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Everyone Communicates, Few Connect by John Maxwell Review

April 8, 2010 in Lead, Resources 0

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I picked up Everyone Communicates, Few Connect by John C. Maxwell in hopes of improving my ability to start relationships, deepen relationships, and also connect with others in a much deeper way. John Maxwell wrote this book to help others learn how to truly connect in a relationship with other people. He starts the book with 5 principles for connecting with others and concludes with 5 pratices to help give you some tactical things when connecting with others.

While I am a huge John Maxwell fan, his more recent books have seemed like more of the same leadership nuggets that we all know him for, however this title is different. It is both principle oriented and yet gives you things that you can do tangibly today. I was thrilled as I was reading to really understand the depth of preparation and time that John took in preparing not only meaningful connecting principles but also clear and concrete ways of becoming a connector today. He comes from a place of influence and lets you into what he is thinking as he prepares to speak to an audience or an individual. If you are in ministry then you know it’s all about relationships, I think this book is a must have on your bookshelf.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas
  Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com <http://BookSneeze.com> book
  review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The
  opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with
  the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255
  <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides
  Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

My Organizational Buy-in Formula

April 7, 2010 in Communication, Lead 0

Poker chips, originally uploaded by Jam Adams.

I’m going to give you the formula first so you can drool over it, :) and then break it down later.

To determine the amount of buy-in for each individual you must consider:

Value of Product/service/organization/ministry(Relationship) – Cost = Amount of buy-in

or simplified:

V(R)-C=$$$

What do you think?

Organizational Buy-In: First Shot

April 6, 2010 in Communication, Lead 0

Poker Night 2/5, originally uploaded by 204studios ~ Michael Herb.

Yeah I used a poker picture which is generally not a good picture to use when describing successful business practices. However, I think that it’s a good picture for something that we want to talk about.

How do we get people to buy-in to our particular product, organization, or ministry?

This will be a series of posts, so I want to take this with even the simplest idea first. I’ll call it initial buy-in.

In poker, the buy-in is the amount of money that you need to enter a particular game. Most games have minimum or maximum buy-in rates.

So the first thing that you will need to look at in your organization is what price is our initial buy-in?

Is it astronomically high and you leave a lot of people that might be beneficial partners out because of the high cost? Or is the cost so low that every single person you know can get in, even though you might have 200,000 applicants for a single position. You have to ask yourself, what kind of cost are we asking people to pay up front?

The second part is are you attracting the right people.

What if you came to the table expecting a buy-in for a Bingo game? You would probably look really foolish when people throw out chips instead of calling out B 8.

The reality is that sometimes the communication of what you are actually representing is confusing, unclear, and even off-putting. People might not even consider bringing their chips to the table if your new gardening ministry is being communicated as a yard work ministry. I mean who likes yard work?

Not only that, but sometimes people communicate things in crazy ways. If you look desperate, then I probably will look twice in your direction, because I respond to need. However, I am probably in the minority in that situation. Desperation most of the time for people equals failing. So how are you communicating the vision of your product, organization, or even ministry?

So first shot for you is figuring out these two things:

What initial cost am I asking people to pay?
What am I communicating for people to buy-in to, exactly?

Stay tuned for my own formula on Org. Buy-In.

Love You Guys!

Organizational Buy-in

March 31, 2010 in Communication, Lead 4

broken dino toy, originally uploaded by fickleknitter.

I am a Marketing junkie. My degree is in Marketing. I love aligning a brand with purpose and identity. I remember countless days applying principles of marketing in the church during my college career.

One thing that I get asked about a lot is “How do I get people to buy-in?”

Over the next few posts I would like to focus on the idea of buy-in.

But first when you think about buy-in, what comes to your mind?

Totally being honest here

March 31, 2010 in Lead 1

Edit 5133, originally uploaded by jameshodgson100.

I know totally un-manly this morning, but I just need to let you know that spring is here!

If I can just let you into my brain for a bit, I do a little bit of graphic design and am totally self taught. My design is ok, but in no way am I professional designer.

But part of the reason that I love design is because of pictures like the one above this post.

