Kay and Rick Warren have invited 3 Republican candidates (former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney) and 3 Democratic candidates (Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John Edwards) to speak at the 2007 Global Summit on AIDS and the Church.
Clinton has already agreed to attend the others are reportedly working on their schedules.
Should be interesting
A couple churches have shared surveys they’ve given their congregations over the last couple months.
National Community Church and Granger Community Church have both shared their surveys online.
Also, Willowcreek Community Church in Chicago recently announced the findings of one of their recent surveys and admitted that they’ve been wrong in their way of thinking and doing ministry.
That’s a bit jaw dropping but can you imagine what might have happened if they never surveyed their congregation and kept doing “business as usual.”
I’m working on a survey for the community groups in our church and wondering if any other churches out there have surveyed their congregations or specific groups and ministries within their church. What have you found? What did you change? Where did it lead you?
Interesting article about all the many programs Willow Creek offers… and the results of one of their latest studies…
Few would disagree that Willow Creek Community Church has been one of the most influential churches in America over the last thirty years. Willow, through its association, has promoted a vision of church that is big, programmatic, and comprehensive. This vision has been heavily influenced by the methods of secular business. James Twitchell, in his new book Shopping for God, reports that outside Bill Hybel’s office hangs a poster that says: “What is our business? Who is our customer? What does the customer consider value?” Directly or indirectly, this philosophy of ministry, that “church should be a big box with programs for people at every level of spiritual maturity to consume and engage” has impacted every evangelical church in the country.
So what happens when leaders of Willow Creek stand up and say, “We made a mistake”?…
“Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back it wasn’t helping people that much. Other things that we didn’t put that much money into and didn’t put much staff against is stuff our people are crying out for,” Pastor Bill Hybels said.
Over the last year or so text messaging has become more prevalent than ever. Luckily I have an unlimited txting plan for my cell phone, because it seems I rarely use any minutes on my monthly plan (thanks to free calls to other AT&T users) but I do lots of txt messaging.
I’ve even become known as the go-to-guy when a prayer requests needs to be shared. I take advantage of text messages first and then normally send a follow-up email with more information.
Brian sent me a link to a story from MondayMorningInsight.com that I apparently overlooked, “How Will The Church Use Text Messaging?”
We’ve been discussing over e-mail the last couple weeks some ways that our church could possibly use text messaging to more effectively communicate with our partners. We’ve had several ideas, including feedback during the services. But I think some of that may take more hardware and software than we’re ready to pay for. But their may be other areas, services we can offer that we haven’t seen yet or tackled.
It could be something as “simple” as using twitter to track what Brian or other leadership folks do during the day, or it could be as complex as responding to the message and then showing the responses on the screen during our Sunday morning Service – kind of like VH1’s Pop-Up Video.
Any ideas? Do you see your church utilizing txt messages? If so, how?
One year has passed since nine churches in central and western Alabama were set on fire by three college-age students. Members continue to meet for worship as they begin rebuilding their churches — with a little help from volunteers. Listen to the full report from NPR.
I read a comment on a blog today…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gf7lQ9b6cZQ
Isn’t this what church should be like? A place to come and talk about your feelings, hurts, fears, challenges and get someone who will simply listen, love and not judge.