evan mcbroom THE OTHER SIDE of the boat

Church Branding - eternal, worldly & local

The Short Story: heard a great sermon this weekend.  Rev. Chris Chase from Good Samaritan Episcopal Church in San Diego taught on Church Branding.  His lesson

• In Revelation we learn that there will be those who will be marked/sealed as belonging to God -eternal.
• Jesus teaches us to "love one another" as a sign to the - world.
• The local church needs to identify itself uniquely in it's community - local - and Good Sam is in that process.

The Longer Story: This past weekend I traveled to San Diego to lead a branding discovery session with church leaders from Good Samaritan Episcopal Church - or "Good Sam" as they are know to friends and family.  Good Sam is a beautiful place filled with people who are easy to be around. They describe the worship service as a "lighter and relaxed interpretation and presentation of the Episcopal tradition."  It was that. Liturgy, robes, communion and an altar girl wearing orange canvas shoes. They are warm and welcoming bunch and they quietly pour themselves into the lives of each other andhurting people - locally and beyond.  Over and over they described their experience at Good Sam as one of "healing."  One member of the discovery team, Julia, a bright young woman in her Junior year in high school, described Good Sam as "Mrs. Weasley's house from the Harry Potter series." She said, "it's a little clunky, and the people are sorta quirky, but it's a place you can totally just come be yourself."  Every head around the table nodded in agreement.  

 This was an interesting day because, in addition to attending worship services and leading the discovery session, I was also invited to teach a Sunday school class, Church Branding: What Story are we Telling?  Communication Director Leanne Shawler invited me to lead this session, helping the congregation toward better understanding and fostering discussion on the topic.  Often, the work of church branding is done behind the scenes and then revealed to the congregation.  At Good Sam, it's a collective experience.  While a team will lead the effort its the congregation is well aware of what's underway.  Not only was there a class on church branding, but Rector Chris Chase's message presented a fascinating perspective as well.  The entire branding team and process was lifted up for prayer.  

Chris outlined three distinct and powerful perspectives on church branding - eternal, worldly and local. The highlights:

1. In Revelation we learn that there will be those who will be marked/sealed as belonging to God - eternal.
2. Jesus teaches us to "love one another" as a sign to the - world.
3. The local church needs to identify itself uniquely in it's community - local - and Good Sam is in that process.

  The message is about 20 minutes long.  It's worth a listen.  

Church finance talk...bring in the experts

Here are just a few of the topics I'm unqualified to advise on:

• How to raise quiet children
• Pre-Colombian art
• Physics, Algebra, Engineering
• Office organizing
• Car repair
• Photoshop
• Church finances

The good news is, most of the church leaders we serve could care less about many of the things on that list, but church finances...now that's another thing. (and it's a critical thing)  So, when I learned that our pals at Aspen Group were hosting a pastors lunch titled "Straight Talk about Church Finances." I wanted to help make it happen.  I'm thrilled that Fishhook is joining the NACBA and Aspen Group as sponsors.

Church leaders - you're invited - you can check out the official invitation. 

Download Aspen Group Pastors Lunch

And while I don't know two cents about church finances, the speakers at this event are worth their weight in gold.  Here's who they are and here's what I like about 'em:

Allen Walworth- President & Principal of Generis

• I’ve met him up close, have visited with him at his home and he is the real deal. Big heart for seeing people experience God's love through a generous heart.
• I’ve seen him speak at a recent Cornerstone Conference where he personally challenged and inspired me.
• I’ve seen the evaluation from the audience at that conference and from their comments he challenged and inspired many.

Jon Huskins, MBA, CPA, President and CEO of Crosspoint Capital

• I’ve met with Jon as a brother in Christ – just to get to know each other and see how possible collaborations might come together.  He has a humble heart and a seemingly incredible brain for church finance stuff.

• I’ve worked with Jon in my capacity as a Fishhook creative guy and his role as an elder at his church and through this, I’ve heard his heart for people who aren’t in relationship with Jesus.

