

I wrote this book summer of 2013. A lot has changed since then:

  1. I was diagnosed with Parkinson's in March of 2014. That diagnosis started a chain reaction.(see chapter 10 which I added after the diagnosis)

  2. Due to the disease my wife and I felt like God was leading us to resign from Cedar Creek and move to the Dallas Fort Worth area to be closer to our kids and grandchildren. Four of five adult children and five of six grandchildren live there now.

  3. CedarCreek is now in the capable hands of Ben Snyder, who came to CedarCreek as a spiritually restless college student in 1997, was our first intern, joined our staff in 1999, has had eight different jobs at the Creek and was named Lead pastor October 2015. He is doing great!!!

  1. I am now a staff volunteer for Leadership Network and get to work with a group of people who deeply care about helping churches make their maximum impact. I can't think of another group that has made such a significant contribution to the Kingdom.

  2. In addition, I am a Lead Navigator for Auxano, a top notch non-profit consulting company that is freakishly good at helping churches of all sizes have better kingdom clarity about their unique vision, vision that extends beyond the horizon in sight even ten, fifteen or twenty years down the road.

  1. Finally, I am getting connected to the ARC, one of the most prolific church planting organizations I know of. I love those guys!

  2. Bottom line? I love pastors and want to help them succeed.

So some of the stats in this book are couple years dated, but all the principles hold true.

Feel free to contact me at clp@cedarcreek.tv

Lee Powell

Church Marketing Works and Jesus Likes It: and Other Contrarian Church Leadership Ideas

Copyright © 2015 by Lee Powell Smashwords Edition

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Distributed by Lee Powell and cedarcreek.tv For more information, visit http://cedarcreek.tv/

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever Without prior written permission from the publisher, except where noted in the text and in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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#  Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Church Marketing Works and Jesus Likes It Chapter 2 Numbers Matter and They Matter a Lot Chapter 3 Facts Are Your Friend, but Facts Can Be Fickle

Chapter 4 Listen to the Experts but be Leery of the "Experts" Chapter 5 Don't Worry About Innovating, Instead Steal from the Best Chapter 6 You Don't Kick Family Off the Bus...Usually

Chapter 7 Don't Promote or Hire the Most Talented People

Chapter 8 Invite Dissenters to Leave and Don't Let the Door Hit Them on the Way Out Chapter 9 You Can Reach and Disciple a lot of People Without a lot of Money

Chapter 10 You'd Think Pastoral Leadership Is About Showing People How To Live, When Maybe, Just Maybe It's About Showing People How to Die

Endnotes

#  Chapter 1

Church Marketing Works and Jesus Likes It!

Can the words church and marketing be used in the same sentence?

Most church plants launch with some form of advertising. I don't believe I have ever heard a church criticized for that. But few churches use advertising beyond their initial launch. When churches do use advertising, some think they have violated some unwritten code: "Thou shalt not advertise after your grand opening."

Why the opposition to church advertising? What's wrong with targeting unchurched people and inviting them to church through advertising?

Before entering the ministry, I was on the marketing staff of a Fortune 500 retailer. The company spent 90 million dollars a year advertising just one division of the company—automotive aftermarket services and products. When was the last time you needed new tires for your car?

For most, that need arises every few years. Yet the company I worked for ran full-color ads every week promoting tires, batteries, and a full range of services—ads costing over one million dollars a pop. The company knew plenty of people would need tires and services every week and wanted to present itself as a great option.
It is the same with church advertising. When an unchurched person is facing a crisis, feeling lonely, or searching for fulfillment, you want to present yourself as a great option. Not versus other churches, but versus a myriad of other choices.

We have discovered through surveys and numerous conversations that unchurched people give church a try for one of three primary reasons:

  1. Something is missing.

  2. Something is broken.

  3. Something has changed.

When I meet someone in our lobby for the first time, without fail, I will ask people what brought them to the church. At this point I get one of three responses: (1) someone invited me, (2) I saw your ad, or (3) someone invited me and I saw your ad.

Okay, then I edit their question. So someone invited you or you liked a commercial you saw, but why did you come? This is where it gets interesting! Their answers can usually be tucked into one of the three categories we just read. "It just seemed like something was missing in my life." They may describe a childhood in which they grew up in the church and they were hoping the church had the answers to fill the void in their hearts. Others have described finding success, but missing happiness, hoping the church had the answer.
Then there is brokenness. Time and time again people have stood in the lobby through tears telling me the mess they've made of their lives. The church ad or invite was a lifeline for some of them. It came at just the right time.

There is brokenness, but not always of their own doing. An equal number have told me of these tragic losses of a loved one, a startling medical diagnosis or a crushing divorce. Coming to church after years of absence or having never gone was a grasp for hope.

And then there is the group that has experienced a significant life change; a monumental change, like having a baby! People will tell me, "I want my kids to be taught about God." Or a life change that causes some to consider church attendance, like a job change that leaves someone feeling overwhelmed.

The point of all of this? When something is missing, broken or changed you want to be a viable, recognizable option.

At our church, CedarCreek, we have been getting our name out there through advertising for 19 years now, and it's worked well for us.

## A Surprising Result

Okay, now hold on to your seat for this one. Who do you think is more likely to be at your church two years later—the person who came because of advertising or the person who came because of an invitation from a friend?

We survey our congregation twice a year and our data tells us people who come as a result of advertising are slightly more likely to be here two years later. Why is that? We think it's because a person who comes through advertising comes on his or her own accord versus someone who is invited by a friend and comes out of obligation. At CedarCreek, nearly half (44 percent) of the 10,000 people attending come because of advertising.

Early in the life of CedarCreek, we fell into a comprehensive church-wide marketing plan, including advertising, which has been responsible for 80 percent of our growth. We have grown 18 out of 19 years and were listed in _Outreach Magazine_ (1) as one of America's fastest growing churches the last eight out of nine years. (Ouch, that felt like bragging, but you needed the credibility.)

*Note: 2009 shows a 2.8% increase for the year, yet Outreach Magazine (4) published us as one of the fastest growing churches that year. They used data through the spring of 2009 and indeed, we were up 600 from the previous year. Then we had a tough summer and fall because of closing a multisite at a high school and constructing a new building.

## The Big Push, Now the Big Invite

We launched CedarCreek in a Holiday Inn hotel in Perrysburg, Ohio, a suburb of Toledo. You've heard of Toledo, right? How about the Mud Hens? Did you know Toledo is the eighth poorest city in America with a population over 250,000? (2) (Enough about Toledo.) To prepare for our October 5, 1995 launch we did what most church plants do—we advertised. We stayed a mile away from the annoying phone calls and instead opted for inserts in the local newspaper and spots on the most popular rock station in town (KISS FM 92.5). Our advertising budget for the year was $20,000, but we had zero dollars to spend. Fortunately, an outside group donated
$2,000 dollars and we came up with another $1,000 for a total of $3,000.

We were blown away. One hundred eighty-five people came to our inaugural service. Within a few months, however, attendance dropped to 110. We had a thought: If the advertising worked so well that previous October, could it work again in March of '96? We thought it was worth a try.

We told our congregation of 110 we were going to have a "Big Push" (for lack of anything else to call it, now the Big Invite) to invite people to an upcoming series. We encouraged them to invite people using their program jackets that looked like invite cards. We also ran some radio spots and did more local newspaper advertising. The result? Attendance shot up to 150. We knew we were on to something.

We were thrilled when we polled people and discovered two things: (1) nearly half of the new people were previously unchurched, and (2) half of them came through advertising.

It was after that success we decided to do a Big Invite twice a year, just before Easter and in the early fall. We would have preferred to advertise in January when people naturally come back to church, but we resisted because of the little white flakes that are sure to fly in January and even into February. In Ohio, we call it snow, not manna. The risk is too great in our area—we could invest thousands of dollars in a campaign and get snowed in!
That fall (1996), attendance after the Big Invite shot up to 200. Then in the spring of 1997 to

250. Looking back, we can track our attendance spikes to the two Big Invites a year and, of course, Christmas and Easter. The difference between the Big Invite and these holidays is we retain a far greater percentage of people who come through the Big Invite.

I hope you are curious and asking questions by now and that you'll find some answers in the pages to follow.

The Big Invite is our way of engaging the entire congregation in inviting friends, family, or acquaintances to a specific series tailored for and targeting the unchurched (although the believers seem to appreciate theses series as well). Besides the invites we put together, the advertising plan (call it outreach, no one is against outreach, right?) is run the week before the Big Invite series starts.

Preparation for the Big Invite begins months in advance. The timing is logged on the church calendar eight months out. We usually settle on a series a few months before the launch and then come to an agreement on the advertising. Both the media and the message itself determine the kind of advertising, which usually involves radio, local newspapers, billboards, and direct mail (mailers to the general public and targeted mailings to our in-house list of 15,000 households).

Then there are invite cards available weeks before the Big Invite and in-house posters to be displayed weeks before as well.
If you query any of the 100 people on our staff, they will tell you the Big Invite is a primary reason for our rather surprising growth. Why is it so successful for us? One reason is this area is geographically perfect for such a strategy for growth. When we advertise on radio or television, most of the audience we are paying to reach can get to our church within a reasonable drive. To clarify, if we were in Chicago and bought time on a number one station, we would pay far more than we do here in Toledo, yet most of the people hearing it would never think of attending because of geography or distance. Thus, dollars would be wasted.

Another reason the advertising works for us is it makes personal invitations so much easier. The synergy between advertising and personal invites is powerful. One of my favorite questions for a first time visitor is "What brought you to the Creek?" More often than not, they will tell me someone invited them AND they heard or saw an advertisement. When I invite total strangers or acquaintances, I ask them if they have heard of CedarCreek Church. Most people in the Toledo area have and seem to be more open to an invite because of hearing about us before. They often tell me they'd been thinking about attending, and my invite takes them over the top.

Some of you may be interested in a typical Big Invite campaign, so I've outlined it below.

8 Months out: Decide on the timing.

6 Months out: Decide on the "felt need" series so you give yourself plenty of time for sermon and graphics ideas.
4 Months out: Begin negotiating the advertising rates. See advertising dollars for our last campaign: (Remember our first campaign was only $3,000.)

4 Months out: Begin creative work for commercials.

3 Months Out:Begin inserting "teasers" in sermons to prepare the congregation for Big Invite outreach.

3 Months Out: Begin designing in-house invite cards and programs.

1 Month Out: Begin in-house promotions, including weekly announcements, making invite cards available, and sending a direct mail flyer to your in-house mailing list.

1 Week Before: Preach outreach, ask for sacrifices, ask people to shift to attend less desirable service times (if you have multiple services), and run the advertising.
Some people have asked why we compress our advertising into the Big Invite time frame rather than spreading it out over the year. We started this because in our early days we did not have the resources to spread out over a period of time. Equally important, we've also discovered we work best as sprinters. It's easy to rally the troops (staff and volunteers) for specific blocks of time with high expectations. It is easy to ask the children's ministry to amp up and prepare the best three weekends of the year during Big Invite, while the same goes for the arts and all the other ministries. People seem ready and willing to go the extra mile for these short three-week bursts. There is even some pressure on me to put in extra time, not settling for a message that will just do. In many ways, the Big Invite is like a capital campaign in that you're trying to get 100 percent participation and buy-in.

## Facebook, Google, & Email Marketing

Throughout the life of Jesus one common theme we see over and over again is Jesus went where the people were and connected with them on their level. In this day and age when Facebook has over 1.3 billion active users (3), Twitter produces 500 million tweets a day (4), Google has 1.2 trillion searches a year (5), and mobile phones and tablets are selling at record rates, the local church must follow Jesus' lead and connect with people right where they are.

The 2 different kinds of marketing I'd like to share with you are internal and external marketing. Internal marketing is when we utilize our database and email lists to share information with people who have provided us with their contact information for future connection and ministry updates. External marketing is geared towards those who have never stepped foot in our doors or have limited touches with our church. Facebook and Google are great tools for external marketing.

## Facebook

What if I told you that the average American spends more time on Facebook each day than exercising, driving to work, and taking care of their pets? Studies show that users go to Facebook 4-6 times per day for a daily average of 40 minutes. Those statistics are amazing to me and the fact is, those numbers are increasing daily. Facebook is an area of marketing that sometimes is overlooked and viewed as not important or a waste of time, but the fact is, that's where the people are at and we want to reach them!

By now, every church should have a Facebook page, but few are utilizing the capabilities of it. The 2 areas we focus on are boosting or promoting our posts and setting up campaigns and ads.

## Campaigns and Ads

The top priority when creating campaigns and ads is to lead people to your website and get them to visit and like your Facebook page. The best tool for this is the Power Editor feature. The Power Editor allows you to target age, gender, demographically and geographically so you can pinpoint the exact areas you're trying to reach and it will only show up on the newsfeeds that meet that criteria. For example, if you want to reach only those within 15 miles of your church, no problem, you can do just that. How about all of the 30 year old males within 15 miles of your church? No problem, you can do that as well. But, how about this, all of the 30 year old males within 15 miles of your church that like the local strip club or are vocal about a struggling marriage? Yup, them as well. I think you get the point and the power that the Power Editor feature offers.
Boosting and Promoting Posts - Here is an easy step-by-step process that will help you get started.

  1. Budget $750 - $1,000 each month.

  2. Your top priority is to increase your total number of "likes" and your audience on your page.

  3. Post every day and post great content. Content should include videos/photos and great tag lines at the top of your post. (Use programs such as HootSuite to schedule posts throughout the day.)

