Book Review: The Reason for God by Tim Keller

Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Church in Manhattan presents an excellent piece, “The Reason for God” to engage the doubts of Christianity.  Each chapter is incredibly challenging.  As I’ve progressed through the book, it has unraveled in my heart…becoming one of my favorite books this year.

Chapter 12, “The (true) Story of the Cross” was exceptional with its relating of the story of Rocky (a gangster) in “Angels with Dirty Faces.” Rocky was going to his death in prison.  The only way that the couple hundred kids that idolized him to be saved from a life pursuing Rocky’s gangster feats was for him to lose his fearlessness on the way to his execution, causing these kids to look at him in a lesser light.  The only way for Rocky to save the kids was for him to lose the one thing he still had, “respect.”  In a moment of true bravery, Rocky “fearfully” screamed for mercy.

Likewise, Jesus loses himself in humanity and sacrifice so that each of us might be saved.  It is a powerful picture coupled with Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s story of willfully returning to Germany to oppose Hitler…a place where he knew he would likely lose his life.  He chose to speak out for the protection of those who were in danger…possibly bringing safety to them.  That chose increased the danger he faced, an act of selfless salvation.  Like Rocky, Bonhoeffer articulates what it means to bear someone else’s sin.  The idea that God requires sin to be graciously satisfied is not a foreign concept.  It is an everyday reality as we either chose and end the sin spiral or reject by perpetuating the violence/sin spiral.

The book was exceptional and was written to two groups:

NON-CHRISTIANS

To this group, one of the main messages is: “All of your problems and doubts of Christianity are based on alternate beliefs about spiritual reality and God…to really have integrity, you need to apply the same tests to your beliefs that you are applying and demanding that Christians apply to theirs.”

CHRISTIANS

To this group, the book is for Christians who already believe but have a lot of people they love and care for who have doubts about Christianity.  The Reason for God will definitely help in creating a healthy, rational dialog about Christianity as a belief system…providing a reasoned basis from which to begin.

What is it like being the pastor of Life Pointe Church?

From time to time, people ask what its like to pastor Life Pointe Church. I could give you a super-spiritual answer about time in prayer, deep meditation, solace. Or, I could just share a picture from one of our events this past week. Meet Casey Watkins, one of the really super decent guys that have been with me at Life Pointe from the earlier days. He’s trying to get noticed by a camera to make it on the jumbotron.

Yep. Unfortunately, this is pretty much how we roll.

Other Life Pointe Church @ the Florida Marlins photos

Sunday Wrap-up

• The slideshow of today is here.
• First things first, people are inviting their friends to church and telling them to be there to serve at 7:30 AM before they even ever set foot in a church service. And, they’re doing it!!!!!!! That’s awesome! And, that’s the kind of Gospel advancement that changes a city.
• Chris and Bill their perspective on today. As usual, it’s entertaining stuff.
• During both services, Paul and Alex took a second to promote our youth camp called, “Rage Against the Machine.” They’re on the last leg of their fund raising which is now about $4,000.
• The auctioned off a Ken Dorsey autographed UM football helmet…great piece.
• They’re expecting about 50 kids out at Camp Freedom. I couldn’t be more proud of Alex and the kids in our student ministry. Alex writes a little about what’s going on with them here. Bottom line? These guys are growing spiritually and that’s incredibly exciting.
• Service was really enjoyable for me. I feel like I’m growing up.
• In the past, I’ve found myself emotionally attached to ministry success and failure…riding the ups and downs of the roller coaster.
• More and more, I feel at home in my own skin and in the moment. I’m loving the moment…enjoying what God is doing in us, not only as a leader but also as a participant on a long journey.
• I met several new families today…I love hearing how people find out about Life Pointe. There are a few people that are inviting people like mad right now.
• One of those people is really new to Life Pointe. She always introduces me as the “House of Blues Pastor.” I can dig it.
• We’ve only got one more week in “Got Funk.” I’ve really enjoyed this 10 week trip through the Book of Philippians.
• Today, we went through chapter 4:2-9 and talked about Anxiety.
• Next week, we’ll be closing out this series…kind of sad about that.
• BUT, we’ll be going into a 2-week series on worship…looking forward to that. I’m looking forward to seeing us grow in a fundamental area.
• After church, I hit the office. It was like a BIG BASH. People were playing guitars, watching movies and bouncing around the office.
• At one point, this young dude that I met at church for the first time was out on my balcony smoking a cigarette hanging out from between his fingers which were sporting black fingernails. I guarantee you…before you know it, he’s going to be in the band.
• Now, I’m closing out the day at my parents house. Steaks just came off the grill and I’m about to crash for the day…couldn’t have been better.
• Peace.

