shawnlovejoy.com

Where I’m speaking next…

I’m gearing up to teach at two upcoming Pastors’ conferences in the next two months: First, next month, I’ll be speaking at the EXPONENTIAL Conference, in Orlando, FL. Exponential is the nation’s largest church planting conference, and David Putman and I are honored to be hosting the post-launch track, as well as speaking. I’ll have the opportunity to encourage and influence HUNDREDS of church planters on this day! Pray for me! If you’re a church planters, and you’re attending the conference,  drop me a line and we’ll try to connect while we’re there! 

Then on Monday, May 11, Mountain Lake will be HOSTING the Regional one day Sticky Church Conference, in collaboration with Northcoast Church, in San Diego, CA.  I’ll be speaking on this day, as well, to several hundred pastors!

Pray for these events, and if you’re pastor, crawl out of your ivory tower and get out there and learn and be inspired to be everything God wants you to be so your church can, too!

Sunday reflex…

WOW…I am DIZZY from yesterday…NO, REALLY!DIZZY! Unbelievable day! Here are a few quick reflex:

• Kicked off our new series “Upside Down”. WOW! God spoke! I’m upside down!  How about you?
• Don’t know the numbers yet, but once again,  this was probably one of he largest attendances we’ve had this year! Jesus is building His church thru us!
• Never taught on an upside down table before.
• Loved seeing everyone’s nametags upside down! yes, every week at MLC, everyone wears a nametag. No, they’re not gold. They’re actually mailing labels. We’re complicated around here.
• Jesus loves upside down people. Jesus loves hanging out with upside down people. Jesus loves using upside down people to reach other upside down people!
• We wrote our names upside down as a symbol of our confession of upside down-ness; then wrote the name of a person we knew who was upside down that was disconnected from Christ and the church!
• Held our first “Backstage Pass” Lunch and Tour of our new building.  Huge turnout! People were fired up!
• Backstage Pass folks also got to hear about what god is doing in our community, region and nation, and world, thru Mountain Lake!
• We had a great Leadership Community  with all of our ministry leaders at Mountain Lake. I talked about “Unworthiness in Ministry”. Love encouraging our ministry leaders!
• I got to bounce around after my talk and  listen in on the ministry breakouts. Our pastors and ministry team did a great job leading their leaders.
• Got to be around long enough to see tons of students coming in for FUZE. Rodney Anderson and the Student Ministry Team are doing a great job taking this to the next level!
• All in all, I preached three times at three services,  gave two different talks, and worked for Jesus from 4:30 AM yesterday morning until 7 PM last night…and love every minute of it!
• I was so proud of our Ministry Team that laid it on the line to yesterday…
• I’m taking some time this week to get away form the office to nurture my vitality: spiritual, relational, emotional, and physical!
• See you Sunday!

The importance of over-communication (part II)…

This past Sunday was a great product of the fruit of over-communication. In preparation for the kickoff of our new series, we went all out on our internal communication to mobile people to get here for the start of our new message series called “Upside Down”.  People may have been sick of hearing from us; we may have annoyed some people; but NOONE DIDN’T know what was going on. the result? We were up  200 people in attendance from the week before!

As I said before, I know there’s a lot being written these days about over-communication. I DO agree that you can over-communicate. I frankly just don’t know of any organizations or churches that over-communicate! I know of DOZENS, however, that UNDER-COMMUNICATE. Under-communication is the real issue in organizations!

At Mountain Lake, every time, if we’re going to err one way or another. We’re going to CHOOSE to over-communicate. Why? It works! 

So how do we seek to over-communicate at MLC? Here’s a list,  but it’s not even exhaustive!

1. WEEKLY updated Members and Attenders page on our website with ALL upcoming events.

2. We utilize THE HECK out of constant contact regularly, especially prior to big days.

3. We now utilize video announcements weekly called “The Pipeline” which are scripted, clear, and to the point, but keep the vision and happenings in front of people.

4. We have a facebook group for our church and create a facebook invite for every message series we teach.

5. We utilize Vontoo automated phone service for special reminders of every kind.

6. We have a road sign out at our entrance dedicated to our current message series.

7. For big message series, we plaster our community with “real estate” type road signs.

8. We mail out 40000-50,000  mailers for about 4 message series each year: January, August, Easter, and Christmas.

9. This past Christmas, to over-communicate our message series, “Peace on earth”  we gave every family a shoe polish pen and asked them to write “Peace on Earth. mountainlakechurch.org” on their windows. Probably one of the best things we’ve EVER done!

10. Our Small Group Leaders in our church constantly carrying the ball for us and keeping people in our church up to date.