• He’s known Fishhook’s Janie Mehaffey for years…and when I asked Janie for her thoughts about Jon, she said, "He's one of the smartest people I know. Jon could easily brag about what he knows and what he has accomplished, but he is such a humble and godly man that his focus is constantly on what he can learn from others and how he can invest his big brains into making a Kingdom impact."

The event is October 15.  Greenwood, Indiana.  Aspen Group's Lynn Noe is the go-to for questions and RSVP.  Hope you can join me as we learn together.

Here's the invitation with lots more detail: Download Aspen Group Pastors Lunch

Working with your local newspaper

Fishhook friend Steve Dennie with the United Brethren Church HQ in Northern Indiana joined us recently for a roundtable meeting.  The topic was PR/Media Relations.  Steve wrote a post for his peeps to eat up...sifting out some of the tips for working with a local newspaper.  Here are my fave five from Steve's post.  You can read his full post here.

1. Understand that editors and reporters get scores of phone calls, emails, and voice messages while working on strict deadlines. It's easy for things to slip through the cracks.
2. Leave short voice messages, and identify yourself and your church clearly.
3. They prefer stories about people, rather than about institutions.
4. Don't bombard them with information about every little church event. We get excited about what's happening in our church and want to throw it all out to the public. But before long, they'll just begin ignoring your submissions. Be strategic in suggesting stories. Once a quarter is good.
5. A good story angle: how something your church does ties into trends, topics, and issues of interest to the entire community

You can read his full post here.  Thanks Steve

Honoring my father...1 year later...agnostics & believers

My dad died a year ago this weekend.  He was an agnostic.  I was once too.  I became a believer.  My friend Aaron recently did something nutty.  He joined a bunch of Atheists and Agnostics on a group tour of the Creation Museum.  Here is, perhaps, the best blog post I've ever seen.  And, to honor my Dad, I invite you to step into a conversation I wish he and I could have had but we avoided the discussion. 

Enjoy this fascinating experience. http://pastoraaron.info/2009/08/11/scarlet-a-for-a-day/

I think this is Joy!

My son and my oldest daughter watched this video together.  My daughter said, "When I come down the aisle I want to do it like this."  Just the thought made me smile and tear up a little.  This is joy.

How about you?  What's it say to you?

Farrah & Michael: a lesson in irrelevance

1976.  I was 12.  As a teenage boy, I owned the poster.  Farrah was it.  She had it.  (as a teenage boy...I'm sure I wanted it).  I was captivated. Overtime though, she faded for me.  Her appearance in Playboy was not a good thing.  It shattered the mystery she once was. It was disappointing.

1982.  I was graduating from high school and headed for Indiana University.  Over my four years there, I danced away many Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights to the tracks on this album.  Again - captivating. Overtime, poor Michael changed and with each new revelation, his persona and his music lost its allure. It just got weird.

Oddly, these icons - once so important to me - became meaningless.  Irrelevant to my life.  And today, for me to feel anything besides a shallow sadness at their passing, I'd have to dig deep into my memories, stirring up something that might border on sorrow. That is unlikely.

Is there perhaps a parallel to draw?  If I consider people who grew up in a church, and think about the captivating hold it may have in childhood or teen years, and then consider that for these people, church became disappointing, distant or weird...it's understandable that church, for them, is meaningless.  Irrelevant. 

The parallel is no more conclusive than my own empty feelings of the day.  Just a thought.  What are yours?

Faster. Faster. Keep up.

Do you feel like the faster you run, the farther you fall behind?  For me - it's true. I run to keep up with technology, with theology, with philosophy and it seems the faster I run, the farther behind I fall.  We've seen the stats quoted: information used to double at the rate of (something like) once every 50 years.  And now, information is doubling at (something sorta like) every 53 seconds.  OK, an exaggeration, but...information is exploding. And so is my head.  What's a feller to do?

