Post Number 1,000

This is post number 1,000. I'm honestly not to sure what to write. I thought about writing something inspirational. I thought about writing something that was challenging. But honestly I have only one thing on my mind for post 1,000.

THANKS

Thanks to an awesome God who has changed my life from the inside out. A God who has filled my life with vision and passion. A God who poured out His life for a wretched soul like me. I'm so far from what I want to be but so thankful that I'm not where I used to be.

Thanks to a wonderful wife. You are so awesome to put up with a crazy nut like me. I love you so much. You're the apple of my eye, the sugar in my koolaid.

Thanks to my kids. You three girls are the delight of my life. You far exceed all my expectations. Each of you are awesome.

Thanks to my parents. You have been the biggest supporters of us. You have been there for us through the thick and the thin. And you are an inspiration in faithfulness to me.

Thanks to the people who follow this blog. I try to tell myself that I would write even if no one would read but I'd be lying. Especially since I check my stats four or five times a day. I know I don't always get it right but I write from a sincere passion of helping others make a difference in this world. I hope that the next 1,000 are inspirational and helpful.

Thanks to Life Church. Even though at this point it is being birthed, the team is forming and all the people that may grace our doors are yet to come...our passion is to help you be all you can be in God.

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The Capacity Of A Leader

You want a mirror shattering statement?

Perhaps your church or ministry is not growing because of "YOU".

Go ahead look in the mirror. You may be looking at the problem.

"Well...God bless...I'm just going to be faithful with the eleven people God wants me to have."

"Well...maybe God only wants me to have just a few people"

Pathetic...NEWSFLASH...God has come to seek and save the lost. God is more concerned than we will ever be with reaching the lost. His desire is for every church to grow. Get a clue. That means your church is the size it is...because of the capacity of your leadership.

If it is small or big it is because of the capacity of your leadership working in conjunction with the work of the Holy Spirit.

I think it is easy to sit and just lay it on God and say He is the one that is not bringing it to me. Honestly, it is time we as leaders of the church need to stand up and take responsibility repent for this, especially if you have a heart to impact this world.

Your church or ministry is the size it is because of your capacity to lead and the people with whom you surround yourself.

Let me state that another way for those of you that didn't get it.

The capacity of your leadership determines the size of your ministry.

In a future post we are going to look at the story of the three stewards in Matthew 25 and then we will also look at how we can increase our capacity.

What excuses have you been making?

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What To Do With Your Creative Team

You have recruited, assigned, designated your creative team...NOW WHAT??

Remember in a past post called "How To Develop A Creative Team" we gave several examples of how you can build a team. No matter what size of church or even as a sub-ministry you can have a creative team that will help take your content and creativity to a higher level.

With this post I want to give you some specific ways you can work with your creative team. I have seen different churches use them for different things.

• Message Development
• Service Creative Elements
• Facility Set Design
• Creating Content
• Debrief & Download

Working With Your Creative Team
So you can see that having a creative team can really help what you are doing. Let me give you several things you can do with your team to make it more successful

• Define The Roles - It is important going in to your team with them knowing what their role is supposed to be. Remember those points above that we gave you. Sit with your team and specifically tell them the role that the creative team is going to take.


• Create Job Descriptions - Everyone on the team should have a specific job description that lays out the role, how often you will meet, what the team does when they are not in the meeting, expectations, etc... Be as specific as possible so your team will know what is expected.


• Take Time To Create - Your team should meet weekly if possible. Use that time in a variety of ways as well. There can be future brainstorming, debriefing of the previous weekend services, content creation, set and stage design, etc... Again the possibilities are only defined by what it is you as the leader needs or wants.


• Use Any Method Possible - As we said in our previous post don't let size of church or budget stop you. Your team can meet and communicate on all types of levels. You can utilize tools like Google Notebook or Documents where several people can collaborate on messages and/or series ideas. Those tools are great to be able to bring together a lot of heads. Your team could then work at home to gather content and brainstorm at anytime of the day. Oovoo is another free resource where you can meet with your team through the computer as it provides up to six people to video conference together at one time.

