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FUTURAMA

Leaders Need New Focus for New Millennium Futurist says put past behind you.

Joel Barker’s lessons for next century leaders:

1. Focus the majority of your efforts on the future. Followers are concerned about the present, but a leader’s primary responsibility is to find, recognize, and secure the future. A leader is someone you choose to follow to a place you wouldn’t go by yourself.

2. Understand the nature of fundamental change. New paradigms show up before you need them; outsiders are vital. New rules are usually formulated by someone not part of the present, successful paradigm.

3. Appreciate complex systems and how they work. The smallest actions can cause tremendous differences over a long period of time. Anticipate what even tinkering will do.

4. Examine your leadership style to see how it affects productivity. Two leader types, charismatic and bully, are determined by positive or negative use of control and stress and by the measure of their followers’ satisfaction. Followers of positive leaders are up to twenty times more effective. No matter how you measure it—making money, saving souls, educating children, or protecting a nation—your leadership style affects your group’s productivity.

5. Create shared vision to build bridges to the future. People now expect to have a voice in their future. Leading is about teams. Leaders build bridges and encourage followers to join them on the journey across.

—from Leadershift: Five Lessons for Leaders in the 21st Century. (Star Thrower, 800-727-2344)

• Photocopy bulletins for Jan. 1, 8, 15.
• Move candlelight Christmas Eve service to New Year’s Eve.
• Get out a big large print pulpit Bible
• Test projecting overheads by flashlight.
• Retrieve flannelgraph from attic.
• Practice booming Spurgeon voice.
• Buy acoustic guitar, rewrite words to “Silent Night” for extended use.
• Stockpile canned sermons

MIXED MEDIA

“And after sports, tonight’s prayer … “ Pastors’ appearances during nightly news make news.

The manager of a Meridian, Mississippi, television outlet didn’t know the reaction he would cause when he invited local ministers to pray during the late night newscast. Callers to a daily poll had repeatedly said that the return of prayer to schools was needed in light of recent attacks by students. The station’s response: we can’t put prayer in schools, but we can put it on TV.

WMDN/WGBM general manager Marc Grossman asked pastors to take the final 90 seconds of his newscast to offer a prayer or devotion, replacing the usual light bit about waterskiing squirrels and such. The segment is called “Keep the Faith.” Most pastors intercede for local and national leaders.

Danny Chisholm, pastor of Central Baptist Church, taped two appearances. “It’s been good for our city,” Chisholm said. “We need some balance to the disturbing news we see. And it’s a nice way to sign off the day.”

ABC reported Grossman’s unusual programing move on its own evening newscast. Other broadcasters were not so delighted. Barbara Walters, on her gabfest “The View,” criticized the station’s mixing of news and religion.

The community, however, seems to love it. “Not one single viewer has complained,” the station’s receptionist said. “I get positive calls every day. We’re gonna keep doing it.”

We asked pastors: How many books of any kind have you read in the past three months?

• None/no response 2%
• One 3%
• Two to four 38%
• five to seven 32%
• eight to ten 10%
• more than ten 15%

OR MAGAZINES?

What periodicals do you regularly read or scan (other than LEADERSHIP?)

• CHRISTIANITY TODAY 32%
• Local newspaper 16%
• Time 13%
• Discipleship Journal (tie) 13%
• Newsweek 12%
• Reader’s Digest (tie) 12%

(source: 1999 LEADERSHIP survey)

If Mama Won’t Come to the Mountain … Take Her a Videotape

Help reaching the parents.

But we couldn’t reach their parents—until we learned how to get into their homes. We videotaped a club meeting. All the children were singing and playing games. We made sure to focus in on the children from unchurched families. The message for that session was a clear, simple explanation of the gospel using visual aids and showing the attentiveness of the children. The edited tape ran 15 minutes.

Then we called the parents and offered to stop by their homes and show them the tape. Most accepted. Even the more reluctant parents were glad to see their kids having fun.

One child’s father ignored the tape at first, reading the newspaper instead. When the mother oooed and ahhhed, he peeked over the paper. After a few minutes he laid it aside and watched with pride as his son won an award for Scripture memorization. He even watched through the gospel presentation.

Several families visited the church as result of our video and allowed their children to start attending Sunday school as well.

—Tim and Joann Hoganson Salvador, Bahai Brazil

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

I’d Give that Church 5 Stars

Pay a stranger to grade your church. You need to know what they think.

People have always had a shopping mentality when seeking a place of worship, but today they are more up front about it. Most people decide after one visit whether they will return. If they like what they see and feel, they come back. If they return a third time, there is a 90 percent chance they’ll stay, at least for a while.

Because so many decisions are made on first impressions, we need to harvest feedback from those who shop us. Here’s how to implement a secret-shopper program at your church:

1. Discuss the secret shopper idea with appropriate people. Help them understand the need. Request finances to recruit and train a shopper. (Pay the shopper $25 to $75. Schedule one per quarter.)

2. Contact potential shoppers. The person being considered should not be part of the church, but should understand the community demographics. (Recruit from your target group. If you want to reach young people, hire a young person; if Hispanics, then a Hispanic.)

3. Provide training insights for the shopper. The shopper should observe a normal Sunday service unless another area needs evaluation. (And tell the shopper what you’d really like to hear about.)

4. Ask the shopper to attend a service. (Afterward the shopper grades the experience on a form you provide.)

5. Meet with the ministry team within a week of the visit to review written and verbal feedback of the shopper’s experience.

6. Use the information to enhance ministries, instruct people, and build the team. Avoid embarrassing people.

7. Follow up on all changes discussed and implemented. You may want to schedule a follow-up visit from your shopper.

—Stan Toler and Alan Nelson The Five Star Church (Regal Books, 1999)

A Welcome that Melts in Your Mouth

(And probably in your hands, too.)

Why not Chock Full o’Nuts?

We have struggled with what to give our first-time guests as an incentive to complete the information card. We tried books and tapes—all kinds of things. People still seemed hesitant to register their attendance or stop by our information booth.

But recently we landed on an idea that removes the tension and works incredibly well. During our announcement time, we say that the church has made an official proclamation: we have made the 100 Grand candy bar (made by Nestle) the official candy bar of our church. Then we tell our visitors that they are worth a hundred grand to us and to God. We ask them to fill out the card and stop by the booth to swap it for a 100 Grand. And they do!

This gift is inexpensive and, more important, it makes our guests feel appreciated.

—J. Paul Covert Palm Valley Christian Church Phoenix, Arizona

Mugs and Kisses

Our “thank you” to Sunday visitors turned into a great outreach to our community. About four years ago, we started delivering to our guests a special coffee cup. We visit their homes within a week of their attendance. The mug, bearing a church logo, is filled with Hershey’s Kisses.

Nobody has ever fled our “mugging.” In fact, the guests liked the gift so well, we took to the streets. We have passed out mugs to customers at a nearby grocery store, a neighborhood gas station, and a small shopping center. We add a note that says, “This is a free gift just to let you know that God loves you!”

Many of those we mug later visit the church.

—Ricky Sanchez Butler Mennonite Brethren Church Fresno, California

Copyright © 1999 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.