I go nuts over Macro shots of flowers. I am consistently astounded by the creative ingenuity of our Creator. Flowers are a perfect picture of the detail involved in God’s craftmanship. I am consistently floored by the amount of focus put into color, form, and lines in flowers.

I can not get over how amazing they appear. I love spring so much more because of the colors brought out by the seasonal change.

When I look at these flowers and realize that they were good to God and then I think about myself and how in God’s eyes we were created VERY good, it puts a lot of things into perspective for me.

One of my friends is about to have a baby girl and I can imagine when she is born in the next few days, I can only imagine the amount of thought and detail that God put into her design.

Do flowers change your perspective on the value that God gives you? For me they most certainly do.

Dreaming…

March 29, 2010 in Lead 0

dream

Reading through Joshua today… Caleb asks Joshua for the piece of land that God promised to Him. I think if you are connected with God in the least bit then He’s given you BIG dreams. Caleb made sure to ask about his land as Joshua is doling it out. Imagine how much it’s on the forefront of his mind.

When he sleeps it’s probably the last thing he thinks about. It might be the first thing he thinks about as he wakes up in the morning. The best way to illustrate is how Abe lived his life with the promise that God gave to him about his family. It took so long, but Abe trusted God and saw it through.

I wonder sometimes if we let reality get in the way of some of the dreams that God has put into our hearts. I have people around me seeing their dreams come true right before their eyes and I know that for them they couldn’t be happier. So today, get away… Dream just for a bit and ask God to give you things that you’ve never dreamed of before. Escape into the depth of the Dreamer, today. Allow His creativity and passion for people to overwhelm you.

What is holding you back from the dreams God has for you? What are you doing to eliminate those things?

Family Milestones: Parent Child Dedication

March 14, 2010 in Family Ministry, Lead 1

baby-holding-hands

Here is another guest post from our Preschool Ministry Director, Patti Jo Mackey. You can follow her at @pattijomackey

Here is what she has to say about Parent Child Dedication as a milestone!!

One of the main goals of BrookwoodKiDs is to partner with parents.  One way that we do this is through Parent Child Dedication.  At one point, our Dedication Ceremony was a part of our main service 2x a year.  Our senior pastor would carve out about 15 minutes of the service and have the participating families come on stage.  He would present them with a certificate, and pray over the children.  It was a precious moment that our church family shared, but I was concerned that because this was such a significant milestone, that it really deserved more investment.  It took time, prayer, trial and error, and lots of meetings, but today we have incorporated some of the following elements into our Dedication process:

  • We’ve developed a class for parents to attend that is about an hour and a half long.
  • We limit the class to 15 families.
  • During that class we talk about what Dedication is, and what Dedication is not.
  • We also challenge our parents to look at their own spiritual walk.

Parents are the number one influencer in a child’s life, and if we want our kids to know Jesus and love Him, it doesn’t happen because we just tell them.  We, as parents, have to live it out in front of them.  Parent Child Dedication is so much more about the Parent dedicating themselves to God, as well as raising their child for God!   At the class, we request their information, pictures to use during the ceremony, as well as a few items for homework.  We ask them to…

  1. Write a letter to their child, dedicating their child to God.  Then, at the ceremony, the parents share their letter, and let me just tell you… bring your tissues… this part of the ceremony can be emotional.
  2. Choose a life verse for their child, which is also shared at the ceremony.
  3. Choose a Dedication sponsor, someone who will partner and support them in the spiritual development of their child.  The Dedication Sponsor(s) usually are onstage with the family as they share their letter and verse.

These days, our ceremony happens on a Sunday afternoon, and our Family Pastor shares a message of Promises.  Following the ceremony, we have a reception.  One area that we are currently processing, is what the next steps for the families as well as sponsors might look like.
As amazing as all this sounds, this process is no simple task.  Not only has it taken time to develop, but it takes a tremendous amount of skill to implement.  I’m so thankful for the Preschool team of BrookwoodKiDs.  Please feel free to contact me if you have questions or would like help in beginning a process in your church.

