He points out the challenges:

1. A radically different view of Christianity.
2. A radically different view of authority.
3. A radically different society.

“Whatever you do to reach people, you have to continue to do to keep them”

His point is that we often set aside special days and events to attempt to reach people but then, when they show up the next week it is nothing to compare with the previous.

It’s well worth checking out.

Read the article here

1. Shift from being a corporate culture to a cause culture.
2. Shift from a culture of maintaining to a culture of mentoring.
3. Move from our current parenting culture to a partnering culture both nationally and globally.

One statement that stood out to me was this “We need to restock the shelves of Foursquare leadership”

It’s interesting that much of what he said also applies to the organization which I am a part of.

You can read Ed’s entire post here

Speaking of the reality of churches and ministries he writes "Propagandists are abroad in the land lying to us about what congregations are and can be. They are lying for money. They want to make us discontent with what we are doing so we will buy a solution from them that they promise will restore virility to our impotent congregations. The profit-taking among those who market these spiritual monkey glands indicates that pastoral gullibility in these matters is endless." 

There is also a great clip of Andy Stanley speaking about leadership, influence and the need for integrity.

The magazine may be accessed here

We used flyers in public places, postcard size invitations, members using their FaceBook statuses to advertise, invitation letters to guests on our mailing list and a paid advertisement on Facebook.

Most of the guests at the services were there because of a personal invitation – a friend or relative invited them to come. Still the most effective method.

Second would be the invitation letters which were responsible for several guests returning for worship.

While our FaceBook advertisement was not directly responsible for any guests that we are aware of it does remain an effective advertising medium particularly because of the ability to tailor the advertising to specific demographics.

Our FaceBook advertisement had almost 2.4 million impressions with 423 individuals clicking the link to a dedicated page on our website advertising the Easter service. The average cost per click was .41 for a princely sum of $208. Most of those clicking on the ad were in the 13-20 age group – which we expected for a couple of reasons – their high usage of FaceBook and the service being held at one of the large local high schools. One addition that I think we will make next time is to add a contact form to the landing page which may give us more contact with the visitors.

All told it was a successful promotion numerically and even more successful spiritually.