  4. Select the communities and demographics you'd like to target. (You can pinpoint the exact areas you're trying to reach and it will only show up on people's newsfeed in that demographic.)

## Google - AdWords and AdWords Express (6)

Whether you're trying to find what time the latest movie starts, the menu of a nearby restaurant, or are new to town and would like to learn more about the area, Google is the top search engine for assisting people in that process. The same holds true for individuals moving to your community trying to find a good nearby church to attend in the area. What if every time someone "googled" churches in "your city", a link to your website and service times showed up near the top of the page and you could track how many people are clicking on that link on a daily basis.
Google's AdWords and AdWords Express features make that possible and are great ways to market your church.

## AdWords

When someone searches for your keywords on Google.com, Google Maps, and Google's partner sites, your AdWords ad can appear next to, above, or below the search results as a "Sponsored Link."

With AdWords, you have complete control over your entire advertising campaign. You write ads to attract your target market, and choose the keywords that can trigger your ads. You also determine a daily budget, how much to spend on each click, and where your ads can appear.

You'll pay only when someone clicks on your ad.

AdWords also allows you to show your ads on Google's Display Network partner sites, and offers other ad formats, such as video ads and mobile extensions.

## AdWords Express

You can use AdWords Express to advertise your website or Google+ page on Google or Google Maps. You'll write your own ad, and when someone searches for phrases related to your business, your ad can appear next to, above, or below the search results as a "Sponsored Link".

To get started with AdWords Express, you'll set up a budget, and based on the type of business you have, Google will come up with a list of search phrases that will trigger your ad and potential related sites where your ad can appear. They'll continue to maintain and update your
search phrases over time. Minimal ongoing management is needed, and you pay only for clicks that your ad actually receives.

For most churches and businesses, AdWords Express is the best option because it's effective and takes minimal staffing hours to manage the process. A budget of $500 - $700 per month for AdWords Express is sufficient for us in our area.

## Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the most powerful tools we have that are often overlooked because it's not very exciting and we often focus on other areas where we're more financially invested.

Studies have shown that email marketing is dollar for dollar the highest return on investment with a return of $38 - $40 for every $1 spent. With the drastic increase in mobile devices over the past few years, we should be trying to capture email addresses as frequently as possible. The average person checks their email 4-5 times each and every day. That's 28-35 times a week where we have the opportunity to celebrate wins, cast vision, equip our people, and connect with them. However, we must take a strategic approach and closely monitor the content we send out to make sure that we're clearly telling the story we want to tell. An easy way to make sure this happens is to designate an individual to be the gatekeeper of content and communication across all platforms. OnMarketer, Fellowship One, and MailChimp are programs that we use to save email addresses and information in our databases. OnMarketer and MailChimp offer great features that track email opens, click-through rate (any links clicked), and form conversion rate (when you get an individual to fill out information or take the action step intended in the email).
As church leaders, most of us are solely focused on key metrics like attendance, number of small groups, baptisms, decisions for Christ, and first-time attenders. Those are all important, but with the information I just shared with you, what if we took it one step further? What if Google ad clicks, Facebook likes and reach, website visits and our email database became key metrics we frequently look at? What if we designated more staffing hours and intentionality to these areas? Would our current key metrics actually increase substantially over time? Thriving businesses in the marketplace are and it's paying dividends to their bottom lines and helping them better forecast for the future.

It's on our radar and it should be on yours now!

## So, Jesus likes Church Marketing?

Yes, I'm sure He does! For me, it's a no-brainer. I can't imagine why Jesus would not approve of our "marketing the church." After all, people are ultimately coming to church and giving their lives to Christ.

Still, it's possibly no surprise we have our critics, mostly the chosen, whose harshest criticism is that we don't say enough about Jesus in our thirty-second or one minute spots. The Samaritan women at the well didn't say or know much about Jesus, but she had enough enthusiasm to get an entire town to come out to hear him. That's our goal with our advertising, ultimately we want the whole town to come out and hear about Jesus!

## Another Kind of Advertising
So before we leave this chapter, there is another kind of advertising that will attract unchurched to your church.

The year was 1997. George Barna (7) was conducting a church growth seminar (when it was okay to use the term church growth) at the Grove City Nazarene Church. At that seminar, Barna made a statement I have never forgotten. He said, "While the Christian church does not do enough good, it also does not get the credit from the unchurched for the good it does do." The solution according to Barna? Obviously, do more good, but also let the community know about the good you are doing.

My knee-jerk response was to think of Jesus' teaching: "But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing" (Matthew 6:3 NIV). The idea of telling the community about our good works smacks of self-promotion. But then I had another verse come to mind. Jesus said, "Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:16). Isn't Jesus teaching that good done in the name of Christ will ultimately bring God praise?

Since that time we have been strategic in getting the word out about the good being done here at CedarCreek. Local pastors have asked us why CedarCreek gets so much press coverage. My answer? We routinely send out press releases notifying all the local media outlets of the good we're doing.
So when do you send out press releases? An obvious time would be to report your church's response to a crisis. For example, when Hurricane Katrina blew in with its winds of destruction, we partnered with a church in Covington, Louisiana to provide relief to that community. We sent out a press release informing the media of our intentions and even a second release with the results. In the end, we sent five semis loaded with food and supplies plus $150,000 in relief.

Three of the four local news stations, as well as the Toledo Blade, did stories about our relief efforts.

A few days after the stories ran, I went into a Bob Evans Restaurant to sit at the counter as I do two or three times a week. My best sermon ideas come from "Down on the Farm" (8) (local jingle). As I sat down, a waitress who was a self-described atheist approached me saying, "I knew your church would do something. That is so awesome what you are doing, and I'm going to take you up on the offer to visit." I had to hold back the tears. Get what's happening here? An atheist I had talked with about the gospel and invited to church was now saying yes to the invitation. Why? Because of the love our church displayed.

The story gets better. She began attending church with her son and her son's father, and within a few weeks she told me her eight-year-old son wants to be a missionary! What can I say? Now I would love to end this story by telling you that she, her son, and her son's father all accepted Christ, but that hasn't happened yet. Actually, their attendance dropped off significantly and I only see them occasionally. I'm still praying for them. The point? Loving acts of church kindness covered by the media give people a positive disposition about your church, and ultimately God.

One night at 2:00 a.m. my phone rang. It was our missions pastor calling to report some wonderful news—our mission team of fifteen people had been arrested (okay, detained) at the El Salvador airport. You see, the country was in the middle of elections and the government suspected some Americans would be coming into the country for politically subversive reasons.

So why was their "arrest" wonderful news? First, the news was wonderful because the entire team was doing fine, but second, we knew it would be a great news story. Sure enough, the Toledo Blade (9) ran a front-page story two days later with a picture of our team, describing both their intended mission and the circumstances behind their detention. Everywhere I went in the next week, people commented on the story, giving me (and thousands of other Creekers) a chance to tell the whole story about why we were in El Salvador. It also created a natural opportunity to invite people to church. If you are wondering, our mission team was released after 24 hours. We still have cool pictures of them with El Salvadorian soldiers carrying M-16s.

We send out press releases for not only "good deeds" but also for any activity that on a slow news day might be of interest to the media.

Here are some reasons (excuses) to send out press releases about good deeds and otherwise:

  1. Church-wide loving acts of kindness. Hopefully you have many of these opportunities.

We did an Extreme Home Makeover for a single mom and several media outlets covered it.

  2. A special "potentially" controversial series. For example, we once sent out a press release to get the word out about a high school series titled "myGodmadesex.com". All four television stations did interviews about the series, with the Toledo Blade running a story as well. (10) Our high school ministry more than doubled in attendance in one week!

  3. Mission teams departing or returning.

  4. Significant mission endeavors. For example, we are building and funding an orphanage in Honduras for HIV affected or infected children.

  5. Special service times for holidays.

  6. New campus launch.

  7. Anniversary celebrations.

  8. MOAB is an acronym for the Mother of All Baptisms. We started it two years ago after setting an impossible church wide baptism goal. It's an outdoors all campus baptism (although we still do baptisms year round). We worship, eat, and baptize a lot of people. In MOAB 2012 we baptized 375. In 2013 we baptized 535 and in 2014 there were 350.

## Barna's latest research: Five Trends Among the Unchurched (11)
One final note on advertising. The research done over twenty years revealed unchurched people have become more resistant to church, more resistant to invites and more resistant to advertising.

So get this, our percentages of unchurched responding to advertising had been in the early days of 1995-2000 nearly 50%. Today it is still at 40%. It is still working for us, it might work for you!

Like it or not, without advertising, without blowing your own horn, without "marketing the church" the story shrinks!

#  Chapter 2

Numbers Matter—and They Matter a Lot

At a recent leadership development cohort (where a select group of churches gather to share best practices), I stood waiting to present our church's current reality. Several churches presented before me, and all was going well until one pastor led off by saying something like "we don't use numbers anymore to measure success or failure." The way he said it made me think he is down on any church using numbers to gauge success or failure.

I knew there was about to be some tension in the room since I was planning to lead off my presentation with "numbers matter—and they matter a lot. In fact, we are obsessed with numbers and other indicators."

Here we have it! Two very different opinions about the importance of numbers and how they should be used in ministry.

Ever read the book of Numbers? It's a book in the Bible and God inspired it. I think God titled it, and I think it's safe to say that numbers matter to God—and they matter a lot!

My friend Adam Davis, pastor of Elevate Church (1) in Monroe, Michigan, uses a line like this anytime people express concern over his referring to the numbers: "God cares about numbers. If God didn't care about numbers, then why did He have an entire book of the Bible dedicated to the subject?"

Ever read the book of Acts? Okay, now you're really irritated with me. People have actually asked me if I ever read the Old Testament. Yikes. I want to say, "No, I've never read the Old Testament; in fact, I haven't ever read the New Testament." (I don't actually say that because my wife coaches me to keep my mouth shut.) When you read the book of Acts, you can't miss the growth theme. In the 28 chapters of Acts, there are 16 references to numbers and actual counts of people coming to faith in Christ. It's inspiring, isn't it? To read some version of 3,000 coming to faith in one day, then to read repeatedly, "God added to their numbers daily those who were being saved."

If these references to numerical growth don't jack you up, you need to get your heart checked out. Without the numbers, would you be inspired?

At our church we talk about the numbers a lot. We see numbers as a measurement, at least in part, of the success or failure of our mission statement: CedarCreek Church exists to help spiritually restless and unchurched people love Jesus, serve others, and tell the world about Christ.

Now if this is happening, if our mission is being fulfilled, won't we be growing numerically? And, if people are loving Jesus, serving others, and telling the world about Christ, will there not be other numerical measurements of that?
Aren't numbers essential for us to measure the success or failure of the Great Commission as Jesus lays it out in Matthew 28: 19-20? (2) Numbers are a God-given tool used to measure, gauge, size up, or describe. Well, you get the point.

So why are people so bothered by references to numbers? Is it angst over _Outreach Magazine_ publishing the "Fastest Growing Churches in America"? Or a local pastor celebrating fifteen baptisms, or communicating their largest offering, or talking about their growth in attendance?

I know the argument against numbers—I've heard it a hundred times. The argument goes something like this: We should not put too much emphasis on the numbers, on the attendance numbers, or on the offering numbers. If we do, concerned critics say we'll be tempted to compromise the message, or we'll somehow avoid more important measurements or indicators. So are they saying that large churches have compromised the gospel to reach more people and raise more money? I think that's exactly what they are saying. Of course, that criticism is based in ignorance, not fact. Megachurches, mostly hold to and teach historical, biblical Christianity. Megachurches are not bastions of liberal theology, and they are not Bible Lite majoring in Christianity 101 with no depth-type talks. In Beyond Megachurch Myths (3), Dave Travis and Scott Thumma turn this thinking upside down by providing data showing that megachurches challenge their congregations as much as any other group of churches. In fact, part of the reason for their success comes from life-changing biblical messages.

So do numbers matter—and do they matter a lot? Let's try an imaginary exercise. Imagine your salary is $80,000 a year, which is $6,666 a month (you are really worried about where I'm going,
I can tell). Imagine your next monthly check is directly deposited in your account, but to your surprise, the amount deposited is only $3,333, half of what it usually is. How long will it be before you call the human resource office to find out what happened? You would care about the numbers, wouldn't you? You probably wouldn't let even an hour go by without taking action.

Why such speedy action on your part? Because the check deposited in your account reflected an important number. It was short $3,333!

Numbers matter in our lives, in the marketplace, and in the church—and they matter a lot!

## Tracking Attendance

So what do declining attendance numbers tell you? The numbers tell you something, don't they? Maybe you're a dying community . . . that's a bummer. Maybe you have some serious conflict brewing. Maybe your church needs to decline before it grows. Or maybe your preaching is weak and needs work. Perhaps God is pruning you for your next assignment. Maybe your music is, well, not so good.

I visited a church that was stuck at the 100 attendance mark. My assessment was the teaching was poor (in my humble opinion). The music was quite good, and the facility was nice, but the teaching was weak. But the pastor never asked for my opinion, so I didn't give it. That pastor is trying his third unique ministry approach without much success. That is, if numbers matter.

In 2007, our numbers at the Creek were flat, and I was personally at a low point. With the no- growth numbers in mind, I suggested to our management team that maybe we should consider
letting LifeChurch.tv (4) have the keys . My thinking was that we had perhaps hit our lid and needed someone else to lead us in a renewed upward trend. We talked to Bobby Gruenewald and Jerry Hurley at LifeChurch.tv, and they thought it could work. Then after prayerful consideration and a visit from LifeChurch, we decided to stay put and redouble our efforts to grow. That "crisis" eventually led to a strategy that included:

  1. Building out 30,000 square feet of a shopping center for our second satellite site, now running 2,100 a weekend.

  2. Shutting down our first satellite site meeting at a high school, while we built a freestanding 34,000 square foot building. Attendance grew from 400 to 1300!