If you’d like to contact Patti Jo, follow her on twitter and you can find her info on brookwoodchurch.org

You can also drop a comment and I can email or dm you the info as well.

I would post her email address but am going to save her the spam requests from robots if I did.

Milestones: Baptism for Kids

March 11, 2010 in Family Ministry, Lead 0

picture-2

You guys hear me so much on this blog… I want to highlight some people this week with their thoughts on some of the Milestones that we have. First up is our Elementary Ministry Director, Laurie Sinkele. Laurie was a major reason we decided to go another direction when it comes to baptism for Kids at Brookwood. She’s put together a few of her thoughts on the struggle for baptism with kids and what our process looks like now. You can follow her on twitter as @lsinkele . I hope a ton of you follow her so she will tweet more often. Yes I’m totally asking for a favor :)

If you have any questions for Laurie, drop a comment and I’ll be sure to get her to check in with her thoughts!

We are thrilled that we can walk with parents in sharing Jesus with their kids.  We also recognize working in children’s ministry; we have an important job in leading children to Christ but feel that the biggest influence of the kids we see on Sundays is their parents.   We know for most people their spiritual journey it is not always an event that shaped their faith.   It is a series of events.  So when we look at baptism we try to get families to look at the milestones that lead them to faith instead of one event like baptism.

It is so easy to say, “I’m a Christian” and not live as one.  Sometimes baptism is viewed as they have made it as a Christian when in reality their journey has just begun.  That is one of the reasons it is so important that as a ministry and church we teach our kids and parents that baptism is sharing and growing our faith.  We don’t want them to be confused that baptism is a means to salvation.

When an elementary child shows interest in being baptized we have the parents attend a class called Leading Your Child to Christ.  That class is a prerequisite to First Steps for Kids.  In these classes we cover the basic beliefs of baptism:

  • To follow the example set by Christ. Mark 1:9
  • Christ commanded it.  Matthew 28:19-20
  • Illustrates Jesus’ burial and resurrection.  Colossians 1:12
  • Demonstrates I am a believer.  Acts 18:9
  • It’s an outward symbol of the commitment you make in your heart.

Our Leading Your Child to Christ class is for parents of elementary kids who want to be baptized.  In this class we walk through with parents what a relationship with Jesus looks like.  We want to minimize confusion of a faith journey.  We share with them that baptism is just the beginning of their kids spiritual journey and that it is a profession of faith and not a one- time event that they have arrived at.

We also teach parents to write their story of faith.  This gets them to look at their walk with God and how they can model that to their kids.  We don’t suggest to parents that they breakout a bible study each night with their kids.  We suggest that they model their faith, communicate their faith, and pray for their child.  Not every child’s walk with God will be the same.  Once parents have written their own story they are more equipped to help their child write theirs.

First Steps for Kids is a class that parents and kids attend together.  This is a time when parents can help their child write their story.  Through this class we hope the parents and child understand the meaning of baptism and are better prepared to make a decision whether or not that child is ready for baptism.

These classes will help the parents and children see if that child really understands and is ready for baptism.  We want the kids and parents to understand that salvation is not dependant on baptism.  Our faith is a great journey.   It is exciting to see what God has for us.

Milestones: The Aha moment

March 10, 2010 in Family Ministry, Lead 1

To give a little bit of a crash course in Milestones I’ll provide a little commentary on the situation.

For a lot of Milestones, we seek Parents when they are having an “Oh Crap!” moment. Whether it’s transition, pressure, behavior, etc. Parents are freaked out about something. We generally recognize common times that these moments are happening and try to turn the “Oh Crap!” into an “AHA!”.

Light bulbs generally don’t light themselves. An idea or concept needs to be caught and then put into practice. So every “AHA!” moment you want to achieve will need at least two things from Parents and in some cases kids:

1) Vision that compels peeps to move from “Oh Crap!” to “Aha!”
2) A plan that people can achieve and one that you can keep them accountable to.

So what “Oh Crap!” moments do families have in your ministry context?
How can you move them to “AHA!”?

Wednesday Wisdom – 2/24/2010

February 24, 2010 in Lead, Resources 2

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