49 Leadership Lessons From Carey Nieuwhof, Jeff Henderson and Perry Noble Pastors Lunch – Orange Conference ’13

April 26, 2013 by Brian Dodd

Brian with Perry Noble and Carey Nieuwhof

There are perks to leadership and there is a price to leadership.  This afternoon I got to experience one of the perks!  In an effort to help churches succeed, The Rocket Company has dispatched me to the Orange Conference in Atlanta, Ga to gather leadership lessons and insights to pass on to you.
I  just attended a special lunch for pastors only that was highlighted by a Q & A between Carey Nieuwhof, Jeff Henderson, and Perry Noble.  In a word – UNBELIEVABLE!!!  This is one of the BEST events I have ever attended!!!
After reading these leadership quotes, please check out an amazing FREE offer from The Rocket Company on helping pastors preach better sermons which Jeff and Perry will both be a part of.  
Perry Noble

• In 2000, we were planting a church and I was broke.
• A dynamic Children’s Ministry is essential for a thriving church…We want them in environments where they can have fun and learn about Jesus on their level.
• If you’re doing church right, you offend someone every week.
• I don’t believe in fundraisers for youth and children’s group.  The pastor should be the chief fundraiser for them.  It is a sin to put them in front of Wal-Mart.  Our kids have gotten everything they have ever needed.
• Disney is spending money on them.  Hollywood is spending money on them.  But the church screams if they need $500 and then sends them to Wal-Mart.
• Staff that doesn’t have unity on the staff will never have unity in the church.  You will not have vision.  You will have division.
• Parent only care about three things when they bring their  kids to church.  Clean.  Safe.  Fun.
• I hear people say, “Fun ain’t the goal.”  Well, Heaven is going to suck for you.
• We never told our daughter never to do something because it would look bad on the church or daddy.
• I’m not obsessed with what people think because I want to be a great husband and father.
• Love always assumes the best.  I’ve got her (daughter’s) back far more than the opinion of others.
• My wife’s ministry in the church is to me.  She can do things for me no one else in the church can do for me.
• Opportunity does not equal obligation.
• Jesus did not play to the expectations of people.  He did what His Heavenly Father called Him to do.
• If you don’t control your schedule, you’re not leading yourself or your family.
• Deep in most church settings means confusing.  A non-Christian has never asked me about going deep.
• Time, not content, produces spiritual growth.
• Every spiritual growth metaphor in the Bible is agricultural, not technological.  Agriculture takes time.
• In most discipleship classes in churches, the burden is not easy and the yoke is not light.
• We’re a church where change takes place.
• The only organization that resisted change the most is the church.  It’s also important that the population in America is increasing while church attendance is decreasing.
• We’re willing to answer the questions people are asking.  Nobody coming to your church Sunday cares about Calvinism.
• Nobody wants to hear you speak for 45 minutes.
• When we meet them where they are, answer their questions, they are more open to what the Bible says.
• We’re going to go after people I have a heart for.
• Too many churches are over-programmed.
• When you have to manufacture energy for something, it’s time to kill it.
• When God’s done with you in ministry, he’ll kill you.

Jeff Henderson

• The male population serving in family ministry continues to decline.
• There are boys in our church and community who have no idea what a positive male Christian role model looks like.
• I know what my role is – senior pastor, fundraiser, hire the right people and get out of the way.
• Kids are an easier sale than the adults…Even the worst parents in the world will take their kids to church if they want to go to church.
• For the family ministry I don’t have a customer (child) in, I pay them especial attention.
• Every year I have five goals I want to accomplish in five areas of my life.
• (To have balance) You have to say, “No”.
• My most important ministry is with my family, not the church.
• Our spiritual growth strategy is for you to do what we’re doing.
• If you’re not giving financially, there is something wrong with your heart.
• I’m a starter.  That’s what I do.
• If you want to feel like a celebrity, go to NewSpring and turn on your flashers as a first-time guest.
• The sermon starts in the parking lot.
• The key to the church growing is the enthusiasm of the person in the parking lot.
• When my family ministry says we have enough men, only then will I start a men’s ministry.  I want them serving.
• Job security is tied to killing ministry.  When someone says, “Something isn’t working.  I want to kill it.”  That’s good leadership.  They are more interested in the vision than the ministry.  That’s the person I want to keep.

Carey Nieuwhof

• There is power of another voice in a child’s life.
• Family ministry is a value, not a program.
• One of the effectiveness of an Orange Church is that the senior pastor owns the vision for family ministry.
• My wife and family would do what they would normally do because their Christians, not because I’m the pastor.
• Without a filter, everything sounds compelling.