I'm not suggesting a merger every time your attendance numbers bottom out, but I am saying, do something!

And take a look at these numbers. December of 2013 we closed out the year with an average weekly attendance of nearly 10,000. January of 2014 we launched (with the help of Generis) an all-important capital campaign that would fund the church and all its ministries for the next two years. We know by experience we could expect a maximum number of people with January being one of our best attendance months, in fact we averaged 9,200 a week January 2013.

So, how did that work? Well, we may be tagged the fastest declining megachurch in America this year! Toledo, you may not know, was dubbed the city with the worst winter in all of
America (2014) (5). Meteorologists used a scoring system that combined total snow fall and below zero temperatures. And worse yet, most of the snow fell on weekends. Our attendance? We averaged 6,150, a huge drop of 3,000 people a weekend!

Now we could see the writing on the wall, the attendance bust would assure failure to make our financial goal. We wanted to raise $25,000,000 for one fund over two years against a trend of

$20,000,000. By week three we were certain we'd have to make significant adjustments to our dream. Then the results started rolling in and by mid-February I was able to announce we had reached and exceeded our goal total commitment of $25,250,000!

Now, for the dilemma...the combination of brutal winter and five week campaign has caused an estimated eight hundred Creekers to stay away. Ponder that number for a while, we are. Eight hundred people, most of who were living on the margin, but it still hurts. We desperately want them back, yet we're elated we made the financial goals. Maybe our next campaign we'll cut to four weeks and try a different month. We're still pondering the numbers.

We've always tracked baptisms and for years they were slow and steady, but then there was an explosion of baptisms.

In 2011, we hired Tom Martin to run our Perrysburg campus and be Director of Communication/ Marketing Director. Tom is goal oriented. In fact, he has laser-focus when it comes to achieving goals. In 2011, as part of our Strategic Alignment Plan, we set a church-wide goal of 1,000 baptisms. By spring we could see we weren't going to make the goal. Tom suggested Herculean
efforts to reach the goal. It would come to be known as M.O.A.B., the Mother Of All Baptisms. We set a date in July and began promoting an all campus gathering with the goal of baptizing hundreds:

Today it's a given each year. We've actually turned it into a fun, celebrative event with live music, food, fireworks, and most importantly baptisms. As for our number of baptisms, now in excess of 6,000, it would be significantly lower if not for our vigilance in tracking and monitoring the goal we set each year now.

As for growing attendance numbers, they too call for action. Perhaps it's time to consider adding a service, planting a church, launching a satellite campus or expanding your building. Or you could try sending people to other churches! In 2005, before we had bought into the multisite strategy, we were growing and soon outgrew our space. I had what I thought was a leading from God. That leading went something like this: CedarCreek is growing, but soon will be out of space. Adding a sixth service doesn't make sense and a new auditorium is out of reach, so invite believers to go to other churches to open up seats for unbelievers at the Creek.

I shared this "leading" with our management team, who probably thought I had lost my mind, but they went along with it anyway. So I stood up before our congregation at all five services and explained to them that CedarCreek was, for reasons unknown to us, uniquely blessed with our
ability to reach lost people. I told the believers who live farther from the Creek that they, therefore, should consider attending churches closer to their homes to free up seats for unchurched people. I even gave them a list of six recommended churches to attend. In all, we think three hundred people took us up on it. However, about two hundred came back within a few weeks. So much for that "leading."

My point is, when the numbers are dwindling and the Great Commission is not being fulfilled, or when the numbers are growing with the threat of running out of space, for God's sake, do something!

## Tracking Baptism Numbers

If you're not seeing baptisms in your church, even if your attendance is growing, you're not seeing the Great Commission being fulfilled. In the book of Acts, baptisms followed immediately on the heels of confessions of faith and repentance.

At the Creek we have baptized over 6,000 people these last 19 years. Those 6,000 people account for 40 percent of our adults or 80 percent of the previously unchurched in our congregation. See the value of numbers?

## Tracking Life Group Participation

We do not teach that Life Groups are the only way to experience community at CedarCreek. (A Life Group is a small group of people who gather frequently in homes, offices, restaurants, and coffee shops to build relationships and help one another grow in their relationship with Christ.)
But we do urge people to take inventory of their lives and make sure they have significant Christian relationships that provide encouragement and accountability. We then present Life Groups as a way to experience that kind of community.

As I write this, we have 3,850 people participating in Life Groups, representing 44.8 percent of our adults. Without the numbers, it would be hard to know if people were experiencing community.

Some of our own staff are suspicious of our numbers we report, saying keeping track of Life Groups is like herding cats. We admit our numbers are not precise, but as we compare year-to- year we look for numbers to go up. And we poll our groups to measure the effectiveness of our leaders.

The first time we rolled out this Life Group survey I expected we would see a response looking like these, but the actual responses were better than expected

The data made believers of some of our staff naysayers! Numbers matter, and they matter a lot.

## Tracking Missional Membership

At CedarCreek, membership is a BIG DEAL. Missional membership at CedarCreek is one way for us to qualify people such as Life Group leaders for leadership roles, but it also tells us who is on board and committed to the Creek for the long haul.

The process for membership includes a study that lays out our core beliefs and challenges people to commit to serving and tithing, or moving towards tithing. We actually use a version of Nelson Searcy's generosity ladder to help them move up incrementally. The study can be done online or in a classroom setting (in four two-hour classes) followed by an interview conducted by a staff member or key leader.

We have wrestled with dumbing down our emotional membership process, but keep settling for the status quo. We like the process, which we believe makes missional membership something special. And our data clearly communicates missional members are far more likely to be giving and serving than non-missional members.

For a church of 9,000 in weekly attendance you'd think we'd have more missional members than the current 1,400 (although if you throw kids in represents about 4,000). But once again through a survey, after asking ourselves was all the effort promoting missional membership worth it, we got back strong supporting data. Missional members were more likely to tithe, give, serve, and share their faith.

## Follow the Money
Of course, we track the giving. Who doesn't? And does it matter? You bet! We track and analyze the giving units this year versus last year, giving per attendee, and giving per giving unit. We even track the Cost of Reaching and Discipling one person—we call it our C.O.R.D. It is derived by dividing the total giving by average attendance. Our current C.O.R.D. is $780 versus $2,000 for the average megachurch. This number was calculated before we went to our One Fund.

You've got to track the numbers to know what's going on.

That means we are getting the same results for a lot less money! By tracking this number, I can go back to staff and volunteers and cheer them for doing more with less.

One final note on this subject. I was part of a gathering of six or seven churches that had gathered to share best practices about being more missional. The facilitator began our two-day gathering by saying the score card has got to change; the emphasis on attendance has to diminish. I immediately injected my big mouth into the leaders opening remarks. I then asked the host why every church in our group had to have attendance of at least 1,500 to participate. Why didn't you ask the leaders of churches with 800 in attendance? Was their scorecard too low?

Let's not pretend attendance doesn't matter. Let's not diminish the importance of numbers.

#  Chapter 3

Facts Are Your Friend But Facts Can Be Fickle

"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please." Mark Twain (1)

A recent survey published in Thom S. Ranier's book _Surprising Insights from the Unchurched and Proven Ways to Reach Them_ reported that 90 percent of unchurched people who began attending church and returned did so, in part, because they liked the pastor's preaching. On the other hand, music barely made the list. Only 11 percent said the music affected their return. (2)

Top 13 Reasons Unchurched People Choose a Church (3)

(research conducted by Ranier)

  1. 90% - Pastor/Preaching

  2. 88% - Doctrines

  3. 49% \- Friendliness of Members

  4. 42% \- Other Issues

  5. 41% \- Someone/Church Witnessed to Me

  6. 38% \- Family Member

  7. 37% \- Sensed God's Presence/Atmosphere of Church

  8. 25% \- Relationship Other than Family Member

  9. 25% \- Sunday School Class

* 25% \- Children's/Youth Ministry

  11. 12% \- Other Groups/Ministries

  12. 11% \- Worship Style/Music

  13. 7% - Location

Top 6 Things That Keep the Formerly Unchurched Active in the Church (4) (research conducted by Ranier)

  1. 62% \- Ministry Involvement

  2. 55% \- Sunday School

  3. 54% \- Obedience to God

  4. 49% \- Fellowship of Members

  5. 38% - Pastor/Preaching

  6. 14% \- Worship Services

You can't deny that unchurched people who visit your church will probably not be back if they don't connect with the teaching pastor. And if you don't get them involved in ministry, they are not likely to stay for the long haul.

But what about the music? It's ranked at the bottom of two lists: (1) reasons unchurched come back a second time and (2) reasons people continue to come back over the long haul. Do we conclude that music is not that important? No, this is one example of the facts being fickle.
Let me ask you a question. Do you shop at Wal-Mart? If so, why? Like 99 percent of people who shop at Wal-Mart, you'd probably list price as your primary reason for trading there. Or maybe selection? Friendly greeters? How about clean stores? Hmm. That one I doubt will get a hit by more than 10 to 20 percent of shoppers. But if the store were dirty, would you go back? No, of course not. Get my point?

It's true herds of previously unchurched people don't list the music as a reason for coming back or staying over the long haul. But if the music were bad or bland, would it affect their tenure? No doubt. In fact, the music becomes even more important as your church grows. Tim Keller makes this point in a must read article titled "Process Managing Church Growth" published in Vineyard's _Cutting Edge._ "The larger the church, the more the music becomes an attractor on its own." (5)

Another fickle fact, according to the survey was the location of the church. The survey showed location was only important to seven percent of the respondents. Do you believe that? If that's true, does it matter if your church is five miles away or 15 miles away? Of course, location matters. People may not say it, but it does matter.

## More Fickle Facts

It's been a few years now since we participated in Willow Creek's amazing church diagnostic called REVEAL® (6). The data it produced was very, well, let's say, revealing.

The survey plotted people in our church into four primary categories:

That data wasn't a big surprise since we conduct a twice-annual survey that groups our people similarly:

While REVEAL didn't provide us with new data, the findings about what catalyzes people from one group to the next were invaluable.

It was revealing to learn that 17 percent of our people were stuck—their spiritual growth was on pause. We were even able to learn why they were stuck. Most of them said they struggled with an addiction or two. Wow! And we even learned that this group has no devotional life! Surprise, huh?

So we responded to the facts by telling the 17 percent of our people they can get "unstuck" by joining the entire church in a disciplined devotional life. We reemphasized Life Group participation, 4-15's (see chapter six in _Innovations_ by Wayne Cordeiro), and we reminded them
of Celebrate Recovery (Saddleback's Recovery Ministry) (7). We also ramped up our LivingItOut.tv daily Bible study that follows up on the weekend talk, helping people live out the message. Now that would be a revolutionary idea, wouldn't it? People applying on Monday what they learned on Sunday.

So what was the problem with the REVEAL facts? No problem with the facts. After all, facts are facts. The problem was in another finding: eight percent of Creekers are thinking about leaving. OUCH! I know what some would say. We need to close the back door. We need to understand these departing brethren. But you won't catch me saying that.

I say, "Oh well, sorry to see you go, but we are not changing for you. We are not going to go deeper, turn the music down, offer a mid-week service, speak in tongues, hold healing services, or preach through Revelation on the weekends.

You see, there are other facts colliding with REVEAL facts. We are growing (at least at that time) for a reason. My leadership gut tells me that chasing the eight percent is counterproductive.

Something else about the REVEAL facts can be fickle. How do you plot yourself with the data? If you have a lot more Christ-centered people, is that good? If we are fulfilling the Great Commission, won't we always have people in the seeking category? One local pastor, when I shared the data with him, suggested I focus on the 18 percent Christ-centered. "Are you nuts?" (I thought it but didn't speak it.) I explained to him it is not an either/or proposition. It's both. Just as the Great Commission instructs us to baptize new believers and teach them to obey all Jesus'
commands, we should focus on seekers and Christ-centered and all in between. In fact, we are giving more attention to all the groups and their specific catalytic needs.

## Still More Fickle Facts

In 2010, _Leadership Network_ and _Christianity Today_ conducted a survey (8) to determine how lean churches, defined as those devoting 35 percent of budget to payroll, do compare with churches spending the normal 45 to 65 percent of budget on payroll. Below are some findings that research revealed.

Lean Staffing: Churches That Handle Staff Cost Under 35 Percent of Budget

  1. Do more with volunteers and lay leadership development

  2. Tend to have poor congregations

  3. Spend a higher part of their budget money outside their wall

  4. Outsource certain staff jobs

  5. Have extra income sources beyond donations and members

  6. Seem to put more attention to developing volunteers

  7. Have fewer staff per attendee (Churches with lean staff budgets average one paid staff to every 86 attendees; comparable churches, one paid staff to 70 attendees.) At CedarCreek we have 83 people, giving us a ratio of 1:126

 http://www.christianitytoday.com/special/ycresources/pdf/exec- report_churchbudgetpriorities.pdf
The data they selected ought to inspire us to do more with less. But there is a potential danger of overreacting. Remember facts can be fickle. Re-read item seven on the list: "Have fewer staff per attendee."