Texting and Driving

Tim Stevens is amazed at this guy texting and riding his motorcycle at the same time. I’m amazed at the fact that it seems like the guy on the motorcycle is about the safest guy on the road. Check out the lane changes on this road.

Autobiographical Minutia

Jesse has inspired me to open up the window to my past with pieces of autobiographical minutia.  So, here are some things about me you may not have known:

• I was born in this North Carolina town but, don’t remember much about it because we moved to Florida while I was in diapers.
• When I was little, I didn’t want to leave the house without a hat.
• My hair wasn’t blond.  It was white.
• When I was four, I had an accident on the playground that knocked out my two front teeth.  I got wooden chicklets as replacements that would make George Washington blush with pride.
• When I was in the 1st grade, I partially fell through the attic into my parents closet.
• That was right around the time I tried to smoke a candle behind the garage where no one would see me.
• When I was in the 3rd grade, I bought a chopper bicycle with the $15 I made from mowing a lawn.  I spray painted the bike “tiger orange.”  It didn’t look cool.  It looked stolen.
• When I was 15, I saved up enough money to buy a red Fender bass guitar.  I took lessons but, it didn’t work out.
• I was a skater…rode a Mark Rogowski “Vision Gator,” a Santa Cruz Rob Roskopp Face,  with independent and tracker trucks.
• I stole my first kiss by the Sunday School classes after church on a Sunday night when I was 13.
• I got beat up by a girl that looked like George Foreman when I was in the 6th grade.
• I got in an all-out public brawl in the Homestead Bowling Alley with a kid and his brothers that I caught stealing a lawn mower from my house 2 weeks earlier.  During the fight, I looked up and my little brother was throwing one of the guys over the shoe counter.
• I got mugged by a Rastafarian outside of the Homestead Police Department when I was 16.  I managed to keep my bike but got worked over pretty well.  Until the police got there, the only person that tried to intervene was an 85-86 year old Cuban guy on one of these.
• I almost went to this school on a Naval ROTC scholarship.  Instead, I went here.
• I accidentally launched my 1986 Honda Prelude airborne into 7 trees on a blind hill while I was in college.
• I heroically stopped a bull dozer from bashing into a couple hundred cars in the parking lot of North Cleveland COG, the church where I started in ministry.  When people came out to see what the commotion was during church, it looked like I had mowed over about a half dozen trees and had gone out of my mind.
• I knew I was going to marry Kelly on our first date.  I had been engaged to someone else…really glad that got disengaged.

Batman!

I’m going to see it shortly.  Will report back on what I hear is one of the best movies of all time.  We’ll see.

Busy

I may be in one of the busiest seasons of my life. The summer isn’t supposed to be like this. I’m involved in the following:

1. Being the husband to the most beautiful woman on the planet. Kelly is my best friend too. I love spending time with her.
2. Kourtney, McKenna, and Blake. We hang out. I color, play Candy Land, go to the beach, and read the Book of Genesis with them. Of yeah, I also avoid Blake’s fierce eye gouge…that takes a lot of focus.
3. My second year of coaching with Nelson Searcy. (By the way, he has a new telecoaching opportunity opening soon). Nelson asked me this week to drop from my current coaching network to move into the advanced network in Manhattan. This process has been huge for me. I’m, really looking forward to this next step. But, I’m going to miss some of the guys I made good connections with over the past few months.
4. I’ve also taken on some projects this summer that require a lot of focus. A lot of it will be wrapping up in the next three weeks. It has been a good process. I’ve spoken to more pastors in the past several months than I have in my life.
5. Planning for our Missions Project this year. Last year, we raised about $20,000 at Christmas. This year, we have a goal to raise a heck of a lot more than that. This will be one of the most significant projects I’ve ever been involved in. Jesse and I have been talking through this for a while. Once I cancel project 4 from my list, I’m hitting this so hard. This is a project that everyone will want to be a part of…can’t wait.

I’ve learned a lot about being busy during this process. Turning it off in order to rest is a challenge for my personality. Learning to do it, honors Christ, my family, myself, the Church, and the initiatives I’m involved in. Failing to rest, causes me to be less productive and less on task. It also robs me from my ability to worship with a clean heart.

In times of intensity, what do you do to rest?

A Life Pointe Blogger/Biker/Commander with a Cause

You’ve got to check out Commander Lacy Betton’s blog.  He’s on Day 17 of his charity ride on his motorcycle from Key West, FL into the Arctic Circle at Deadhorse, Alaska and back.  This guy is a stud.

He’s doing the ride to raise money for The Armed Forces Relief Trust, Agape Family Ministries, Miami Rescue Mission and the First Choice Women’s Center.

You can find out more about his trip here…like how that over 1,000 miles of the trip is on dirt roads through the Alaskan wilderness.  Awesome!  Check out some of these cool (very cold) pics!

Sunday Wrap-up

• Slideshow of today’s pics.
• After today, we have only two more weeks in our Got Funk series. Keep an eye out here for a heads up on the next series (which will only be two weeks long). I hate to close out this series…it’s been challenging.
• We hit our lowest attendance of the summer, right in line with our April average. We had around 375, which included The Cure, our student ministry.
• Today was really enjoyable.
• The Cure did a silent auction and continued their bake sale to pay for camp.  Someone bid $300 for the clock that had been donated by Ana Von Rosen.  That’s awesome!
• These guys have been working hard with yard sales, car washes, and bake sales.
• By the time they’re done, they are going to fully fund “Rage Against the Machine” at Camp Freedom!…amazing.
• I’m really proud of Alex and his entire youth staff.  These guys and gals are exceptional.
• During the Q&A for the 9 am service, someone texted the question, “How do I get saved?” That’s my favorite text message so far.
• For whatever reason, our video and audio recordings went out of commission on the same day.
• We’ll get it for you next week. In the meantime, Jesse and I are going to do a VidCast tomorrow and upload it as a replacement piece. We’ll be staying on the topic of exhaustion…just making it a little more personal by sharing what parameters we’ve put in place and are actively working on to guard our families and ensure that we have Sabbath rest. You won’t want to miss that.
• We’ll, I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m off to watch some episode 5 of Band of Brothers, Big Brother, color with Kourtney and McKenna, and try to avoid the eye gouges, my son, Blake has become so good at dishing out.

Homestead/Miami Speedway

Rafael Ovando and I went to Homestead/Miami Speedway to check out the open track events they have.  For about $350 you can take your own car out.  I would have loved to have taken my Murano with 3 child seats for a few laps.  That would have been a trip.

The funny thing is that there was a Ferrari blowing flames out of its exhaust pipes on the stretch.  At the same time, there was also a Jeep with a Hemi and a 1985-6 Green Ford Mustang GT trying to keep up…eclectic mix.  You can see some of those pics here.

Check out the vid we shot above.  Or, check out the in-car video of one of the Porsches on the Homestead track.

Most Obscure Piece of Knowledge you Possess?

I think my brother knows more useless trivia that anyone I know.  Me?  I just know that Casey Kasem is the voice of Shaggy on Scooby Doo.

