics with stunning visuals and actionable data
• Creative Commons - easily mark your work with copyright freedoms
• Facebook Connect - integrate Facebook into your blog
• PollDaddy - create free online surveys and polls for your blog
• Redirectr Theme - redirects the traffic from an existing (old) blog to a new blog or site

Tool Lists:

• 9 SEO Plugins Every Wordpress Blog Should Have
• 12 RSS Plugins for WordPress
• 20+ Must-Have WordPress 2.5 Compatible Plugins
• 21 of the Best WordPress Plugins for New Blogs
• 30+ WordPress Plugins for Statistics
• 50 Best WordPress Plugins for Power Blogging
• 50+ More Ways to Track Website Traffic
• 50+ Tools For The WordPress Admin
• Powerful List of WordPress Lifesavers Plugins
• The Business Blogging Toolset: 100 Resources for Entrepreneur-Writers
• Useful WordPress Plugins

#5 :: HAVE QUALITY CONTENT
An aesthetically well-designed blog may entice visitors to linger for the first visit, but quality content is what will get those visitors to keep coming back. If you need topics, visit these resources:

• Alltop - an “online magazine rack” of popular topics
• Delicious - the tastiest bookmarks on the web
• Digg - discover and share content from anywhere on the web
• Reddit - users decide the top stories
• StumbleUpon - discovers web sites based on your interests

#6 :: STUDY BLOGGING
If you want people to read your quality content, study the science of successful blogging and copywriting. Writing for a blog is different than writing for a book or magazine. My advice:

Unless you are blogging for personal reasons, focus on optimizing the reader experience. Offer only quality content. And make it scannable by using short paragraphs, bold text, and bullet points. Use as few words as possible without compromising quality (needless words wasted readers’ time). And if possible, post consistently often.

Blogging Tips:

• Copyblogger - copywriting tips for online marketing success
• ProBlogger - a blog about how to be a successful blogger
• 7 Types of Blog Posts Which Always Seem to Get Links and Traffic
• 15 Powerful Ways to Differentiate Your Blog from the Crowd
• 101 Essential Blogging Skills
• Blogging on Alltop - all the top blogging news
• WordPress on Alltop - all the top WordPress news

#7 :: MARKET YOURSELF
With blogging, two of your most powerful marketing opportunities are Search Engine Optimization and leveraging social media. Last year, 48% of ChurchRelevance.com’s traffic came from search engines. You should be using these resources:

• Facebook - a popular social network likely used by many readers (follow me)
• LinkedIn - a popular social network for professionals (follow me)
• Twitter - stay hyperconnected to readers with this microblogging tool (follow me)
• Google Keyword Tool - discover which keywords and phrases are searched for the most
  I use this often. In fact, three highly-searched keyphrases are in this post’s title.
• SEOmoz - free SEO education and tools
• 16 Effective Strategies to Expand Your Blog’s Reach
  

WHAT ELSE?
Remember this is just the beginner’s blogging tutorial. But if you read all of these links, you will be on your way to becoming a blogging expert.

If you are already blogging, what would you add to this list?
What are your favorite tools?
What is your best advice?

If you want to teach kids, you should understand more than how to reach their culture now. You should understand how your presentation will affect their culture in the future.

This applies to teaching any demographic and any culture, but it is particularly important for younger ages since it is assumed their brains have more plasticity.

How you choose to teach someone will influence their future at least in a very, very small way. Research repeatedly shows how easily molded our minds and behavior are to our environment and experiences.

Think of each interaction as a small drop in a bucket. A few interactions may not make a noticeable or measurable difference in someone’s future. But if you have the opportunity to teach someone week after week, those small drops will add up into gallons of influence.

For example…

In my early years of children’s ministry, I had the opportunity to be a part of an incredibly creative and highly talented team of staff and volunteers. We knew how to make a lesson stick.

From ages 2 and up, the curriculum had us teach the importance of giving offerings and tithes. In hindsight, we needed more balance to our approach. All too often, the lesson would revolve around the sowing and reaping angle (limitless object lessons), and we needed to focus more on giving just because we love God and because we want to help people. In hindsight, we needed to focus more on selfless giving just to counterbalance the negative effects of consumerism in our culture.

Here’s what happened…

For 7 years, I taught five-year-olds. And for 5 years, I taught middle school students. I taught some of my 5th, 6th, and 7th graders when they were five-years-old, so I got to see how they had grown spiritually through their elementary school years. I was proud to see how well they knew the Bible, but I was saddened to see how many of them had become superficial and consumeristic. It was not uncommon to get prayer requests for a PlayStation3 or a PSP.

So what’s to blame?

Unquestionably, tween culture is growing increasingly consumeristic. I was amazed at the cultural evolution that I watched happen during my five years of teaching middle school students. But now at a different church, I still teach 5th graders, and I do not get any prayer requests for video game systems or shopping sprees. Perhaps, socioeconomic differences are a factor.

But I blame myself. I could have had more balance in my teaching. I did not foresee how my weekly teaching could shape my five-year-olds’ future culture. Sure, they had other teachers, and I was not the only cause. But I do think I was a factor.

CONCLUSION

A good teaching can become a bad thing if not balanced. Be self-aware of the big picture message that your ministry is communicating. And ask yourself, “Do I need balance? Is there anything missing from my big picture message?”