At CedarCreek we spend 53 percent of our revenue or general fund (now One Fund) budget on staff. * Yet we are lean, and I do mean lean. So how could we be so lean at 53 percent of the budget? Let me explain:

  1. Our attendance year end 2013 was 10,500.

  2. Our annual general fund budget was $9,852,000

  3. We have 83 full-time equivalent staff.

  4. That means our ratio is one paid staff to 126 attendees!

Get this, the lean churches in the study average one paid staff to every 86 attendees. The comparison churches spending 45 to 60 percent of budget on payroll have one paid staff to 70 attendees.

If CedarCreek had a typical budget for a church of 10,500 it would be around $15,000,000 or more. Then our payroll percent would be 40 percent instead of 55 percent. See the problem? Payroll percent of the budget is not the whole story about what defines a lean church. The staff ratio is a better measurement.
If you're not thoughtful, you could overreact to the data. You might mistakenly zero in on the payroll percent to budget, thinking you need to cut, when in reality you are already lean. Be sure to include your ratio in your thought process.

Here's how to do this, first, add up your staff hours to determine the number of full-time equivalents. For example, at the Creek we currently have 32 part-time and 71 full-time staff for an equivalent of 83. Then divide your weekly attendance by that number (10,500 divided by 83 is 126 or one paid to 126 attendees). If your church is over 800 in attendance or your ratio is leaner than the Creek, write me and tell me about your church.

Now, if you are spending 55 percent of your budget on payroll and your ratio is one to 80 or lower, you can do better for the Kingdom!

Facts are your friends, but they can be so fickle.

#  Chapter 4

Listen to the Experts but Be Leery of the "Experts"

Have you ever heard two experts debate global warming? Honestly, I do not have a clue which side to come down on, and my lack of decisiveness won't change our world one way or the other. But imagine if you were the president and your decisions mattered. You could make the situation better, you could waste billions of dollars fixing a problem that doesn't exist, or you could doom our planet to an early demise. You would most likely turn to experts for help.

Of course, there is only one president of our country, but many churches and business leaders also rely on experts to make critical next-step decisions. These decisions can make or break a church or business.

Where would we be without experts to help us? As for CedarCreek, we are eternally indebted to those who blazed the trails before us, providing invaluable experience and expertise. In our early years, 1995 to 2000, we were utterly dependent on the expertise of Willow Creek, Saddleback, Fellowship, Kensington, Granger, and others we watched from miles away—even paying an occasional visit and stealing their best ideas. In fact, we were so tied into Willow that I recruited and promoted from the stage for Willow's prevailing church conferences, even suggesting people use their tithe to pay for the conference. My pastoral and exaggerated estimate is we took about 300 to 350 people to Willow over a five-year period.

Then on top of the pastors and staff of the churches mentioned above, there were other experts writing books on church growth (it was legal to talk about church growth back then). Carl George's breakout book, _Prepare your Church for the Future_ _,_ (1) was helpful. And Bob Logan included invaluable resources for us in his church planting tool kit.

Today we still look to the experts at Willow, Saddleback, Granger, Kensington, and Fellowship, but we have since added Life Church, North Point, NewSpring, Seacoast, Lake Pointe, New Life Christian Community, and L.C.B.C. We also read almost every book that's been written on church growth, as well as selected secular books that provide leadership guidance. Examples are Good _to Great,_ (2) _How the Mighty Fall,_ (3) _Five Dysfunctions of a Team,_ (4) and _Death by Meeting_ (5) _._ We also use John Maxwell's books, but it would take 100 pages to list all of them in our references.

So why be leery of the experts? Well, let's just say sometimes they are flat-out wrong. If you listen to them without the right "filters," you can do great damage to your church. I've seen it happen to local churches in our area, and we've experienced the pain ourselves. Be leery of these categories of experts:

## Presenting Anecdotal Experience as Fact.

  1. Theorists. The "theorists" (I did not say terrorists, although theorists can blow up a church) present their untested opinions as track-tested ironclad data. These guys really bug me!

* "One Way" Experts. Some of the experts present "their" way as the only way to go (missional versus attractional, emergent versus seeker, expositional versus topical, etc.).

  3. "Try This" Experts. Some other church experts go public with their latest untested church-altering programs, leading the sheep to the slaughter.

## It Worked For Us, It Will Work For You Experts

So now, let's talk! But rules first—there will be no name-calling. The last thing I want to do is bash a fellow brother—well, at least not by name.

## Presenting Anecdotal Experiences as Fact

Did you know that 60% of unchurched Americans will never step foot in an attractional model church? Or so I have been told over and over again. I've heard it from church planters, established pastors, tweets, blogs and books.

So what's the problem? The problem is that the number is a guess. It's not based on a Barna survey or any other survey. It's one guy's guess. Yet the number has been thrown around like it is the Gospel.

The truth is, attractional churches are attractive to a much broader group of people in the stats, nearly double the 40% we're being told. So actually 80% of unchurched people are attracted to attractional churches and would attend if invited. How do I know? I don't! But my guess is as good as his, the primary champion of the 60% stat.

All kidding aside, we have to sort through these stats and their sources before we make major decisions. To say that 60% of unchurched Americans will never step foot in an attractional model may be true of New York, but way off the market in Columbus, Ohio, where Chad Fisher is leading a phenomenal church, Rock City, which I would say is thoroughly attractional and missional at the same time. In three short years the church is running 2,000!

We are thrilled to say we had a small part in helping Rock City launch.

There are three more stories that we get to be a part of. Elevate in Erie, Pennsylvania, started with 60 and is now at 800 people. Xperience church in Defiance, Ohio started with 65 and is now at 500 attendees, and Elevate church in Monroe, Michigan, who started with 10, is now at 800 people.

The point is these churches are thriving as attractional and missional churches.

My guess is that a majority of the unchurched in their area would go if invited. But then again, it is only a guess.

One final note, Dave Travis, who is the President of Leadership Network and has all the data at his fingertips is optimistic about megachurches (even attractional models) thriving.

## The Theorists
Let's first talk about the theorists who present opinions as ironclad data. Remember the emerging church? The church that would reach the 20-something generation in droves, the church that was supposed to reach the postmodern culture? It would mean the end of the "entertainment" (I could say "seeker" church, but that would be outdated) type churches. It would bring back candle burning, religious artifacts, maybe even hymns—all to meet people's deep yearning to return to their "ancient" roots and maybe to a simpler way.

Hmm. . . when I read or heard such ideas, I asked exactly what roots this 20-something generation would have. Many of them were unchurched families. Some had been churched in liberal theology void of divine inspiration. And remember the prediction that this generation would reject the "modern" church? I think that was a shot at the growing populace of attractional megachurches.

So what happened? A look at this generation shows they are not rejecting modernity, but they are brand conscious and technology savvy. Yes, they even want to be the "entertained" generation.

Have you noticed the stores they shop in and the schools they attend? The stores are bigger. The schools are bigger. This generation is into big institutions and flocks to them in droves.

The "theorists" I am thinking about are the guys who write books. Good writers they may be, but often they are ineffective leaders who haven't done much (no, I am not talking about seminary professors). I remember one book that many unsuspecting church leaders bought into. The author hadn't accomplished diddly-squat. He was conducting an experiment, but presenting it as the future of the church and coaching others to go for it. He was even on the speaking circuit (I
assume his experiment didn't turn out that well because I haven't seen or heard from him in a while). I wonder how many churches were hurt by his advice. Be leery of the theorists. They may be intellectually stimulating to read, but they could destroy your church.

## The "One-Way" Experts

So now what about the "one-way" guys? I have no problem with being a one-way guy when it comes to a one-way road or one way to God, but I am leery of leaders who present their methodology as "the" way or even the "latest" way. Case in point, some "experts" write and speak about being missional while debasing the attractional model. I don't get that. These guys bug me too!

I think Jim Collins called it the "tyranny of the or" in _Built to Last_ (6). He wrote that great companies don't get bogged down by thinking A or B; rather, they learn to function by successfully doing both. "Instead of being oppressed by the 'Tyranny of the OR,' highly visionary companies liberate themselves with the 'Genius of the AND'—the ability to embrace both extremes of a number of dimensions at the same time. Instead of choosing A OR B, they figure out a way to have both A and B." So why can't a church be both highly missional and highly attractional at the same time? By the way, for the pro-missional, non-attractional guys, attractional churches are still growing, and they are almost always missional as well. But why bother with the facts?

If your missional strategy works (and it does), where will you invite the converts to attend? Will it be a church that gives little attention to how new people are grafted in? I don't know what's
behind the thinking of the anti-attractional group. They can't say it's outdated and doesn't work while the facts say it still works. Isn't it consistent with Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 9:22? (7)

Another group of experts is declaring there is only one way to teach Scripture—expositionally. They say topical sermons are a form of proof texting. The pastor (so they say) develops his points and then uses Scripture out of context to confirm them. Now I am all for not using Scripture out of context, but was Jesus a topical teacher or expositional? Hmm. I asked one expert that question, and he told me I was not Jesus, so I told him he was not John McArthur.

Can we agree that some of today's greatest communicators and pastors are both topical and expositional preachers (but mostly topical)? How about Rick Warren? Bill Hybels? Craig Groeschel? Andy Stanley? Do these guys take Scripture out of context? When? Please tell me!

I like listening to some of the expositional teachers, and I preach a half dozen or so expositional sermons myself each year, but there is more than one way to preach. It doesn't have to be either/ or. Be leery of the experts who say their way is the only way.

## "Try This" Experts

Now for those experts who go public with their untested experiments, leading lambs to the slaughter (lambs would be church leaders who attend their conferences and read their books). Let me say the burden here rests on the conference attendees and book readers, not the experts—
unless, of course, the experts misrepresent their experiment as more successful than it really is. Come on now, we know pastors would never exaggerate!

I remember attending one conference where a church described how they had overhauled their entire small group ministry. They seemed confident it was a great move. Some of our staff wanted to do the same, but fortunately we decided instead to experiment with a handful of our (at the time) 200-plus groups. A funny thing happened. The church that

overhauled their groups had near disastrous consequences.

I wonder how many reading this now can think of an untested idea they took home and unleashed on their entire church, causing havoc. How many times have you attended a conference in which the leader tells how last year's great idea was a whiff for their church?

## It Worked For Us, It Will Work For You Experts

I'll never forget the night a group of six or seven visited me to show me the latest strategy of their struggling church. I was very interested in seeing this new plan which they thought would turn their church around. My interest? This church was the church from which CedarCreek was birthed. This church was the church I was discipled by, having sat under the phenomenal teaching of Weldon Davis. It was Weldon, who gave me opportunities to preach his final year and I was speaking as much as him.
This latest strategy meeting took place around 2002. The church was now on their second Senior Pastor to follow Weldon. I had left fall of 1994 and to this day I love that church. It was there I learned hundreds of leadership lessons, mostly based on leadership mistakes I made.

So the group of six, beaming, smiling from cheek to cheek, laid out the auditorium remodel plans. I was immediately horrified by what I saw. But I didn't flinch, or give any sign of my shock. What they had just unveiled was a new floor plan for the sanctuary, soon to be called The Living Room.

The once 400-seat sanctuary with pews was now a collection of living room sets, including all important coffee tables and seating. A total now of 250-300 maximum.

So I asked what's this about? They explained that their Senior Pastor had read a book by an author who at that time was traveling the country explaining this church growth strategy of turning auditorium space into multiple living room sets.

They went on to explain how frustrated the pastor was that the church wasn't growing and they weren't reaching the twenty-something crowd. What they didn't know is he and I had a brief conversation about the strategy or floor plan a few weeks before and I warned him about adopting a strategy that seemed to be working in California, that I didn't think it would transfer to Toledo, Ohio.
That night I gave the same warning to the group meeting with me. They were completely deflated as I asked half a dozen questions intended to help them see the huge risk they were taking.

But I just couldn't leave them so discouraged. So I used the line I use often when people are facing certain failure. I say, "But who am I?" God is all powerful and He can do what he wants. Indeed, perhaps God had given their pastor clear marching orders, I told them.

It didn't take long as attendance plummeted for the board to lay the blame on the Senior Pastor and fire him.

The moral of the story is to be suspiciously cautious about untested programs and remember you are probably getting a biased presentation void of all the pitfalls. But for all you compulsive types go ahead and implement the program and you will find out if you are right or wrong.

One final note—I think you should judge this book with the same caution and suspicion I have recommended in processing the advice of other "experts."

#  Chapter 5

Don't Worry About Innovating—Instead, Steal from the Best

"Whose idea was that?"

This question is often posed by staff or Creekers responding to a great song we packaged with multimedia or a new cool ministry we have just launched. While there is usually a person or group at the Creek to credit with the idea, more often than not, they got the idea from another church or secular source. But who cares? Our goal is not to be innovative but rather to be effective.

_Innovate_ : "to introduce as or as if new."

I thank God for the innovative churches! It pains me to think about where CedarCreek would be without the innovation of Willow Creek, Saddleback, Granger (I had to include Granger, after all, they do host the Innovative Church Conference), and of late Life Church, North Point, Fellowship, Elevate, New Spring (Perry Noble), and Seacoast Church (Greg Surratt). I'm glad God has blessed these and other churches with the ability to innovate. In fact, I also want to thank them for saving the Creek thousands of dollars. I have to believe that for every successful, innovative idea these churches come up with, they have one or two ideas that flop at a cost! And there must be some colossal failures out there resulting from an innovative initiative.
There are a plethora of corporate examples of companies that innovated, had a great tide and then crashed. Case in point, Webvan or eToys, two of the biggest dot-com flops (1).