My Twitter Message in the Boston Globe

Thomas Friedman was right.  The world is flat.  Business dynamics are changing. With the advent of the internet and social networking sites, communications are immediate, accessible by everyone, and permanent.  The companies who are responsive and “get it” will establish significant customer loyalty and trust.  The ones that don’t will pay for their lack of responsiveness and customer interaction.

I vented a very slight frustration with the Southwest check-in process.  My moment of frustration turned out to be a big win for Southwest.  I vented on Twitter.  They responded to my comments, which caught me off guard and very pleasantly surprised me.  A Boston Globe reporter caught the interaction and shared the customer service event in an article on Customer Service.

Oh, and if you aren’t following me on Twitter, check me out here.

Flight for the cost of a good burger

I go to Tampa once per month for a coaching network.  I used to do a one day turn-around drive.  9+ hours of drive time and a classroom environment was a butt-kicker.

Once gas prices shot up, it really made no sense to drive.  So, I started flying same day out of Ft. Lauderdale.  It was cheaper than driving and easier on my body.  Well, life just got really good and the trip got a heck of a lot cheaper.  I just got $18 roundtrip flights with Spirit Airlines through November…heck of a sweet deal.

Now, I need to talk Bob into making the same flights so we can split a cab ride or hook up with one of the guys from the network.  If so, I’ll pull this trip off for less money than it would cost for a good meal.

Sunday Wrap-up

• Jesse, Phil, and Kelly, and Chris got a jump on me today on their wrap-ups. Check in with them.
• You can check out the slideshow of the rest of the pics from Sunday here.
• Jesse has our “Got Funk in Conflict?” intro video. Total redemption from last week’s vid!
• He also has the explanation of why in our Q&A I received the question, “Why did you say the “B” word?” LOL…funny stuff. But, I didn’t have a clue what anyone was talking about.
• Bottom line, I didn’t curse.  I was on good behavior.  We had a pastor from Oregon in church with us.  I was minding my “p’s and q’s.”
• So, there’s yet another rumor to go around. I’m sure my blog stalker will love that.
• Today was enjoyable, fun, serious, and spiritually significant.
• Fun? The band doing a little “Rappers Delight” by Sugar Hill Gang during the break. The 80’s (technically the 70’s) live on at Life Pointe Church!
• Serious? The whole day. We enjoy ourselves. But, we take what we do dead serious. We have the greatest cause in history.
• Spiritually significant? I got to pray with some amazing people, facing some significant issues. That isn’t the only thing. Every breath, every word, every heart that beats and is spoken out to Christ was so incredibly full of significance.
• We talked about conflict in the first half of Philippians 3.
• Here’s an overgeneralization for you: Christians are either afraid of conflict or they don’t do it well. Matthew 18:15-17 gives THE PATH to conflict resolution…great stuff. If only we followed it.
• WHAT IF we followed it? Imagine what the world would be like!

We’re given the temporary to provide for the eternal

I’m blown away by the trust Jesus has toward us.  We receive His grace and are called to in turn extend it to others.  We are the hands and feet of Jesus here on earth.  That’s a big job description.  I love how Steve Stroope and Aubrey Malphurs put it in “Money Matters in the Church.”  They say:

Jesus teaches that God has entrusted us as His stewards of that which is temporary (worldly wealth) to provide for that which is eternal (true riches).

One of the things I want to pass on to Life Pointe Church is a reorientation from consumeristic lives toward a Kingdom-focused, Gospel-obsessed lifestyle.  It is hard work.  It may mean radical lifestyle adjustment.  But, it honors Christ and honors what Christ wants to do in and through us.

What was your first step to placing Christ first in your finances?

What are the biggest barriers you face today in trying to reorient your life from focusing on the temporary in favor of the eternal?

Tough Talk to Church Planters: Where’s Your Grit?

When we relaunched our church in the theater in April of 2006, our total budget for marketing, trailer, sound equipment, lights, signage, and everything was under $20,000. In addition to that, we had financial liabilities not normally associated with a church plant sitting squarely on our backs. That was all we had.

