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.

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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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Evolve Conference

If you are perhaps a church planter like me, and budget wise can't fit all the wonderful conferences in your financial folder, then I have the perfect answer. Follow along with all the bloggers out there. I have found it to be a great resource to get vital information.

Right now I am compiling a public feed of all the bloggers blogging from the Evolve Conference hosted by Shawn Lovejoy of Mountain Lake Church. You can also check out more from them at churchplanters.com

You can view it by clicking [here] or by clicking on any of the feeds below. Spread the word...stumbleit...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.

How To Develop A Creative Team

It is said that ministry can be lonely. I say that it is only as lonely as you make it. Ministry done in a team environment can not only be productive but can be fun and highly creative. With the development of a creative team you can begin to reap the results without the loneliness.

In this post I want to give you some ideas on how to put together a creative team. In the second part I will give you some ideas of what to do with your creative team.

There are some dynamics that you will have to deal with as you begin to put together your creative team. Some of the dynamics might be: size of church, number of paid staff, number of volunteers, and type of ministry. No matter what the dynamics may be do not use any as your excuse not to have a creative team.

Let's look at some practical ways to develop your team and then in our next post we will deal with exactly what the creative team will be doing.

Mid to Large Size Church - Your team will more than likely be made up of your teaching team and/or staff. Depending on your size this could be made up of different people from the various departments in your church. It could be a mixture of your sr./lead pastor, children's, youth, worship, creative arts, young adults, etc. Potentially the people from this team should be creative and teach or be part of the elements that make up creative areas of your church.

Small to Mid Size Church - Your team on this size could be made up of the lead, youth and children's pastor's as well as your worship leader.

Just Beginning to Small Size Church - Your team may be made up of any of your core team that make up teaching areas of your church or are people who you see a creative edge in.

Departmental - As a department in your church don't let size or staff shake you in your quest to be creative. Put together a team of your core leader/volunteers.

How We Did It
At a previous church of 350 I was on staff at as the youth pastor in 2007, I didn't let not having a staff stand in the way of being creative. The children's pastor and I began meeting together on a weekly basis to create and brainstorm our messages and series. It was some of the most highly creative material I had ever put out.

Doing ministry as a team can can make your church a highly creative environments. Don't let anything stand in your way. Stand tuned to see some practical ways creativity can drive your team.

Let us hear from you: Do you have a creative team? Who makes up your team? List some practical examples. What's keeping your from having a creative team?

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What I Love About

In one of my previous posts called "What I Hate About" I asked the question, what do you dislike about the 21st century church?

Let's flip that question with this post:

What do you love about the 21st century church?

I'm going to leave my response in the first comment of this post so RSS readers make sure you click over to read my response and leave your own.

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Preaching Calendar - Your Time

I'm not sure I have done this with a post but with this one I want to give you, the readers and ministry leaders across the world, the stage.

This post is about your tips, your strategies, your time to shine with comments geared around Developing a Preaching Calendar.

Don't be shy click on the post a comment and give some wisdom and strategy for everyone. Write it like you shine.

Make Sure You Read Every Post In This Series

• Part 1 - Introduction
• Part 2 - God Can Speak To You In Advance
• Part 3 - Planning For Greater Impact
  
• Part 4 - Look Back Before You Look Ahead
• Part 5 - Schedule Before You Schedule: Major Holidays, Personal Time Off
• Part 6 - Branding Your Messages
  
• Part 7 - Create Momentum Before Your Major Events
• Part 8 - Creating With Your Team
• Preaching Calendar - Your Time (Reader Tips)
  

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Developing A Preaching Calendar Part 8

"Teamwork makes the dream work."

"Together everyone achieves more".

These are two quotes I often hear most when someone is talking about a team. Yet when it comes to developing a preaching calendar and even the messages it is the most highly underused as well as underrated method. To save yourself time, enhance your creativity, and have messages that are highly packed with content it is a must that you begin creating your preaching calendar with a team.

Why Is That?
Maybe it's pride. I know many pastors that are afraid to share the spotlight or think that the people they hired are not up to their level of communication.

Maybe it's a lack of ability. Some pastors may not understand or can handle leading a creative process like this.

Whatever the reason they pale in the benefits that can be had if you begin to create in a team environment.

Saves Time
When you have several people working on the same task you can save more time. Let's say you give everyone a month to come up with all the ideas for messages and series over the coming year. Not only will you come into the planning meeting with a ton of ideas but laying out the year will be even faster.

Enhances Creativity
When others are working off each other, ideas are tweaked and improved until the original product is so much greater in quality.

Better Content
Having the team organizing and creating brings more minds to the final product. The ideas will be greater. The theology will be tighter. In all things the final product content will be much higher than you doing it alone.

Truthfully we could go on and on about the benefits of creating in a team environment. Let's stop and get down to some practicality.

Put It In Process
Let's say that in October you have your meeting to lay out the calendar for the upcoming year. All through August and September your team can be looking and creating individually message/series topics in preparation for the planning meeting. Roughly, these would include a title/topic/big idea. If they wanted they could include a list of messages for a series.

On the date of the meeting everyone comes in with their ideas on 3x5 cards. All of the ideas are then thrown out on the table and the process of whittling down and piecing them into the calendar begins. Since you have already put in holidays as we already discussed this process should just flow.

Once you have your series and your time line down you can then begin to work on each more individually.

Where Does God Fit
I can already hear the argument coming. "Doesn't this take God out of the equation?"

Are you kidding me? Are we still arguing that same point.

If this process and everything along the way is bathed in prayer and our trust and faith is in God throughout the process then God is the one that is orchestrating it all.

God is the God of yesterday, today and forever. He knows who is going to walk into your building in July and exactly what message they need to hear and lay it on yours and your teams heart in October of the previous year. Let's get over this whole point and realize that God is in charge.

You can successfully begin to implement the steps and advice we have laid out in this series and begin to reap the benefits of having a preaching calendar.


Make Sure You Read Every Post In This Series

• Part 1 - Introduction
• Part 2 - God Can Speak To You In Advance
• Part 3 - Planning For Greater Impact
  
• Part 4 - Look Back Before You Look Ahead
• Part 5 - Schedule Before You Schedule: Major Holidays, Personal Time Off
• Part 6 - Branding Your Messages
  
• Part 7 - Create Momentum Before Your Major Events
• Part 8 - Creating With Your Team
• Preaching Calendar - Your Time (Reader Tips)
  

To not miss any of our helpful posts - make sure you subscribe to our feed.