The article goes on to say that "every company stumbles, but the best innovators know that experiments produce mistakes and new ventures don't always pan out. So they take the kind of risks that have lots of upside but won't sink the firm if they flop" (2).

Jim Collins in his book Great by Choice (3) writes, "And when it comes to innovative companies they found that only 9 percent of pioneers end up as the final winners in a market. Gillette didn't pioneer the safety razor; Star did. Polaroid didn't pioneer the instant camera; Dubroni did.

Microsoft didn't pioneer the personal computer spreadsheet; VisiCorp did. Amazon didn't pioneer online bookselling and AOL didn't pioneer online Internet service. Tellis and Golder also found that 64 percent of pioneers failed outright. It seems that pioneering innovation is good for society, but statistically lethal for the individual pioneer!"

At the Creek we don't consider ourselves masters of any one thing, but we do pride ourselves on observing other churches, learning from their successes (innovations) and failures, and then applying those ideas to our particular setting. The cost savings are incalculable. At times we've even been able to improve on the original idea.

Following is a list, in no particular order, of innovative ideas we have adopted at CedarCreek:

## _4:15s_ from Wayne Cordeiro, New Hope Church
We use Wayne Cordeiro's one-hour, four-segment breakdown for Scripture reflection in small groups. The first 15 minutes are for small talk. The second are for reading an agreed on passage (usually from our church-provided read through the Bible or New Testament in a year). The third 15 minutes are for personal reflection or journaling, and the last 15 are for talking about what you just read and reflected on. We have actually adapted it to 3:20's. Twenty minutes catching up, twenty minutes reading a passage and twenty minutes talking about it.

Living It Out Daily Bible Study, Pantego Bible Church

A visit to Randy Frazee's former church, Pantego Bible Church, exposed us to something they called The Scroll—a well-written Bible study that pre-seeded and tied into the upcoming weekend message. We took that innovative idea and developed a five-day Bible study to follow each weekend talk. The study digs a little deeper into the passages touched on in the weekend message, but its primary purpose is to help people live out the weekend talk—thus the name _Living It Out Bible Study_. People can get a hard copy each weekend or receive a daily email from LivingItOut.tv. In addition, the pastor giving the talk does a DVD and facilitates groups via that DVD adding more sermon material.

## Building Out Shopping Centers, LifeChurch.tv, Oklahoma City

In the spring of 2006, we launched our first satellite location in a high school 15 miles from our original campus. Attendance averaged nearly 600 people the first year, but by year two it was down to about 450.
After visiting a Life Church satellite location, we realized they had been able to duplicate their DNA by building at a former retail store. We were convinced we needed to do the same for our second satellite location so we leased and built out 29,000 square feet of a former furniture store. We launched Easter 2008 and now are running an average weekly attendance of 2,300. We also shut down our first satellite which was meeting at a school while we built a 30,000 square-foot building a couple miles from the school. This location is now averaging 1,300 a weekend! We learned that to successfully open satellites within 12 to 20 miles of our original campus, we have to duplicate the DNA of our church. Doing that requires something more than a portable setup. We just recently added our first campus beyond the 12 to 20 mile range in Findlay, Ohio 45 miles away. At our launch in mid-September we had about 1700 in attendance. It looks like we are averaging around 1,000 attendees consistently since launching.

## Music Video, Granger Community Church

At an Innovative Church Conference, Granger introduced the idea of producing music videos for specials and even worship tunes. We now produce a video for _every_ special—and that's usually two each weekend! It doesn't sound innovative today, but back in the day it was!

## Give It Away, Brian Tome, Crossroads, Cincinnati

I was blown away when I visited Crossroads and saw they gave away not only the perfunctory coffee, but also pop (or for the guys in the south, Coke). We now give _free_ fountain pop along with coffee. Although the beverages are always free, on the off weeks, we encourage regular attenders to drop money in our Plexiglas smiley-faced donation boxes. For new people, it's a bit
of a shocker. "Wow," they say, "these guys give away free pop!" Not to mention they gave away weekend messages on DVD.

## TiVo Signal, Greg Surratt, Seacoast

Our current satellite locations receive a live feed of all five of our services at our original campus, however, we do not have to deal with the difficulty of synchronizing all the satellite services with the one at the original campus. Instead, the receiving campus TiVo's the signal until they are ready to use it, usually a minute or two behind. This gives a "live" feel at all campuses, and we think that's important.

## Replace Your Sermon Notes with Pictures, Ed Young, Fellowship

During a tour of Ed Young's office in 2000, I saw a collection of roughly drawn pictures on his whiteboard. I asked our tour guide what the pictures represented. He told me Ed preaches from pictures (now he uses no notes or pictures!). I tried it and found it worked beautifully and freed up my preaching. In fact, I've had people in the church comment on the power of my talks since using pictures to preach from. I usually still manuscript my talks, but then I draw small pictures, each picture representing a paragraph or big idea from the manuscript. I typically fill two legal pad half sheets with pictures left to right, double-spaced.

## Teaching at a Table, Andy Stanley, North Point Church

About three years ago, I tried Andy Stanley's mode of preaching while seated at a table—and I loved it. If I wanted to make a dramatic point, I could still get up and walk around. Then in November of 2008, I herniated a disc in my neck. I was in so much pain I couldn't preach
Christmas Eve 2008. By mid-January, I was able to preach again and found speaking at a table was, and has been, a lifesaver. Then in early 2013 I developed a tremor in my right hand and found holding on to the pulpit made it less distracting. Later I learned that the tremor was actually caused by Parkinsons, which I have and will write about later in the book.

Small Group Quick Connect, Bill Hybels, Willow Creek

On the surface, the _Quick Connect_ method for selecting small group leaders seems absurd, but it can pay off. We invite prospective Life Group attendees to a meeting and group them by demographic data, maybe geographically, maybe life circumstance. Then we give groups of six to eight at each table a set of questions to discuss. At the end of the discussion period, we ask the entire group on the count of three to point to the person at their table who should lead their group. Yep, that's what I said. And it's usually unanimous. We then take the chosen individuals through small group leader turbo-training (and the membership process) and make them group leaders on a trial basis. After some time, we either keep the group going or try to get a new leader. Crazy, huh?

## Generosity Ladder, Nelson Searcy

implemented in our most recent Beyond Ourselves initiative. The big idea was to urge people to step up one step at a time instead going from zero to tithe. We adjusted it by replacing the top step of extravagant givers to bold givers. During the initiative, we wanted to raise 25 million over the following 2 years, which was 5 million over the 20 million we were trending. We believe the ladder was a key agent in us achieving our goal as hundreds of families stepped up as illustrated in the above example!

## CedarCreek Innovations

Okay, now for a few of our innovative practices. (We think they are innovative, but after publishing this book we may find someone else doing the same things.)

## Fourteen Month New Believers Life Groups, Steve Hutmacher
This last calendar year (2013) we baptized over 1,000 people. Of those baptized, 160 participated in a New Believers Life Group. We'd love to see every new believer join one of these groups, but we only get about one-fourth of those baptized to participate. We still see these groups as a great success. They meet for 14 months. Our qualified leaders teach the participants and lead them through the basics, all the while doing life together. When people come out of these groups, they are solid. Most of them go on to lead regular Life Groups or New Believers Groups.

  1. ## Lee Powell, CedarCreek Church

The main idea behind the T.A.L.K. acronym is that prayer is talking to God:

**T** ell him what's on your mind. Thank him for what He is doing in your life.

**A** sk Him to meet your needs. Ask Him to . . . (you get the idea).

**L** isten to Him. Pause, be quiet, and ask God to speak to you—then listen.

**K** neel before Him as Christ did in the garden of Gethsemane, declaring, "God, Your will be done, not mine."

Big Push now the Big Invite, Lee Powell

Read in Chapter 1 all about how to do outreach using the Big Invite.

Thank God for the innovators! Steal from them, make their ideas your own, or even improve on their innovations.

## Our Flops
Even so, I would say stealing an idea versus innovating, still has some risk. Often times churches grab and put in place a seemingly innovating idea from another church, when under the surface that innovative idea is slowly unraveling and may be hours away from the chopping block.

We have had a few innovation flops ourselves.

The year was 2005 and we were running out of seats at our optimum service, the Sunday 10:45. We had already tried to cast a vision so strong they would sacrifice their preferred service and attend one of the other four, Saturdays 5:15 pm, 7:00 pm, Sunday 9:00 am or 12:30 pm. There were open seats in all of those services.

So we (I) started the almost unplugged service at the 10:45 in our chapel in hopes of luring a couple hundred from our full 10:45 which seats 1,350 and had an average attendance of 1,150 - 1,200 which was 80% capacity.

We thought surely there are hundreds in that service that would prefer a low key, no theatrical lighting, no haze, not even an electric guitar or drums. I insisted that our staff all attend week one to create a crowded effort. So with the fifty-five staffers, we had a total of seventy five people show up.

As word got out I expected attendance to build. Instead week two netted sixty, forty of them staff and the final plunge was week three less than fifty people, half of them staff. Speaking of staff they have now dubbed the innovation as "almost unattended".

Now for innovation failures number two. You have already read it in chapter 3. Once again to open up seats I called our elders with a bold idea, certainly spirit led or so I thought. We would identify five good churches that create a geographic circle around us. I stood up at all five weekend services and invited people to leave our church and attend and get plugged in at one of the five. Of course, three hundred left, but two hundred came back after week one.

#  Chapter 6

You Don't Kick Family Off the Bus . . . Usually

"You run your church too much like a business," critics charge. On the flip side, we hear, "You need to run your church like a business." So which is it?

Obviously, we do not do anything to violate Scripture. But no doubt, we should borrow best practices from the business community that help us forward the gospel. The challenge is choosing which to adopt and which to avoid. The following paragraph takes on a common business approach to staffing an organization, specifically the firing of staff.

In his breakout book, _Good to Great_ , Jim Collins (Jim is one of my heroes) made a hit with this phrase: "Get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus."(1) While I agree this is the way to go in the marketplace (where I spent 15 years with a Fortune 500 company before entering the ministry), it may not be the best philosophy to use in a church staff setting. It is especially counterproductive in a church culture where staff think of one another as family, as we do at the Creek.

Since we consider our staff to be family, we aren't excited about getting any staff member off the bus. Thus the title of this chapter: "You Don't Kick Family Off the Bus . . . Usually."

What does this philosophy look like?
First, we have hired every one of our 100 staff members from within, with two exceptions. The first exception was our first youth pastor (hired year one, but raised his own support). He did not work out. The second exception to hiring from within was my brother-in-law, whom I recruited to leave the corporate life at Coca-Cola in Atlanta, Georgia, to come work in the great city of Toledo, Ohio. Of course, he was like an insider since he had mentored me in my Christian faith, and I knew him like a brother. He has worked out very well after holding several positions at the Creek and especially after settling in his sweet spot, pastoral care. As a side note, his favorite thing to do is a funeral—God love him.

The point I am making about hiring all from within is that the odds of making a bad pick go way down. Not only do the people we hire have our DNA (or at least understand it), but we also get to observe them in volunteer serving capacities before hiring them! If you're a business leader reading this imagine how much better your hires would be if you could watch them volunteer for a year before making your decision to bring them on the payroll? So hiring from within church or business means we have far fewer who want to, or need to, "get off the bus."

Our "family policy" as it has been called, has been criticized by other pastors, CedarCreek congregants, some of our own staff, and some of those in leadership roles. A couple years back, I was at a Leadership Network pastors' cohort. Leadership Network brings small groups of pastors of large churches together to share ideas and build relationships. During the two days, we came to the subject of staff development, and I shared CedarCreek's "family philosophy"—you don't kick family off the bus . . . usually.
The pastors in this cohort disagreed with me. One pastor told me I was crazy. "Some of my extended family members are nuts, but they are family and I'm stuck with them. "But dude," he said, "you can't look at staff that way. You owe it to your church and the rest of your staff to get rid of poor performers or (he said in animated fashion) misfits." The other five pastors nodded in agreement. I explained the reasoning behind our (my) philosophy. I told them the family policy will in the long run be good for the Kingdom of God. Why? It will fortify loyalty among the staff and protect the entire church from unnecessary trauma and turmoil.

So what trauma and turmoil is the congregation spared from? Releasing an employee from the church staff not only affects the other staff members, but also causes reverberation throughout the church. When you release a staffer, you are firing someone's husband, wife, brother, sister, mother, father, aunt, uncle, cousin, friend, small group member, admirer, follower . . . you get the point.

We have helped some people down off the bus, but always with good reason. One incident involved a staffer who had a serious moral failure. This staffer's guilt was not in question, yet some congregants were upset with us for releasing this person! I believe their thinking was irrational, but probably came from a conviction that the church, of all places, should show compassion and go the extra mile with its employees. Did you get that? Even for a serious moral failure, some in the congregation thought we were too harsh.

Other times we have released employees for performance issues, but only after numerous attempts to help them get it right. When supervisors ask to release someone, I always ask if we
have gone above and beyond to help this family member get it right, or have we perhaps misplaced him or her. Is there a place in the organization where this person could shine?

The end result for the Kingdom? For our church, this family philosophy means high morale among the staff, high level of trust in leadership, and lower turnover. Not because we fire fewer but because people like working at the Creek. Three times now we have participated in the morale survey administered by Americas Best Christian Workplaces (2) and three times we have been fortunate to be listed as one of Americas Best Christian Workplaces. The last time we were listed was fall of 2014 (3).

We think there is a direct link between our family policy and our relatively high morale over a period of now nineteen years.