That meant that we didn’t get to have some of the conveniences early on that makes being portable a lot easier…things like rolling cases and containers. The way we packed our trailer was ridiculous. It looked like my closet when I was 13. It made setup and tear down more difficult and more back breaking than it is when you’re rolling with these guys or these guys.

Some of the really awesome guys I talk to that are out there planting right now, expect that its all going to come in a nice neat case, wrapped up and presented. Maybe it will. That’s definitely nice if you’ve got the cash on hand to make it happen. But, those aren’t necessary things to launch a church.

Guys, just make it happen. Stop being so soft. Get a Gospel passion, love your town, raise as much money as you can, grab the bull by the horns, and expect that Jesus will build His Church. At some point, the “think big and launch big” mindset has to intersect with grit, determination, and Holy Spirit-empowered Gospel obsession.

A Preview of This Sunday’s Message on Conflict

Jesse just posted some pictures from the video shoot for “Got Funk in Conflict?” After a really lame video that bombed last week, he’s redeemed himself.  Good stuff.  Check out the rest of the pics over on the Santoyo page.  We’ll see you on Sunday at 9 or 10:30.

Book Review: “How to Win Customers and Keep Them for Life” by Michael LeBoeuf

“How to Win Customers and Keep Them for Life” by Michael LeBoeuf was a great business read with a lot of application for a church with a passion to create environments where people who are curious about Jesus will explore and want to return

My Top 10 Takeaways:

1. The rewarded customer buys, multiplies, and comes back.
2. After seeing a very knowledgeable sales agent in action get turned down for a sale, the very passionate owner of the business with slightly less expertise, stepped in and got the sale. The reason? People are far more persuaded by the depth of your beliefs and emotions than any amount of logic or knowledge you posses. While I don’t hold that as a law, I certainly find value in that statement. Truth that has impacted your brain and your heart will cause you to be passionate. People respond to that kind of truth.
3. Use problems as opportunities to demonstrate just what great service your company gives.
4. Excellent service isn’t the result of doing any one thing 1,000% better. It’s the result of doing thousands of things 1% better.
5. “You get more of the behavior you reward.” I’m convinced this is why a lot of churches fail…because subtle relational manipulation is rewarded instead of an undying, unflinching devotion to the mission of Jesus.
6. How customers get treated is a direct reflection of how management is treating employees.
7. Nothing is more confusing than people who give good advice but set bad examples.
8. Organize the business around the customer. MY NOTE: It is not the job of the church to have high customer service if the customer is the regular church attender/member. But, if the customer is the community, we have to bend over backwards in posturing ourselves with a bias toward our community.
9. Get out of the office and find out what’s happening. Doing life in community with people is one of my favorite things about the Church. Getting so busy in administrating the church is to get away from the calling of the church.
10. Think long term and keep the big picture in mind. George Bernard Shaw said, “When I was young, I observed that 9 out of 10 things I did were failures, so I did ten times more work.”

What’s your middle name?

Some of our volunteers found out my middle name. I have been dubbed, “Christian” around the office. That’s me…Travis Christian Johnson.

In that whole initial conversation, I found out that Jesse has no middle name. His proper name is Jesus “no middle name” Santoyo. In fact, when I’m typing in MS Word about Jesus Christ, it always wants to auto-complete to Jesus Santoyo. That has gone to Jesse’s head.

Anyway, why don’t you come clean? What’s your middle name?

Book Review: “Fusion” by Nelson Searcy

I’m in my second year of coaching with Nelson Searcy. So, I’m a bit biased towards his work. But, I guarantee I wouldn’t have gone back for year two if it hadn’t been extremely beneficial to the Mission of Jesus in South Florida.

Ultimately, I don’t know of any two ministry books (Activate or Fusion) that are more straight-forward when it comes to the practical application of ministry practice. Nor do I know of two ministry concepts that have more deeply impacted my ministry than either the small group or assimilation systems that Nelson teaches.