41 Leadership Quotes From Andy Stanley – Live Notes From Orange Conference ’13

April 25, 2013 0 Comments

I am so glad I work for The Rocket Company!  Our organization has a deep passion to help churches succeed.  Therefore, they have dispatched me to the Orange Conference in Atlanta, Ga to gather leadership lessons and insights to pass on to you.
In this morning’s main session, Andy Stanley destroyed many of our assumptions about how to effectively communicate to students and young people.
After reading these leadership quotes along with others from Reggie Joiner and Ken Coleman, please check out an amazing FREE offer from The Rocket Company on helping pastors preach better sermons.
Reggie Joiner

• Words matter and what you do every week matters.

Ken Coleman

• Words are strategically used in questions.
• Good questions inform.  Great questions transform.
• By the time we reach the 8^th grade, the average person is only asking 2-3 questions a day.
• Our education system is driving out curiosity.  We’re training them to answer questions.
• Great leaders are always asking questions.
• The most successful people are continually asking questions.
• We can become so obsessed with what’s next that we miss the now.  And by missing the now, we often miss what’s next.
• At some point life happens.

Andy Stanley

• We have for generations, Evangelicals perceived ourselves as being the majority.  Anytime that happens, they speak with an element of authority whether they have that authority or not.
• We’re not the majority anymore…We keep talking like we’re the majority and we look foolish.
• In the first century they knew they weren’t the majority.  They were lion food.
• Once upon a time a handful of people believe Jesus raised from the dead.  2000 years later a third of world believes that.  It’s going to be OK.
• Whenever you’re in the majority, you outreach your authority.
• Approach determines people’s response to what we have to say.
• We must adapt our approaches to connect with our target audiences.
• How do you win as many as people as possible?  I change my approach.
• My goal isn’t to be right.  My goal isn’t to make a point.  My goal is to win those under the law.
• My goal isn’t for people who agree with me to agree with me.
• I adjust my approach depending on my audience.
• There is a goal and an approach.  When you prioritize the approach over the goal, you’re out of business.
• You have inherited an approach that assumes consensus among biblical authority.
• Engaging people with the text has more to do with your approach than the scripture.
• We live in a world that does not view the scriptures and Bible the same way you do.
• Anytime you choose a passage and stay there, this is a win in a biblically illiterate culture.
• A Bible “story” is a terrible word.  It’s better than a story.  We think it actually happened.  It’s not a story.  It’s history.
• Bring your energy to the text.
• Nobody reads anything because it’s inspired.  You read things because you want to read it and discover it’s true.
• Give people permission not to believe or obey the scriptures.  I Cor 5:12-13  When you give the permission not to believe or obey, they are more likely to believe or obey.
•  When you give non-Christians an out, they begin to lean in.
• The attraction of the church is looking at all of those one-anothers one-anothering one-another.  They will want to be a part of that.
• The attraction of the early church was looking at how they love one another.
• We don’t believe Jesus is the Son of God because the Scripture is inerrant.  We believe Jesus is the Son of God because Jesus rose from the dead.
• The foundation of our faith is not the Bible.  The foundation of our faith is an event in history.
• We’ve got to teach in a way that always ties things back to Jesus.
• Our approach that we’ve used has set our children up for disaster in college.
• The foundation of your faith is historical Adam and Eve.  The foundation of your faith is that people who expected to find a body did not find a body.
• Don’t refer to the Bible as a book.  The Bible’s not a book.  It’s way better than a book.
• Cite authors, not the Bible.
• Every single you say something about the author you tie that author to history.
• We shouldn’t expect rationale people to think Jesus raised from the dead because the Bible says so.
• Don’t ever use the phrase biblical marriage again ever.  Can you even think of a good biblical marriage?  Use the term Christian marriage…Just go home for a day, you don’t even need to believe this, and submit to one another.
• I submit to Sandra out of reverence of what Jesus did for me.
• Acknowledge the odd as odd.  There are some odd things in the Bible.  Don’t be afraid of that.
• You believe the Old Testament is true because Jesus believed the Old Testament is true.
• Don’t create the impression that one must choose between faith and science.
• Science is the search for natural explanations.
• Just say, “Oh, so that’s how God did it.”
• We want people to find natural causes.  We want people to find out the reasons why things work the way they work.
• It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. – Acts 15:18 NIV

Seeing People With Compassion

Seeing People With Compassion by Paul Borthwick

The Gospel of Matthew records Jesus encountering a crowd and seeing them as "harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd" (Matthew 9:36). In a similar encounter, the disciples urged Jesus to send the people away (Matthew 14:15). The difference is vision. Jesus saw people through eyes of compassion, while the disciples saw them as an inconvenience. We need to change the way we view people.

My attitude toward a seat mate on an airplane—or my neighbors, my co-workers or the international fellow who serves me at the supermarket—changes when I ask God to help me see them with eyes of compassion. That man sitting next to me is an eternal soul, with an eternal destiny. God also loves the people I encounter throughout the week, but they might not know it. When I see others through the eyes of Jesus, I realize that it's my privilege to be God's 24/7 available witness.

"Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have" (1 Peter 3:15).