The survey, which I highly recommend, reports employee attitudes about numerous categories and then compares your staff responses to other churches, issue by issue. The survey can be found at http://www.bcwinstitute.com

One area we ranked sky high was trust of senior leadership. I would agree that is in direct correlation to our family policy.

Now you might mistakenly be thinking that the family policy flows from my overflowing compassionate leadership style. Well, you can eject that idea. I'm not known for my compassion.
The family policy is all about a trust strategy that advances the cause of Christ, keeping the church healthy and the staff loyal. Trust and loyalty that pay huge dividends when you get in a pinch and have to make tough calls that hurt and may not make much sense.

And finally to paraphrase Jim Collins, "You put most of your people on the bus, so you do have some responsibility in doing all you can to either keep them there or help them leave with dignity, and perhaps a generous send-off." (4)

Bill Hybels was coaching twenty-five or so pastors at a Leadership Summit Preview meeting and he couldn't emphasize enough how important it is when a church takes a staff member off the bus to be generous.

So now when you read the statement "Our staff are all family and you don't fire family... usually." Have you budged at all? Still think I'm crazy?

We do actually fire people, I've referenced a few of those.

Here are some of the reasons we help people (family) "off the bus":

  1. Unresolved character issues. Even in these cases we look first to the option of restoration. Some cases, of course, call for immediate dismissal.

  2. Complaining down. You want to gripe, disagree with a decision, release some steam, go for it. But complain up to a supervisor, elder etc. We have even designated several

employees as a safe haven liason (we have three for 100 staff) where staff are encouraged to go and say what's on their mind.

  3. Repeated poor performance. This one in particular puzzles me. Didn't they volunteer with us? How did we miscast them? But it's got to be done after numerous attempts to help them get better, or even by giving them a different seat on the bus if it becomes apparent we have no choice for the good of the individual and the cause of Christ.

  4. Inability to be a CedarCreek cheerleader. If you can't enthusiastically support CedarCreek's vision, mission, values and methodology you must get off the bus.

You might think such a philosophy leaves us at a disadvantage and unable to get the job done. The truth is the opposite. In _Beyond Megachurch Myths_ (5) , Scott Thumma and Dave Travis report the average full-time staff ratio to weekend attendance is 1:45. They even note the leanest ratio they found out of 105 churches surveyed was 1:100. At CedarCreek we have a weekend attendance of just over 10,000 at the end of 2013 with 71 full-time and 32 part-time staff, which translates into a full time equivalency of 83 people, giving us a ratio of 1:126! The point is, we are getting a lot done with fewer staff—or should I say fewer "family" members.

P.S. I never got those five other pastors to agree with me on this one.

#  Chapter 7

Don't Promote or Hire the Most Talented People

In fact hiring superstars in the marketplace may not be a good idea either, as stated in a Harvard Business Review article titled _The Risky Business of Hiring Stars,_ by Bro Groysberg, Ashish Nanada, and Hitin Nohria (1).

"When you recruit talent from outside the organization, which is inevitable since developing people within the firm takes time and money, why settle for "B" players. Hitch your wagon to a rising star, and the company profits will soar."

That's a powerful idea, and several books and management gurus have popularized various shades of it over the past decade. In fact, it's the cornerstone of people management strategies in many companies. There's only one problem...like many popular ideas, it doesn't work.

If I were ever to find myself pinned down in a foxhole and under fire, I would want the guy next to me to be a great shot. There is not much else I would hope for in my foxhole partner. After all, the enemy positioned on top of a hill can only be taken out by a marksman.

While having a great talent (marksman) next to you is desirable for the foxhole moments, it is not enough for the long haul. It takes more than talent and even godly character to equal the profile staff person.
I am a huge Dallas Cowboys fan (please don't let that change your opinion of me). When the Cowboys signed Terrell Owens, I had mixed emotions. No doubt, he was a great football talent, but he had already wreaked havoc on one locker room. After joining the Cowboys, Terrell proved to be true to form, fulfilling the predictions of great plays on the field, but scoring low in public relations off the field. Jerry Jones came to realize Terrell was a risk and could negatively affect the Cowboys' morale.

Imagine if Jerry could have tested Terrell first. Imagine if at no cost to the team, Jerry could have had Terrell play for a year on a trial basis with no contract and no salary. Would Jerry have signed Terrell after the trial? Maybe, maybe not. Of course, we'll never see that happen in the NFL—it just doesn't work that way.

But in the church, the imagined trial run is possible. You can try people on for size before you hire them. You can bring them into your locker room and test their skills on the field. Before you sign a contract or pay out a single dollar, you can know with some certainty whether this player will help the team—or hurt it. These players are called volunteers or in our case, missional members.

As I mentioned in Chapter 7, at CedarCreek we hire exclusively from within. We hire only people who have been field-tested and observed as they interact with other staff. The upside is huge. Our high level of success has resulted in a low turnover rate, high moral, and ultimately our ability to get a lot more done with less. (See Chapter 11 for additional insights on getting more done with less.)

When I was in the marketplace working for a Fortune 500 company, I sat in on many prospective employee interviews, and I made plenty of mistakes hiring the wrong people. The cost to the company was high because these bad hires didn't live up to their interview promises.

We are so fortunate in the church to be able to observe people volunteering for sometimes years before we bring them on staff. That's one reason I get so frustrated when I hear an employee is not working out. How could we have made a mistake after being able to test their skills and relational IQ as a volunteer? Obviously, our approach is not foolproof, but I am convinced it is a better strategy than scanning the country for the best talent.

This philosophy has put some pressure on us recently because we need more specialists. In the early days, we needed generalists, and they are easier to find in the congregation. But as the church has grown, we've needed more experts in their respective fields. So far, we have been able to fill those spots from within. Frankly, I dread the day we are forced to look outside for a CedarCreek hire.

Hiring someone from the outside is a way to hire great talent, but it comes with increased risk. They may not connect with your staff, or they might not be as talented as they first appeared. They may have psychological problems that only surface during a crisis. They may not own your DNA, or they could secretly harbor doubts about your church's methodology and the senior leadership. Those risks are real and can cripple the church, especially if you make outside hires for key leadership positions.

Below is our organizational chart showing our management team and senior leadership. Like the rest of our staff, they all attended the Creek before being hired, and all were tested as volunteers. Note the number that indicates how many years they attended before being hired full-time.

We've also listed their respective vocations before coming on staff.

If you think your staff has to be seminary educated, think again! Now I am not against a seminary education, and it can be a plus, but that requirement can cripple your church and cause you to look past the best person for the job.

On our leadership (management) team, only three of us have any seminary training. The rest have education or business degrees or no degree. Steve Hutmacher and Ed McCauley are two examples of A+ CedarCreek inside hires. Steve is now an elder. He is one of three executive pastors who got involved with the Creek about five months before we launched our first public service (we met for ten months as a core group before going public). From day one, he was a Godsend. He brought maturity and leadership to our newly formed core group. I was able to do life with Steve before offering him a job four years later. His background? He was a district manager for Farmers Insurance in northwest Ohio. He now oversees church planting, internships as well as spiritual formations.

Ed McCauley is also an elder, and one of three executive pastors. Ed came to CedarCreek as a pagan after a popular local radio DJ invited him. At that time, Ed was a regional manager for Kroger, responsible for 22 stores. Soon Ed gave his life to Christ, and I invited him to a strategic men's group designed to help leader types multiply their lives. About three years in, I asked Ed to consider coming on staff. Like Steve Hutmacher, he walked away from a lucrative career for a ministry opportunity. Ed has overseen operations, including Human Resources, Finances, Public Relations, and Family Ministries, but now is at full speed leading our outreach ministries as well as hospitality at all our campuses.

Bill Trout, our third elder/executive pastor attended the creek eight years before coming on staff leading in outreach and missions. Three years ago, he became an elder/executive pastor over
operations, including HR, Finances, new facilities acquisition and build-outs. Bill also walked away from a lucrative career at Seneca Millwork where he was vice-president of operations.

We have other A+ stories; in fact, that is how I would rate our entire management team. Okay, maybe a couple of A or an A- people. (This line will drive the staff crazy.)

We have covered hiring from the inside. What about promotions? Even internally, we do not necessarily hire for the most talented person. Instead, we use the four Cs (three borrowed from Bill Hybels):

  1. Chemistry

  2. Competency

  3. Character

We added:

  4. Commitment to our mission, vision, values, and even our methodology. We tell staffers if you can't be a cheerleader for the way we do things, then get off the bus. We don't want someone on staff who secretly harbors a disdain for our methods.

We offer room for dissent, discussion, and debate—just come to one of our management team meetings. But once we leave the room of dissension, we lock arms with enthusiasm and promote what we are doing as a church.
This fourth C disqualifies many people on the outside, and even some already on staff. We have had staffers who at one time scored high on all four Cs, but over time their theology shifted or their commitment to the fourth C waned.

So you might ask why we have these individuals on staff in the first place. Didn't we observe them thoroughly as a volunteer? People change. They read a critique, sense a leading, and tell us they can no longer enthusiastically support the mission, vision, values, and methodology of CedarCreek.

Others never make a public declaration, but you can read it in their silent protest. They don't voice their change in perspective, but it surfaces in their attitude and overall patterns of behavior.

Now, what to do about people from within your church who want to be on staff? Strangely enough most of our staff never asked to be on staff, instead we pursued them based on what we observed over months or years of serving.

When someone approached me about being on staff I give my standard answer, which is, find an area to serve, serve your butt off and then when other staffers and volunteers start asking why you aren't on staff we'll know it's time to talk. Why in the world would we hire someone whose years of service, while extremely meaningful, did not capture the attention of leaders who don't suggest we hire them?
If you promote and hire the best talent, but they aren't rock solid on all four Cs, you will pay a price.

#  Chapter 8

Invite Dissenters to Leave

and Don't Let the Door Hit Them on the Way Out

What did people in the church at Corinth do when they got mad at the elders? What did they do when they didn't like the song selection, sermon topics, or strategy for outreach? What church did they go to? And what did the elders do when they wanted people to go to another church, but there were none for them to go?

We have an example of how the early church leaders responded to complaints. In Acts 6, the Greek-speaking believers complained about the Hebrew-speaking believers, saying Greek widows were being discriminated against in the daily distribution of food. So the apostles appointed well-respected men to assure the fair distribution of food. The problem solved, there was no more complaining—at least for the moment.

Obviously, conflicts will arise between leaders and congregants. More often than not, there is a workable solution, but when there is not . . .

I hate it when people leave the church. It hurts, and yes, more often than not, I take it personally. Believe me, I have tried not to let it affect me, but it still does. And yet I celebrate when certain people leave the church because some people need to leave the church.
I could tell you a hundred stories of people I actually invited to leave and find a church that was a better fit. One person who sticks out is a guy who wrote a five-page letter (single-spaced) explaining his theology on the pastor's salary (that would be me). He cited the Levitical priesthood and came up with some weird way of determining that my salary should not exceed

$45,000 annually, which was a problem since at the time my published salary was $50,000. Yes, I did say published salary. To this day, my salary is published and the congregation votes on it as part of the overall budget. Crazy, isn't it? Well, one thing is for sure—there are no rumors about my salary. We've even given the amount to local media when they ask.

Now back to the story. Two elders and I met with this dissenter and explained that if the salary bothered him now (at the time the church was running about 1,400), what was he going to do when it grew to $70,000 or $80,000? He said he was sticking around despite his disagreement. And stick around he did. He wrote another five-page letter—I don't even remember what it said. In my mind, I envisioned him carrying this protest sign: "The pastor is overpaid." One weekend I saw him in the lobby and I asked him why, after having so many reservations, he continued to stick around. His reason? No other church does outreach like CedarCreek. I suggested that perhaps the Creek was no longer a good fit and he should find a church that didn't cause him so much angst. He left, and it was good that he left.

Okay, here is where the debate begins. Should a pastor ever invite people to leave—apart from church discipline when it may be necessary? I say yes. Sometimes the best course of action is to invite a dissatisfied attender to leave.
I'm not suggesting we ask every critic to leave. If that were the case, we'd have no one left in the church. But there are people who pile on, who just can't let go of their pet criticisms and feel compelled to tell others.

As I've mentioned, when it comes to staff, we tell them they can complain up all they want, but when they complain down, they may lose their job. Unfortunately, we can't fire attendees for doing the same, but we do try to have discussions with serial complainers who broadcast their complaints through Facebook, email, or otherwise. One example that comes to mind is an individual who did not like the way we handled the crowds at our Christmas services, which 22,000 people attended. We addressed his comments and concerns (legitimate, they were, although we weren't horrible) but not to his satisfaction. So he continued to speak about how horrible we were, posting that someone had to stand up for the people.

We asked him to please stop. He refused. We asked him to leave the church. He left, and that was a good thing.

There is another group we invite to leave. Those who do not agree, or no longer agree, with our basic ministry philosophy as stated by our 5-Agreements (3 of them borrowed from Lifechurch.tv).

I give a vision talk a few times a year. After explaining our mission, vision, values, and our methodology, I ask people to take inventory of where they stand. Are they with us, I ask, or do they have significant differences? For example, let's say a person has been attending for two
years. They like the teaching, they like the music, but they believe something is missing. It is their conviction that CedarCreek should be conducting healing services or giving more altar calls (their terminology, not mine), or confronting social issues like abortion and homosexuality more often. Take note, I said they have a conviction, not just an opinion (that means God has told them), and their convictions spill over into their life groups and other CedarCreek social networks. They become serial complainers regarding their convictions. These folks need to either keep their mouth closed or find a church that is consistent with their convictions.

