Tag Archive for: Communications

C is for CHURCH.com – A Visual Conversation for the Church by Chris Capehart & Micah Davis

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Over the past several years some friends and I have found ourselves striving to find ways to enhance community in the church. It’s a passion that we all share and we have given everything we have to it. We’ve had the chance to make friends with people and churches across the country who are creating community in some phenomenal ways. About a year ago a close friend, who is on staff at a church, invited us to help conduct a study on community. The goal being to uncover needs and ideas that might have slipped through the cracks. We jumped at the opportunity.

We were able to spend one on one time interviewing senior pastors, support staff, administrative staff, and church members. We were able to spend time with people involved in church at all levels. We simply asked questions and then listened. Our questions concentrated on three areas: Community externally as church, Community Internally as a Staff, and Technology influencing community. Once our time came to an end we had spent over 100 hours in conversations. These conversations were personal and vulnerable. People talked to us about their lives and their needs. They shared how community at church had meant everything to them. Some who you would have thought had the most community talked about their need for more. After all of these conversations were finished we found ourselves with pages of notes. As we talked through these notes we were able to find several themes that really stuck out to us.

We wanted to share this information in a unique way, so instead of writing our findings in the traditional way we used art. We created a “report” that highlighted the themes we saw through our interviews in typography based art. Information can be dull when presented the same way over and over, but it doesn’t make it any less important. C is for Church.com is what we called it and now we want to release it to anyone that’s interested.

Our goal with this project is to provoke thoughts instead of providing answers, although you might like some of the ideas presented.   We can all do better and C is for church is a tool that you can use with your staff or group of volunteers to provoke discussions that can lead to ideas. We don’t want anyone to misunderstand, we are not saying that our report is indicative of the church at large, however, maybe some of them could be applicable to your church.

You can get the report at C is for Church.com. You can download the pdf for free or pay what you would like. You can even view it online or find it on Facebook. We’ve tried to make it easy for anyone to see. For those who choose to pay, your money is going to pay for the pro-bono time that was put into this project.

As you view this project think of it as a chance to listen to the voices you usually can’t hear.

AUTHORS:

Chris Capehart & Micah Davis – We’re a couple of guys passionate about making the Big C church better. We’ll do it however we can. We’ve done everything from building technology to hosting dinner parties. We love God. We love people. We love community. Follow Chris Capehart via Twitter HERE and friend him on Facebook HERE. Follow Micah Davis via Twitter HERE and friend him on Facebook HERE.

7 Elements of Student Ministry Directing by Stacy McVane

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Communication and relationships are the most important aspect of any church organization.  Developing great relationships across the entire church staff, and not just within your department is crucial to the vision.  In order to have unity and continue to stick to the vision of Shoreline Church – Unveiling God’s Love, I must be able to communicate and find some sort of commonality with everybody on staff.  Respecting and adhering to other departments’ processes and systems gives you credibility and opportunity to serve one another.  Developing relationships is always a blast!

I was having a conversation about communication with Joel Maguire, the Men’s Student Life Director of Shoreline’s Leadership College.  He said, “Unvoiced expectations will always equal unmet expectations.”  This is such a true statement.  If it weren’t for the volunteers at Shoreline Church, we wouldn’t have a church.  Volunteers want to know what is expected of them so they can meet and exceed expectations.  People want to be asked to help and serve.  Everybody wants an opportunity to make an impact.

From my perspective, these are some practical elements of directing student ministries from Ji-High to Young Adults:

  1. Be the person who has all the answers to all the questions.  If you don’t have the answer, tell the person you will find out and get back to them.  Make sure you follow through on what you say.  I had four leaders call me about a specific incident.  I let them know I didn’t have an answer because I wasn’t there, but I would get back to them.  I researched, found the answer, and called each one of them back to dialog about the incident.
  2. Work yourself out of a job.  Bring someone with you everywhere you go.  Always be mentoring someone.  Multiply your leadership.  It’s not necessary to be at the Lift Young Adults service on Sunday nights because Nadine Matthews can run it.
  3. Make sure everyone is clear on the vision of the ministry and what the win is.  The win at every Lift service is to have no first time guests sitting alone.  Adrian Cardenas makes sure this happens at our Lift 7th-12th grade service with our Lift Rats (a team of teenagers who love on our guests) and Jenny Heggem makes sure this happens at our Lift 6th-8th grade service.
  4. Plan ahead and be flexible with change.  Always plan, but always be ready to change the plan if asked to.  If my supervisor, Pastor Earl McClellan wants some part of our Lift Young Adults service to change, I make sure to leave enough room for change to happen.  If I have a question, I can always ask after the service.  Take action at the moment and debrief later.
  5. Look for the gifts, talents, and passions of others.  Jessica Worthey is passionate about 6th-8th grade young ladies and I knew she would love to lead a small group of ladies in the home of Grace Wall’s parents.  Jessica loves her small group and the young ladies are learning about relationships and leadership with Jessica.
  6. Learn emotional flexibility.  Be able to pray with someone and comfort them and then move on to tasks related the rest of the service.
  7. Be Prepared and be yourself. This is the best piece of advice I have ever received from my brother-in-law, Pastor Sam Mata. I do my best when I adhere to that advice.

After serving on staff at Shoreline Church for nearly eight years, I’ve had to learn to be confident in who I am.  I am God’s child, made out of His love and grace.  I have a purpose made specifically by God.  If I concentrate on these truths and not on my position, there comes a freedom to rely and depend on God rather than striving to get things done in my own strength.

Your Thoughts?

Stacy McVane is the Executive Director of Lift Student Ministries at Shoreline Church, Austin, TX. You can follow her on Twitter HERE and friend her on Facebook HERE. Visit her website at www.StacyMcVane.com.

Social Media Revolution – The Landscape has Shifted

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The media landscape has shifted dramatically in the past 4-5 years and even more so in the past 1-2 years. The flow of communication, information and media isn’t a one-way channel anymore, it’s a two-way channel. Watch the video below. It will be interesting to watch how it impacts the church and ministry leadership landscape.