11. Four times a year at our “Merge” worship services, multiple campuses and services come together and I give a state of the church address and let people know what’s coming down the pipeline at Mountain Lake for the next several months.

12. We state our mission from the stage ATLEAST every other weekend.

You probably have tons of other ways you can over-communicate in your church and ministry. Ideas? What are you doing that we’re not doing?

The importance of over-communication (part 1)...

        OK:  I'm going to get on a soapbox for a couple of days. This morning, my entire family got ready and headed down to my daughter's school for an awards breakfast we  had been invited to by her teacher.  We re-oriented our entire family's schedule to all get there at the same time together. It was a miracle to all get there at 7:50 AM and be on time. However, when we got there, we learned that there had been a "mis-communication" and the breakfast had been moved to next Thursday! You should have seen the look on my daughters face...better yet, the look on my face...I was not a happy camper!
        I was reminded that often, mis-communication is NOT the issue in an organization. Mis-communication is a result of under-communication! I read more articles these days about the dangers and downsides of barraging people with communication; about the dangers of over-communicating, even BUGGING people with your communication.  Here's the deal, though. If I am going to make a mistake, I am going to choose over-communicating over the mistake of under-communicating...EVERY TIME!!! Over-communicating internally; and over-communicating externally! I'd rather people get sick of hearing the message than not know what the vision is, when the meeting is, where we're going, how they can be involved, or just what the heck is going on!

What do you think?

I'll follow up tomorrow on how we seek to over-communicate at Mountain Lake: internally and externally.

Easter Service Times...

Easter Service Times at Mountain Lake:

N. Forsyth Campus:
Sat: 4 & 5:30 PM
Sunday 9:00; 10:15, & 11:30

W. Forsyth Campus (W. Forsyth High School)
Sun: 9:30 & 11:00

Invite people HERE

When Life's Upside Down...

Discouragement. Defeat. Despair. Is it just me or does it seem like everybody's lives have been turned upside down these days? This is just one of the reasons I'm excited about the kick off our new series that will take us all the way into Easter called Upside Down. Invite your friends get here this Sunday!

Video blog on how we team teach...

The differences between, entrepreneurs, managers, and leaders...

I've been thinking a lot lately about the differences between an entrepreneur, a manager, and a leader. Here are a few of my thoughts. Obviously, they don't fall into neat little categories. I actually see myself wearing all three hats. However, I do think there are general characteristics of each one.

An Entrepreneur is tends to be a great starter, thinker, strategizer, and is financially savvy; He/she considers organizational success as their primary metric.

A manager tends to be more task oriented and enjoys problem solving. He/she tends to consider tranquility and the lack of problems, noise, conflict, and fires that need to be put out, as success.

A leader is more people oriented; Tends to put others before themselves; Tends to be able to deal with lots of personalities; encourages and resolves conflict well; and in the long run, considers others' successes his/her biggest success. 

Any idea which one I want to be?

What about you?

THE BIG SPLASH...

    One of the coolest things we offer for kids at MLC is something we call: THE BIG SPLASH. It's our way of helping families talk with their kids about the process of going public with their faith in Jesus through baptism! THE BIG SPLASH is a fun, interactive sketch that helps parents be able to answer questions their child might have about what it means to ask Jesus into their hearts and about about baptism. Our next Big Splash is scheduled for April 19, 2009 at 3:00pm in the Kraze theatre. If you would like to sign up or if have any questions please contact Russ Sorrells, at russ@mountainlakechurch.org. 

Backstage Passes to Mountain Lake...

        As we mentioned this past Sunday, Mountain Lake is gearing up to offer you  "Backstage Passes" to everything that's coming down the pipeline at  our church over the next few months! These events will include ministry updates at both of our campuses, updates FROM our latest church plants and church planting residents, and God's dream for what we believe He's leading us to do next!
        It all begins this Sunday over at the West Forsyth Campus with: "WILD WILD WEST LUNCHEON" at 12:15 PM at West Forsyth High School. At this event, we'll take about an hour to share with you about some huge things coming down the pipeline for our church, as well as some big news regarding the West Forsyth Campus!  Yes, we'll have free food and free childcare! Be there!
        Then, beginning, next Sunday, we'll be holding several "Backstage" events at the North Forsyth Campus to facilitate everyone: April 29 (1 PM); April 5 (1 PM); April 19 (1 & 5 PM); and April 26 (1 PM).  These events at the North Forsyth Campus, which will include a brief tour of our new Worship Auditorium currently under construction! This will be your ONLY opportunity to tour the building before it's completed! Guys, regardless of what campus you attend, we want every family that calls MLC home to attend this event! So get signed up NOW! I can;t wait to take you backstage!