I can just imagine the response to this chapter from my critics (yes, I have a few). "It's either Lee's way or the highway." Let me ask a question. Is it healthy for the body of Christ, for a local church, to be divided?

We believe part of our success at the Creek comes from a willingness to invite dissenters to leave. What's left when they leave? A more unified church—and there is strength in unity!

A couple years back, we played garbage cans at our Christmas Eve services. The idea came from LifeChurch.tv. Ninety-five percent of the people loved it. However, a group of Creekers thought it was in poor taste. Some of the concerned talked to me personally; others wrote to me.

A couple months later during a vision talk, I brought out a garbage can on stage and for a few minutes tapped the overturned can with a drumstick. While I tapped the can, I referred to the Christmas Eve services and told the congregation I was aware some people thought it was over the top. I explained why we do such things and plan to do more of the same.

In fact, I said (quoting Life Church) that one of our Five-Agreements is "We will do anything short of sin to reach lost people." I continued, "If that bothers you, you may be in the wrong church. If garbage cans on Christmas Eve upset you, you're bound to be upset again unless your deeper conviction about how much lost people matter to God overrides your personal preferences." By the way, 1,200 people gave their lives to Christ during the garbage can Christmas Eve services.

Here are the other four agreements:

  2. We agree that the cause of the church is the greatest cause on the planet.

  2. We agree that the church can never get too big!

  2. We agree to be an example of Jesus' love behind and beyond the walls of our church.

  2. We agree to do more with less.

I wrapped up the talk by asking people to search their souls. I told them if the 5-Agreements were over the top for them, maybe the Creek was not a good place for them to be.

Why do we invite dissenters to leave? Because a unified church is a powerful thing, a united church is unstoppable.

#  Chapter 9

You Can Reach and Disciple a Lot of People Without a Lot of Money

We were hosting another amazing Leadership Summit, and it was break time. I was walking behind two local pastors who did not know I was there. They were on a self- guided tour of our church, and I overheard one of the pastors say, "Yeah, well if we had CedarCreek's money, we could have all of this too." The implication was we have all the money we need and more, and the available money is the secret to our success. The truth is, we have far less to work with on a per capita basis than most churches, or at least the so-called megachurches.

Toledo was recently listed as the eighth poorest city in America with a population exceeding 250,000.(1) Despite that, we've always had "just enough." That's the phrase I offered up just recently as 40 people from our core group gathered for dinner and reminisced about our 19-year run.

During our core building (November 1994 to September 1995) my salary was "just enough." It was determined by polling the core group, which then consisted of about 13 families. They anonymously wrote their planned giving on a piece of paper and handed it forward. My pay was determined by subtracting $200 weekly (for the small hotel conference room we planned to use) from the total the core group had committed to giving each week. My pay netted out to $32,000 annually ($615 a week) plus medical benefits for a total cost to the church of $38,000 annually.

Did you do the math? The core group's combined committed giving totaled $47,000 annually, or

$900 weekly. That's $70 a week from each family. Humble beginnings indeed, but "just enough."

There was no room in the budget for more, but we dreamed anyway. See our first budget on the following page. We didn't come close!

 CEDAR CREEK COMMUNITY CHURCH

1995 BUDGET

  * Senior Pastor: base pay
 | $32,000.00 | $38,200.00

---|---|---

  * Hospitalization
 | $5,200.00 |

  * Retirement
 | $1,000.00 |

Start-up Costs:

  * Tape giveaways (etc.)
 |   
 |

$300.00

Advertising Reserve: |   
 | $20,000.00

Facilty Rental:

  * $200 per week
 |   
 |

$10,000.00

Office Supplies: |   
 | $800.00

  * Equipment
 |   
 |

  * Paper
 |   
 |

  * Supplies
 |   
 |

  * Fax machine
 |   
 |

  * Software
 |   
 |

I ncorporation |   
 | $450.00

Willow Association fees: |   
 | $200.00

Programming Equipment |   
 |

  * Keyboard
 | $2,000.00 | $16,175.00

  * Sound board, mies, Bose speakers
 | $6,000.00 |

  * Storage Rental
 | $1,000.00 |

  * Lights
 | $2,000.00 |

  * Curtains/stage
 | $2,000.00 |

  * Video Projection
 | $3,000.00 |

  * Misc., lcensing fees, etc.
 | $175.00 |

Willow Creek Seminars: |   
 | $600.00

(May, August for Senior Pastor) |   
 |

Sermon Prep: |   
 | $500.00

(Tapes, books, etc.) |   
 |

 |   
 | $87,225.00

Salaries/Benefits:
Fast-forward to the present day. Our budget for the fiscal year July 2012 to June 2013 was just approved at $6,700,000. For a church of 9,200, that is low—but it will be "just enough." From the start-up year to now, we have always struggled. We didn't have a reasonable reserve account until the past two years. Presently, the reserve is around $600k, or an almost five-week cushion. All you financial conservatives are probably shaking your head in amazement.

I am not complaining. God has accomplished more than any of us in our core group ever imagined despite our financial challenges. It is not as though we had no money, just limited— especially compared with other churches. The disparity still exists today. For example, our

  4. (Cost of Reaching and Discipling) one person each year is about $750. You can determine your C.O.R.D. by dividing your annual revenue by average attendance:

$6,700,000 (fiscal budget) divided by 8,600 (attenders) = $779 (C.O.R.D.)

Rather than highlighting any church in particular, suggesting they are under-using resources, I will cite national data reported by Leadership Network in 2008. After surveying 105 megachurches, they provided numbers showing a national average C.O.R.D. of $2,100. (C.O.R.D. is my invention, not Leadership Network—I arrived at that number by dividing the average budget of $6,300,000 by average attendance of 3,000.)

Other research results published by Leadership Network and Christianity Today International (2) highlighted churches that spend 35 percent or less of their budget on payroll. (See Chapter 3,"Facts Are Your Friends But Facts Can Be Fickle.") I believe a more important number to
watch is your full-time staff equivalency to attendance. Our ratio is one full-time paid staff member to 120 attenders.

This number speaks volumes about CedarCreek doing more with less. The previously mentioned Leadership Network research reported that the "lean" churches, those spending less than 35 percent of budget on payroll, had an average ratio of one full-time paid staff member to every 86 people. Stay with me here. Imagine your church is loaded with an annual revenue of $10,000,000 and the attendance is 3,000. That means your C.O.R.D. is $3,333. Let's say you spend 35 percent ($3,557,000) of your budget on payroll. It's great you are spending only 35 percent of budget on payroll, but who is getting a lot more done with their money—your dream scenario, or CedarCreek?

At CedarCreek we will spend 53 percent of revenue on payroll this fiscal year, but we will disciple 8,600 people. We get a lot done with less.

How do we do it?

  1. We dedicate significant resources to advertising or outreach (see Chapter One), $270,000 this fiscal year. This is our primary growth engine.

  2. We hire leaders, men and women, who can multiply themselves.

* Vision, vision, vision. We hold the vision high, reminding people repeatedly that their serving matters, that is staff and non-staff alike.

  4. We communicate our lean ratio as even more reason people need to get in the game.

  5. We make the big asks. We ask people to consider significant volunteer roles. For example, we have and have had full-time volunteers.

  6. We are learning to fire bullets before the cannonballs which I will explain on the following pages.

Remember the two pastors I overheard saying if they had CedarCreek's money, they could do all this too? If they only knew!

A couple months into our core building, I was introduced to a couple who were multimillionaires with plenty of money to give away. Someone connected with our church told them about CedarCreek, and initially it seemed as if they would give us a significant gift. I met with them and shared the CedarCreek vision. They were not impressed. No money from them would be coming our way.

On another occasion, someone sitting across a table from me explained the five reasons CedarCreek's core group should merge with their recently launched church. Apparently, they had launched with the wrong pastor. His first reason for the proposed merger was their unlimited
resources. Oh, how tempting that was. But it was obvious to me the fit would not be good. We never got to number two on the list.

I walked away wondering if I had made the right decision. After all, CedarCreek had no money, and I was living paycheck to paycheck. This past year, as I celebrated with our core group, I had this thought: we have never had a lot of money, but we have always had "just enough."

Since our beginning, we have baptized over 6,000 people, helped plant several churches, ministered significantly in third-world countries, built an 84,000 square foot building in Perrysburg, Ohio (now serving 4,000 with a 1,400-seat auditorium), built out a 30,000 square foot former furniture store in Toledo, Ohio (600 seats serving 2,200 in attendance), and built a 34,000 square foot building in Whitehouse, Ohio (with a 500-seat auditorium averaging 1,300 in attendance). We built out a former 45,000 square foot grocery in South Toledo, (a 700-seat auditorium, 1,500 in attendance), and have launched our fifth campus, having built out an empty theater in a mall in Findlay, Ohio.

Now for my explanation of the sixth way we do more with less, "Bullets Then Cannonballs". Taking our cue from Jim Collins in his book, _Great By Choice_ (3) he lays out the money saving, church-surviving strategy quoted below in its entirety.

"BULLETS, THEN CANNONBALLS"
Picture yourself at sea, a hostile ship bearing down on you. You have a limited amount of gunpowder. You take all your gunpowder and use it to fire a big cannonball. The cannonball flies out over the ocean...and misses the target, off by 40 degrees. You turn to your stockpile and discover that you're out of gunpowder. You die. But suppose instead that when you see the ship bearing down, you take a little bit of gunpowder and fire a bullet. It misses by 40 degrees. You make another bullet and fire. It misses by 30 degrees. You make a third bullet and fire, missing by only 10 degrees. The next bullet hits—ping!—right into the hull of the oncoming ship. Now, you take all the remaining gunpowder and fire a big cannonball along the same line of sight, which sinks the enemy ship. You live.

Aim at learning what works and what meets three criteria:

A bullet is low cost. Note: the size of a bullet grows as the enterprise grows; a cannonball for a

$1 million enterprise might be a bullet for a $1 billion enterprise.

A bullet is low risk. Note: low risk doesn't mean a high probability of success; low risk means that there are minimal consequences if the bullet goes awry or hits nothing.

A bullet is low distraction. Note: this means low.

#  Chapter 10

You'd Think Pastoral Leadership is About Showing People How to Live, When Maybe, Just Maybe, it's About Showing People How to Die

In the fall of 2012, I walked out onstage ready to give my talk on a typical Saturday night service. When the lights came up cueing me to begin, I froze. I had no words. I felt like a deer in headlights. I was speechless, terrified, and shaking. Everyone was looking at me. Where was I supposed to start? Do I just walk off the stage? For the first time in my over twenty-five years of ministry, I had a massive case of stage fright. Fortunately, I stuck it out, crashed through the uncomfortable silence and finally got on track. I thought it was just a fluke. Then it happened again, and a third time. The occurrences were unpredictable.

My wife was the first to know, and I also met with a counselor to discuss the events. No one had an acceptable explanation of the cause. But after I talked to my family doctor, he prescribed some medications that I could take anytime I had to speak that would help regulate my nerves. The truth is I dreaded the thought of taking medication to enable me to give a talk. How could I go from twenty-five years of preaching with mere butterflies to a sudden onslaught of debilitating stage fright? My mind was suffering.

This new onset of stage fright would manifest itself sometimes in staff meetings and small group discussions. I began turning down speaking engagements, talks to local leader gatherings, and an
invitation to speak at our city's first TEDx event where some of our best and brightest leaders gathered. I will never forget being invited by leaders at Willow Creek, a church I have been mentored by since I started CedarCreek, to speak to a group of their leaders. I turned it down out of concern because of this new anxiety.

A part of me was dying as uncertainty about my speaking ability became more and more prevalent. I began praying, "Okay, God, what are you trying to show me here?"

About a year later the stage fright symptoms were better regulated with the help of medication. In December of 2013 we launched a new financial campaign that was going to be the most significant of our twenty-year history. We had a goal to raise over $25 million dollars and it was going to take focus and intentional leadership on my part to see this through.

Our strategy began with several overnight key donor gatherings through December – while running a huge Christmas campaign that would see over 28,000 people attend our most popular service of the year. Through all of that we had countless meetings on material, message prep, and communication strategy to launch into our public campaign in January. It was about this time that I started getting up two to three times a night to use the restroom. By February, I was getting up five to six times, which cut my sleep by 70%. I was exhausted.

The doctor circuit began again to try to bring a resolution to this. I saw a urologist who said my bladder was fine. He chalked it up to stress and prescribed meds that didn't help at all.

Thankfully, my family doctor and good friend, Dr. Mark Nadaud continued to research. He hit the books and we tried four or five different scripts and finally had a breakthrough. He had me
try a Belladonna, an opiate suppository (that might be too much information...haha). Bingo it worked, well sort of. I could now sleep through the night, but my doctor warned me the med that seemed to work was potentially addictive. I could use it weekends only so as to get me enough sleep to give a coherent talk.

God, what are you trying to teach me through this? I assumed it was just the stress and pressure that comes with these seasons. Time away should clear all this up.

I had just preached my heart out for six weeks straight, January through mid-February as part of an all-important capital campaign to raise our entire financial needs of $25,000,000 over the next two years including building out a new campus, missions and more. By the way, we came in at

$25,250,000.

Then came vacation time. My wife and I left Toledo to spend time with my son and his wife in Tampa then a week in Cancun. This trip was supposed to cure me of all my ills or so we thought. I got worse! I was so messed up in Cancun, I was anxious, depressed, and paranoid by the third day. I told my wife we had to leave or I was going to die.