Top 10 Takeaways from “Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests into Fully-Engaged Members of Your Church:”

1. Assimilation can be defined as “the process used to encourage first-time guests to continue coming back until they see and understand God’s power, accept Jesus as their Savior and commit themselves to the local church through membership.
2. By sending guests to you, God is giving you the opportunity to cooperate with Him to move someone forward in their journey toward Jesus.
3. A church in maintenance mode will probably have 3 guests per 100 people. A steadily growing church will have about 5 guests per 100. A rapidly growing church will have 7 or more guests per 100 people.
4. The Church should be a family expecting guests.
5. We live in a culture where the business world understands more about true expressions of hospitality than the Church does.
6. The more prepared a church is to receive guests, the more guests a church will receive.
7. You have 7 minutes from the time someone arrives on your campus to convince them to come back.
8. If you want to leave any hope of assimilating your guests, you cannot let them leave without knowing how to connect with them. The art of communication is the language of leadership.
9. The most powerful word for change in your church is “because” (and obviously the words and communicated principles that follow).
10. All follow-up should be fast, friendly, and functional. IT should provide a “wow factor” that pleasantly surprises people and stirs up a desire to give church a second, third, and fourth chance.

There is a lot of “how-to” in this book that I didn’t get into.  I’d highly recommend it for every pastor, staff person, or ministry volunteer that wants to see the Kingdom of God increase as a result of what God is doing through you.

A Bias Toward Action

“Have a bias toward action- let’s see something happen now.  You can break that big plan into small steps and take the first step right away.” – Indira Gandhi

Sunday Wrap-up

• Here’s the Slideshow from today.
• In a change from last week, I was clean shaven and no longer sunburned. As a result, Quality of Life on this Sunday is much better than the last.
• Jesse, Chris, and Kelly have the first wrap-ups out. It’s Kelly’s Sunday Wrap-up debut so tell her hello. For whatever twisted reason, everyone’s Sunday reviews are named after food. Weird…it mostly just makes me hungry.
• David Corrado has a few pictures from the 4th that are worth checking out.
• Audio is here. Vimeo takes a while to render. Once it’s done, Jesse and his crew qill have it up here as well.
• It rained like crazy today. Buckets….mega rain. So far in the theater, we’ve done a service using only the emergency flood lamps and candles.
• Today, the lights only flickered briefly at the beginning of the 10:30 service.
• The cool thing about that is it reset the theater auto-schedules which set off the theater projector running the previews…didn’t last too long thought.
• I enjoyed the new setup…looked great. Our setup crew does a really good job and they do it fast…got to love that.
• Today, I talked about temptation as we finished off Philippians 2.
• Your mind is an airport. Temptation is an airplane. You can’t control whether the airplane lands or not. You can decide whether or not you will refuel it and go for a ride.
• Discipleship happens in community. We don’t mature by retreating. We mature by surrounding ourselves with people who know us, know our struggles, and know Jesus.
• If we give them access to our lives, the Holy Spirit can and will use them to help us grow.
• There are also some struggles that are only go to be overcome by praying and fasting.
• And, with all that said, temptation is here to stay…until the day you die. You simply need the power of God functioning in you to “guide you” in running away from it.
• We run away from temptation. We resist the devil.
• Don’t try to prove your will power by facing down temptation. You’ll lose. Just avoid it and/or run away from it.
• I ran out of time in both services. I need more time or I need to stay a bit more disciplined.
• Since we’re on a tight schedule in the theater, there is no “running over”…only running out of time.
• We got to some Q&A…two questions.
• It was a good day. I’m on my way now to finish it out at home with my fam…might have to pull out another already-been-seen movie and close it out with mind numbing rest. Peace.

MEMORIES: “Don’t Tell Your Mom I Brought You Here”

Kelly and I had been married for less than a year. We had just moved to Chicago to start a church. I stopped by a public housing project to visit a guy I had met shortly after moving to Chicago. After walking into this guy’s apartment with my wife, I looked at Kelly and said, “Don’t tell your mom I brought you here.”

We both just had a good laugh about that tonight after watching “Gangland” on the History Channel. The show was partly about that housing project, Cabrini Green. Ah, yes…memories.