What are some things you are doing with your creative team?

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What Are We Doing

I thought it would be great to elaborate a little on what God is doing through us right now and why. Currently we are in process of launching a church in the Corpus Christi, TX area called "Life Church".

This has been something that God has laid on my heart for about 4 or 5 years now. In fact I came here once many years ago and met with some friends about starting a church. At that time though it wasn't in God's timing.

Currently, we are launching in four phases, the build-up, pre-launch, launch and post-launch.

The phase we are in right now is the build-up. In this phase we are recruiting and building a launch team as well as a support team. I wrote a proposal for our church and you can also read more about how to support the church at 300forLife.info.

Corpus is a great area that really needs more churches that are about reaching the unchurched/unchristian population as well as dealing with the social community needs.

I currently work in an at-risk charter school and deal with many students that are a picture of some of the social needs of this community. Our clientèle is composed of teens that are in gangs, teen pregnancy, etc... It has given me a real burden for the broken side of the Coastal Bend.

I feel many churches and pastors are out of touch with the real needs of their city. Some drive their fancy cars, live in their big houses and try and do a few little outreaches to pacify and say they are reaching out...but they have no clue. Some are just building a Kingdom around themselves. I also know that there are some great men and women of God that are doing some tremendous things as well. I guess my experience has been working for some pretty crappy ones when it comes to this.

God leading me here has really changed me and put a burden in me to do something big. To find out more how you can partner with us to change this area visit 300forLife.info.



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Disturbed Yet?

Are you disturbed?

Sir Francis Drake says…

“Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves. When our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little. When we arrive safely because we have sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord.”

Is your dream large enough to disturb you? Is it large enough to keep you up at night? Is it large enough to drive you to your knees because you can't do it?

It it's not....it's not a God-sized dream. And it will not produce the faith necessary to glorify God. God wants us to dream dreams that only He can make happen. When that happens He is glorified and we are not.

What size is your dream? Is it disturbing you?

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Google - Your Leadership Development Fetcher

I thought it would be great to give you one of my tips that I use for part of my personal development.

Really it can be summed up almost in one word - GOOGLE

Well Google Alerts is actually what I use...hmmm...that's two words.

With Google Alerts you can define exactly a term that you want google to search for and it will "alert" you, through email daily, weekly, or when it is published. With the alert you an have it search web content, blogs, news, video, groups or even comprehensive covering it all.

Right now I have an alert set with the term "church leadership" which searches daily through blogs. I will scan through the content on anything that looks interesting and read. Again any term you want, you can create your alert for.

I also used this to keep up with the Evolve and C3 Conferences.

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C3 - Creative Church Conference

Here is another great conference that I'm collecting blog posts on. Go [here] to read the various posts of bloggers who are attending the C3 Conference hosted by Ed Young Jr. and Fellowship Church.

If you are perhaps a church planter like me, and budget wise can't fit all the wonderful conferences in your financial folder or maybe you are oversees like my friend Will, then I hope this can be a great resource to you.

You can view posts on the Creative Church Conference by clicking [here] or by clicking on any of the feeds below.

Spread the word...stumble it...digg it...bookmark it. Get the word out...and let's be a resource to church planters everywhere.

RSS readers you may need to click over to the post to view the widget below.




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Who Am I

I've been keeping an eye on my stats and subscriptions and over the past month they have steadily been on the increase. With the various traffic coming here I thought I would introduce myself, tell you what I'm up too, and why I write this blog.

Who Is Jason Curlee
In a nutshell I'm a husband to an awesome wife, dad to three beautiful daughters, pastor, church planter and blogger.

I've been married to my wife since 1991...she is the love of my life, apple of my eye, the sugar in my kool-aid...well, you get the point! We have three girls of various ages who are each creative in their own ways.

At the time of this post I'm 38 years old. My wife and I have been in ministry since 1995 as youth pastors. We worked on staff at three different churches, First Assembly of God in Kingsville, Faith Family Church in Victoria, and another church in Corpus. We have also been involved in one failed church plant. You can read a little more about our story [here]

I am passionate about leadership development and communicating. My life purpose statement is to influence and develop others to make a difference in their world.