I'm asking your advice.  How do you keep up?  And where do you keep up?  And what expectations do you set for yourself?  And, perhaps most importantly...how do you come down?

I want to know...

A Step Ahead - Pastor's Lunch Links

In keeping with my last post...I wanted to keep a step ahead.

Tomorrow I'm speaking at a pastor's lunch with my big-brained friend, Ed Bahler of Aspen Group.  Most of the time when speaking, I would say, the links to all the resources I talked about will be up on my blog in a couple hours...then life starts again after the talk and three days later I sheepishly post the links.  So I'm posting my resources (or at least the ones I know I'm going to talk about) a DAY EARLY!!!  Here they are...

Third Place:

• The Great Good Place - by Ray Oldenburg
• Third Place Consulting - Michael Trent
• Skype - video conferencing

Social Networking

• Facebook
• Linked in
• Tim Schmoyer - youth ministry blog

Blogging

• The Blogging Church
• Tim Harlow blog
• Best practices from GCC

Stories

• Stories of Grace
• Madison Park
• Granger's my life

And of course...Fishhook.

If there are other resources that I mentioned, but didn't list here (cause I mentioned them on the fly) - I'll post those right away...or in three days!

Girls Gone...What?

I'm not sure even how to describe this...but something happened today that is sort of indescribable.  Perhaps unbelievable.  In some circles unrecoverable.  But here.  Today.  It's all OK.

Imagine my wonder when I received an email from a very good friend and major client (in that order I hope) who was informing me (in his usual wit-filled-way)  that my most recent podcast/video blog was...well...let's say "amiss."  How was it amiss?  Apparently (and at this moment a colleague of my friend/major client, was calling on the phone to confirm that the email was, in fact, not a joke, but completely factual.  Yes, something was quite wrong with my podcast. 

Apparently, as I was learning, following my 90 second video message, the streaming video hosting service (which we were "trying out" on our own stuff before considering it for clients) was slapping a video commercial at the end of my message.  And what was the product being promoted in the commercial that played EVERY TIME at the end of my message?  Drum roll...and I am not making this up.

  "Girls Gone Wild at the Best Bar in America"

Yes, in all it's barely "censored" glory, there were drunk college-aged girls cavorting about...right after I was inviting people to join my company in supporting a new church plant.  I'm sorry?  Did I get that right?  Girls Gone What?  Crap!  Sorry to say it her in my blog, but there is no other word to express it. 

So, what ensued?  I'm pleased with my response and thrilled with the response of my team.

1. I made a quick call, reported the problem and within minutes the thing was fixed.  (moved to another streaming service).

2. I offered up a quick, clear, self-effacing message to thank the friend/client for letting us know about the problem.

3. spent the afternoon (nervously) laughing as our team and his team traded email jabs and zingers back and forth - testifying to the depth, transparency and quality of these relationships.

4. let my team know that I value them all as professionals, as people who are self-aware and as people sharp enough to learn our own lessons (I have lots of lessons to learn myself) and we extend grace, appreciate wisdom and maintain a good sense of humor!

Oh, I'm sure I'll get lots of mileage out of this story.  Glad it happened to us and not to a client.  Technology is risky.  Trying new vendors is risky.  Taking risks is important - it's how we move ahead. 

Oh...what a day.

 

Vision is not a "thing." It's a...

We're working with a church in Naperville, Illinois, helping their leadership team communicate their vision to the congregation.  We took part in a weekend strategic planning retreat led by Trevor Bron of TAG and I was asked to carry the ball on the segment on communication.  Something hit me this weekend - and I shared it with this church.  If you think of vision as a place rather than a thing, it seems easier to me to communicate "where" it is, rather than "what" it is.  Because in communicating vision we want to help move the congregation to "go" there with us, rather than "get" it. And, to help move them to "go" to that vision, we can communicate "why" we need to go there. 

So, when thinking of communicating vision to your congregation, answer this two-part question?

Where is God leading us, and why is it worth going there?

Vision is a place.  More to come on this.