The lesson learned? If you’re a church planter, your wife has to be crazy enough to follow you anywhere…and you have to be smart enough not to do anything too terribly stupid.

4th of July in the Rearview Mirror

We had a little shindig at my house yesterday for dogs and eats. Reina hooked me up with some seriously good home made salsa. We played Apples to Apples. I found out that James likes to win and he’s fairly expressive. Fun.

Then, we got out the Wii and boxed, played Tennis, and bowled. My shoulder still hurts from tennis. My brother’s back still hurts from a backhand that got a little out of control…sorry Phil. Glad to say my 4 year old knocked her 33 year old uncle.

Then, we headed over to the Homestead Sports Complex. Bill Finch and his life group came pulling up in what appeared to be a Redneck’s Paradise on Wheels (lawn chairs in the back of a pick-up truck, pizzas, cokes). We all found each other by looking for the flags that rock the outside of our theater…definitely came in handy. The fireworks were great. The crew from Life Pointe Church? Trouble as always…couldn’t have it any other way.

This year in the stadium, there was no band/no concert. The Saturn Project should have rocked it. Maybe next year.

My Crew

Kelly does a great job keeping a journal of our lives.  Kourtney and McKenna already enjoy looking back to see what they used to look like and to see things they’ve done.  Blake?  He mostly drools on the keyboard.

Her blog is a treasure.  I love this video she put together that tracked her day.  Really amazing stuff for a guy like me to have a family like this.

We’re Rebels Like That

We refuse to connect a phone line to our TiVo. We refuse to have a home phone.  So far, the TiVo police haven’t arrested us. Thanks, babe for the proof that we are living on the edge.

Book Review: “Activate” by Nelson Searcy

Getting ready for our Fall Semester of Groups, I read through Nelson Searcy’s book, Activate: An Entirely New Approach to Small Groups. It’s a great read…one of the best practical ministry books I’ve read.

We’ve been working Nelson’s system for small groups at Life Pointe for one year now. We started last fall. The highest we’ve gotten our small group registrations to is 92% of our Sunday attendance. The best we had done prior to his small group system was just under 60%. Nelson has the mind and possibly, the heart of an engineer which makes him a great, direct talking coach to a lot of pastors.

Here are my Top 10 takeaways from his book:

1. Think larger, not smaller. Larger groups minimize the weirdo factor, mean less work for the facilitator, and anticipates that not everyone who signs up will show up.

2. The Four Spaces of Spiritual Growth are: a) public space, b) social space, c) personal space, and d) intimate space. Small Groups are not geared to creating intimate space but, rather social space.

3. Be simple in your approach to groups and ministry. If you give people too many options, their involvement will be so spread out that you won’t have their full participation or momentum in any one area.

4. Entry into a group must be utterly simple and fool proof. A one-step sign-up process, which removes barriers will greatly increase the number of people who decide to join a group.

5. Your small groups must function as a SYSTEM. Systems save you time, stress, energy, and money.

6. Every person on the church staff should have a hand in the development of small groups. Think full staff participation, not staff specialist.

7. Think decentralization, not control. As long as you have complete control over your small group system, you will only be able to go to a certain level before you plateau. Groups will multiply faster and be healthier when you trust God with your volunteer leaders and your volunteer leaders with your people.

8. The implementation of your small groups should go through four processes: a) focus, b) form, c) fill, and d) facilitate. Good ideas are common- what’s uncommon are people who’ll work hard enough to bring them about.

9. When planning for each semster, you need to have a goal of how many people will be attending Sunday mornings weekly during that semester. Then, you should have a goal to have 100% or more of that Sunday number in a group. Divide that number by 20 and that’s how many groups you should have giving you a basis for how many leaders, co-leaders, coaches, and managers you need to have in place.

10. When filling your group, you need to be strategic using multiple avenues for recruitment, tactics for getting the message out, and be singular in your message during that month of recruitment. Never underestimate the power of someone telling the story of their changed life through their group.