A Case For Mentors

A Case For Mentors
Releasing Kings - Lest Week's newsletter, Church or Kingdom, was the kick off for this theme. The church isn’t mentoring people into their mountains. Five-fold ministers generally lack the expertise for mentoring people in non-church mountains and are specifically not able to teach others how to multiply finances. The Kingdom goal is to help people find a ministry vocation they enjoy (in the marketplace mountain of their choice) coupled with a prosperity ingredient that takes them well beyond a 40 hr/week job so they are really free to engage in the ministry and missions side of their work. We’re searching for a solution to fully equip the saints to the point of releasing Kings locally and to change the “salvation, church-planting only” approach to missions. The result is that missions should be thought of as at least self-supporting and perhaps profitable.
Mentoring - We have a vision brochure that provides a roadmap for releasing Kings based on Desire to Destiny. I want to suggest that in this present hour, personal mentoring is the missing ingredient that helps turn saints into Kings.
From Informational to Relational - Western Christianity is information based. We think if we have a sermon, coach, book, or conference we can run with an idea and bring it into reality. Prophetic people are particularly susceptible because the Holy Spirit is prompting them along the same lines as the "information" they are getting. So... they start a business, make an investment, or get a new job and fail. Why? They had the right idea and the push of the Holy Spirit!
"Information" and "revelation" are only the start of the process. Pastors, teachers, coaches, etc., can teach us what is possible, but mentors show us how. Our relational models to move from knowledge to practice, at present, are surprisingly “non-relational.” We’re prone to assume we can figure it out in one class or one seminar when the price tag is a life-time of being fathered to the next level and fathering others ourselves. Practically, the real secret to escaping poverty and becoming a King, is an enduring relationship with a "father" that is already moving in our vision.
Fathers vs Teachers - Let's clarify some terms and the sequence of events. First we articulate our heart's desire and set our goals on something we want to do and someone we would like to emulate (pick a mountain, a vocation, a ministry, and a model). The second step is finding someone who has the right experience to look over our shoulder and help us on an ongoing basis.
Note - Coaching is very popular right now. However, most coaches have experience in coaching and nothing more. They are generalists that lack the specific expertise you need. They can teach you how to coach and load you up with expensive materials that sit on the shelf. But, they may be missing real marketplace experience in your field. You want a mentor that is already successful at your chosen vocation / ministry in the marketplace.
The purpose of a mentor or father is to make you successful by showing you "how" and helping you see new opportunities. We don't need a contract or a covenant and they have no motive to rule over us or "lord it over us." The right mentoring relationship gets you through blind spots, poverty, and areas of self-sabotage that you can't see - otherwise the information would have been good enough. Get it? We learn by doing, not listening. It's called practice. We do need to be good listeners. Hearing information is just never enough. Teachers have knowledge, mentors have wisdom and understanding.
Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers... 1 Cor 4:15 NIV

Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 2 Tim 4:3 NIV
The relationship can be a single father or mentor, a network of like-minded and experienced peers, or a home group of kings with experience in your area of interest. It's quite often a combination of all three; a father, a network of peers, and fellowship with your support system. Corporate CEO's usually have a "board" for exactly those reasons. So should we.
The price tag - Christians are usually familiar with the concept of apostolic fathering and carry a belief that it should be free. Many marketplace fathers are very generous with their time and interest in other people. However, it's seldom free. Business mentors don't want to waste their time with people that aren't serious. So you should expect to find a way to reimburse your mentor. This is a relationship that has spiritual and financial value. If you find the right mentor the cost will be a bargain relative to the financial gain you receive.
Here's a hint. If your mentor makes his money mentoring, he's a professional coach. You're looking for a mentor that makes his wealth in his business using his expertise. Coaches talk a lot (preach), speak in generalities, and make things sound mysterious. Business mentors can really do things. They can explain a path forward in simple terms and show you how to do it because they are doing it themselves. They can help you find a network of connections, help you through financial decisions, help you find start-up capital, and help make sure your business plan and cash flow are viable so you won't shipwreck. They can see problems coming, not just diagnose a disaster after the fact.
Missions - What if we had enough mentors to cover missions? The gospel isn't just salvation and church planting. Our message is abundant life and changing nations. What if the product of our missions work was self-sustaining believers functioning in the marketplace and contributing to their local society? Prosperous converts, rich in every way and generous on every ocassion! What if we taught them how to multiply finances? What if we learned how ourselves?... from a mentor. Now, go find one.
But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today. Deut 8:18 NIV

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 2 Cor 9:8 NIV

Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion... 2 Cor 9:10-11 NIV

PS: I decided I wanted to switch from engineering to day trading 18 months ago. I'm not recommending that decision for everyone, "but" I found two mentors that embody the qualities of this newsletter. Greg and Dan... spirit filled, a vision to help people, and totally prosperous from their own trading endeavors. They are examples, not just theoreticians. Thanks! May the Lord unveil a million more just like them.

We're Dancing

John and Sue www.Releasing-kings.com