I also have a personal blog, myspace, facebook, youtube site, twitter and it seems just about every social networking site there is. You can find those links over on my personal blog where I journal about my journey.

What Are We Doing
What I'm most excited about is that we are currently in the process of launching Life Church in Corpus Christi, TX where I will be serving in the role of Lead Pastor. You can find more information at our various sites: Myspace, 300forLife, Website, Facebook. Please be praying for us on this journey of a lifetime. I'll also be blogging a little more about here.

What Is This Blog About
This blog, Making Difference Makers, flows from a passion in my life to influence and develop others to make a difference in their world. It has evolved tremendously over the two years that I have written. It started out as a way to let others keep up with me. It then evolved into something so random even I wonder what it was. Then over the past two months I have determined that it's focus would be to encourage, inspire, mentor, train, and be an overall help to ministry leaders out there.

As my wife so avidly tells me I'm addicted to this thing sitting in front of me. Over the past two years I have blogged and absolutely love it. I read blogs, I write blogs, I read blogs and I write some more blogs. Maybe she's right. Honestly I just want to learn and give what I learn to others.

Who are you? If you are a reader and have a site...leave me your link in a comment. I would love to read your blog or know more about you.

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Connecting When Communicating

I have a passion for communicating and am always driving myself to be better. As a church communicator I don't feel it is just enough to open the Bible up and talk about Scriptures. I believe that we must connect our audience with our topic.

As a pastor or ministry leader it is not enough just to talk about a Scripture or topic from the Bible. To be more effective we must bridge the gap of knowledge that might be missing and connect our audience with why they need to listen to our message.

Here are three practical ways to convince people they need our message:

• Highlight some specific knowledge they are missing - When it comes to developing a message or a series you can use a series teaser video leading up to the message or series. These teasers highlight the purpose in a creative way that creates the desire to listen.
  
• Pose a question or puzzle that confronts people with a gap in their knowledge - I believe Andy Stanley is one of the best at asking questions that connect people. Whenever you are speaking it is important to ask as many connecting questions that covers the ages and characteristics of your audience. These questions are aimed at giving your audience a reason to listen'
  
• Present them with situations that have unknown resolutions - Mystery always
  

Read these other posts related to this topic:
Communicate Simply
Communication Ability Matters

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How To Feed Yourself Spiritually As A Leader

I have to admit that as a pastor I hate to hear the words, "I'm not getting fed!"

Honestly, I think that is the lamest, most pathetic excuse I've ever heard from a Christian. As a Christian you must take the responsibility for making sure you are growing.

But to be honest I can agree with that statement somewhat. There are many pastors who do not know how to communicate and butcher their presentation but yet want people to not have the excuse of not being fed. They don't know how to develop a point or connect people with the message. They feel that just because they open up the bible and can talk about a scripture it should be good enough. But I'm not getting into that with this post.

As a pastor or ministry leader how do you feed yourself? How do you get "fed" spiritually?

Obviously you can't sit and hear your own message on Sunday's. You need to make sure that your own spiritual refrigerator is full.

Daily Bible Reading
Don't just read to study for your message. Read to be in communion with God. There are various yearly Bible Reading plans that will help you continually stay in the word. I would also say don't just read to read but journal as well.

Listen To Other Pastors
With the availability of many pastors who now have their messages podcasted for free there is no excuse. I subscribe to about seven church podcast specifically to feed myself spiritually. I listen to the podcast messages from North Point Ministries, National Community Church, Community Christian Church, Flamingo Road Church, Newspring, Pine Ridge Church, Elevation Church, Revolution Church and Lifechurch.tv. I listen to each of these for specific reasons as well the fact that each are excellent communicators.

Read Spiritual Books
I'm not talking about leadership books or business books here. I'm talking about a book written to challenge or grow you spiritually. Whether it is a classic or the latest off the book shelf, add some books of this type to your spiritual diet.

I'd like to know how you are keeping your spiritual refrigerator full as a ministry leader?

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