It just didn't make sense. I knew something was wrong. I didn't feel well. I wasn't thinking well. I was suffering deeply...and what made it worse was I was in paradise after a successful campaign. God, what are you trying to teach me?
The second day home I saw my family doctor. He told me he thought now for certain I didn't have a bladder disease, but a neurological disorder, probably Parkinson's. Seriously!? Isn't that for "old people"?

I will never forget Monday, March third, at the Cleveland Clinic when neurologist, Dr. Ghostkowski, confirmed the diagnosis I was dreading. "You have Parkinson's disease." He then did what he has probably done hundreds of times, seeing a single tear run down my cheek he handed me a box of tissues. We all sat quietly for a few minutes, the doctor, my wife and I. Then I asked the obvious question, "How long do I have to live?" About fifteen years, he responded. He went on to explain I could probably expect fifteen years of manageable symptoms and live a relatively normal life. As far as my actual life span, he didn't venture to guess.

As we left the clinic, Joi (my wife and rock), asked me why I cried (trust me it was only a tear). She reminded me that we now have a diagnosis for how bad I was feeling and could get started on getting better. My tear, I explained, was a tear of grieving. You see, I knew from that point on that our lives would not be what we dreamed they would be. Our so-called "golden years" just shifted to silver or bronze years.

The next two hours on our way home from the clinic were two of the most emotional hours of my life. We systematically began calling family, co-workers and friends. By the time we got home, I was empty.
One verse that has intrigued me lately is Hebrews 5:8. Even though Jesus was God's Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered. Jesus, the perfect Son of God, had to learn obedience through suffering? Honestly, I don't get that. I get why you and I must suffer to learn obedience, but Jesus?

I have spent most of my ministry life trying to point people to the words in the Bible that show how God wants to help us live the abundant life, full of purpose and joy. But, this passage tucked away and often forgotten about reminds us that some of God's most important lessons can only be discovered through difficulty. Could it be these are some of God's most impactful and meaningful moments in this season?

Joi and I followed the doctor's orders and began reading a book on Parkinson's and we were stunned! We discovered that this disease was more complex and far reaching than we previously thought.

An official description (there are many) of the disease might look like this:

Parkinson's at its heart is a Dopamine deficiency affecting the central nervous system,

often times resulting in tremors, other physical disorders and even diminishing cognitive ability such as speech and thought.
What surprised Joi and me the most is Parkinson's does indeed affect motor movement, e.g, tremors, imbalance, other physical pain in rigidity, as movement is generally slower, making it difficult to walk or get out of bed. It also causes a myriad of other symptoms not in the motor movement category. The Parkinson's-produced anxiety manifests itself in numerous ways, from causing stage fright in my case, to fear of flying. A now good friend of mine, Tom Dunbar, was a licensed pilot; he now suffers from Parkinson's-produced anxiety and is barely able to get on a plane let alone flying one! Parkinson's can also cause depression, fatigue, bladder control issues, cognitive loss, voice loss or change, sleep disorders, obsessive compulsive behaviors such as overeating, gambling, overspending and hypersexuality. Great adjectives to have on a "warning" list for a pastor.

Then God split the Red Sea. After Joi and I made a video informing the church of our diagnosis and explaining our upcoming absence until we get a grip on the disease, a Creeker sent me an email asking if I'd like to see Dr. Larry Elmer, a world renowned neurologist specializing in Parkinson's whose office is in Toledo at UTMC Gardner McMaster Center.

Within days we met. By that time I was not only sleep deprived, but I had also developed vertigo. Dr. Elmer said the first order of business was to get me sleeping. He thought about the Belladonna suppository my family doctor had come up with and noted some of the meds in that Belladonna are in a scopolamine patch. That day I tried the patch. Bladder problem gone! Since then I'm sleeping like a baby. Vertigo now gone as well.
So now I'm on relatively low doses of Parkinson's medication. The symptoms are minimal. Did I mention Dr. Elmer is a committed Christian and in my opinion a genius as it relates to Parkinson's? He is one of the kindest men I know as well.

Perhaps, our call isn't just to show people how to live or how to thrive, but how to suffer well... how to die. If Jesus had to learn obedience through suffering, then we should. We must teach people that truth.

How do we do that? For me, personally? It begins with this new found truth –God is going to meet me here in this chapter of my life of difficulty to teach me more about Him. This disease is the greatest challenge of my life. My doctor thinks I'm going to do very well, with "very well" as a relative term. One thing is for sure: apart from a cure or a miracle, I will get worse. The suffering will get worse. That is the nature of the disease. You don't know what symptoms will strike you, or when. This means I have lessons ahead that I cannot fully learn until I seek to understand what obedience means for me now.

I can't say I have the same excitement about learning all of this like I do in the pursuit of the "abundant life." But many passages I have read a hundred times have a whole new depth of meaning. Words and Scriptures that come to mind speak of dying to self, picking up your cross and deny yourself daily; to die is gain, to hold on to your life is to lose it. Matthew 10:38-39 says, If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it. And Philippians 1:21, For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better.

I'm still trying to sort them all out!

Another mantra that I am trying to learn AND teach to people is: don't be surprised by suffering. Go ahead and ask God, "Why?" but be sure to get to the "What?" question; what God would have you do with this heartache, hurt, pain, confusion or suffering? Then read this passage that's ringing loud and clear for me and (I hope) for 10,000 Creekers:

"All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others.

When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given

us. For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ." (2 Corinthians 1:3-5 **)**

God is not surprised by our suffering. He is not devastated by it. And yet I am sure that He doesn't stand and smile as if our difficulty is some sort of divine game. The truth is God wants to redeem our pain and suffering. Death, sickness, sin or hardship is not the end game for Him and nothing brings Him more joy than to take something twisted and dark and use it to bring hope, comfort, healing, and even joy to the world around us. My disease has already begun to change me, to expand my empathy and help me see my personal role for that passage.

Finally, nothing increases a sense of urgency in someone's life like saying the word terminal illness to them. I am keenly aware that my time is limited. I have always believed and taught that God's primary purpose is the Great Commission. In suffering, that mandate doesn't change for me. Paul talked about his commitment to the gospel in his letter to Timothy. "The Word of God
cannot be chained. So I am willing to endure anything if it will bring salvation and eternal glory in Christ Jesus to those God has chosen." (2 Timothy 2:9-10) Later Paul says that he has finished the race, fought the fight, and finished well. I have an increased laser-focus to finish the work of ministry God has put before me.

My disease has provided a brand new captive audience where I have not only an opportunity, but credibility to speak to a unique group of people searching for hope. I am able to connect, speak to, and reach a new audience with the incredible message that even in our suffering God cares and provides a promise of a better life.

So, I have more questions than I have answers. Truth be told, there is so much ahead of me that I have moments of anxiousness thinking about it. But, as strange as it may sound, I can't wait for the ending. I can't wait to see how God is going to take death and make it abundantly full of real, true, eternal life.

#  Endnotes

Chapter 1

  1. Lifeway Research. "Outreach 100: The Fastest-Growing Churches in America." September 2013: page 50

  2. Henry, Tom. "Census Bureau report lists Toledo in Top 10 of downtrodden in 2008" The Toledo Blade

Toledo, Oh Toledoblade.com. Web. 01 October 2009.

  3. "Company Info | Facebook Newsroom." Facebook Newsroom. N.p., 2014. Web. 11 Feb. 2015. <http:// newsroom.fb.com/company-info/>.

  4. "New Tweets per Second Record, and How! | Twitter Blogs." New Tweets per Second Record, and How! | Twitter Blogs. N.p., 205. Web. 18 Feb. 2015. <https://blog.twitter.com/2013/new-tweets-  per-second-record-and-how>.

  5. "Google Search Statistics." \- Internet Live Stats. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Feb. 2015.

<http://www.internetlivestats.com/google-search-statistics/>.

  6. "Compare AdWords Express and AdWords." \- AdWords Express Help. N.p., 2015. Web. 18 Feb. 2015.

  7. Barna, George. Church Growth Seminar, Columbus Grove Nazarene Church, Grove City, Ohio 1997. Lecture.

  8. Bob Evans "Down on the Farm" Bob Evans, Discover Farm-Fresh Goodness. http://www.bobevans.com.

  9. Lecker, Kelly . "El Salvador Detains Area Missionaries " The Toledo Blade Toledo, Oh

Toledoblade.com. Web. 15 March 2004

  10. "Church's Ex-ed Campaign Stirs Calls, Controversey." The Toledo Blade 22 Apr. 2010: n. pag. Print.

  11. "Five Trends Among the Unchurched." \- Barna Group. The Barna Group, Oct. 2014. Web. 22 Oct. 2014. <https://www.barna.org/barna-update/culture/685-five-trends-among-the-  unchurched#.VEe9ivnF-3H>.

Chapter 2

  1. www.elevate-church.com Elevate Church, Monroe Michigan

  2. "Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you.

And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age." New Living Translation, Matthew 28:19-20

  3. Thumma, Scott, and Dave Travis. Beyond megachurch myths: what we can learn from America's largest churches. San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass, 2007. Print.

  4. www.lifechurch.tv LifeChurch, Edmond, OK

  5. "Toledo No. 1 on List of Worst Winter Cities." Toledo Blade 22 Mar. 2014, Local sec.: n. pag. Print.

Chapter 3

  1. Rudyard Kipling, An Interview with Mark Twain, p. 180, From Sea to Sea: Letters of Travel, 1899, Doubleday & McClure Company

  2. Rainer, Thom S. Surprising Insights from the Unchurched and Proven Ways to Reach Them. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001.Print.

  3. Rainer, Thom S. Surprising Insights from the Unchurched and Proven Ways to Reach Them. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001. pg 21, Print.

  4. Rainer, Thom S. Surprising Insights from the Unchurched and Proven Ways to Reach Them. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001. Pg 56 , Print.

  5. Keller, Tim. "Process Managing Church Growth." Vineyardusa. Cutting Edge Publications, Apr. 2008. Web. 1 Oct. 2014. Volume 1, number 2

  6. "REVEAL - Willow Creek." REVEAL - Willow Creek. Willow Creek Church, n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.

<http://www.willowcreek.org.au/events/reveal>.

  7. "Saddleback Church \- One Family, Many Locations. Help. Healing. Hope." Saddleback Church. N.p.,

n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.

  8. Branaugh, Matt, and Warren Bird. "A Closer Look at 'Lean' Church Staffs." Leadership Journal. Christianity Today and Leadership Network, Apr. 2010. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.

<http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2010/april-online-only/leanstaffsurvey.html>.

Chapter 4

  1. George, Carl F. Prepare Your Church for the Future. Tarrytown, N.Y.: F.H. Revell, 1991. Print.

  2. Collins, James C.. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap--and Others Don't. New York, NY: Harper Business, 2001. Print.

  3. Collins, James C. How the Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give in. New York: Jim Collins, 2009. Print.

* Lencioni, Patrick. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002. Print.

  5. Lencioni, Patrick. Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable-- about Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2004. Print.

  6. Collins, James C., and Jerry I. Porras. Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. New York: HarperBusiness, 1994. Chapter 3. Print.

  7. "When I am with those who are weak, I share their weakness, for I want to bring the weak to Christ. Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone, doing everything I can to save some." New Living Translation Bible, 1 Corinthians 9:22

Chapter 5

  1. Newman, Rick. "10 Great Companies That Lost Their Edge." US News. N.p., 17 Aug. 2010. Web. 2014. <http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/flowchart/2010/08/19/10-great-companies-that-lost-  their-edge>.

  2. Newman, Rick. "10 Innovative Companies You Should Copy." US News. N.p., 19 Aug. 2010. Web. 2014. <http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/flowchart/2010/08/19/10-innovative-companies-  yours-should-copy>.

  3. Collins, James C., and Morten T. Hansen. Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck: Why Some Thrive Despite Them All. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2011. pg. Print.

  4. Searcy, Nelson, and Jennifer Dykes. Henson. The Generosity Ladder: Your next Step to Financial Peace. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, pg. 99 2010. Print.

Chapter 6

  1. Collins, James C. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap--and Others Don't. New York, NY: HarperBusiness, 2001. pg Print.

  2. http://www.bcwinstitute.com, America's Best Christian Workplaces.

  3. "Best Christian Workplace Institute - Survey." Best Christian Workplace Institute - Survey. Best Christian Workplace, Apr. 2014. Web. 01 Oct. 2014. <http://www.bcwinstitute.com/bcwlists.html>.

  4. Collins, James C. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap--and Others Don't. New York, NY: HarperBusiness, 2001. Print.

  5. Thumma, Scott, and Dave Travis. Beyond Megachurch Myths: What We Can Learn from America's Largest Churches. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2007. Print.

Chapter 7

1. Groysberg, Bro, Ashish Nanada, and Hitin Nohria. "The Risky Business of Hiring Stars." Harvard Business Review. Harvard Business Review, May 2004. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.

<http://hbr.org/2004/05/the-risky-business-of-hiring-stars/ar/1>.

Chapter 9

  1. Henry, Tom. "Census Bureau report lists Toledo in Top 10 of downtrodden in 2008" The Toledo Blade

Toledo, Oh Toledoblade.com. Web. 01 October 2009

  2. Branaugh, Matt, and Warren Bird. "A Closer Look at 'Lean' Church Staffs." Leadership Journal. Christianity Today and Leadership Network, Apr. 2010. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.

<http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2010/april-online-only/leanstaffsurvey.html>.

  3. Collins, James C., and Morten T. Hansen. Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck: Why Some Thrive despite Them All. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2011. pg Print.

