A mission team of 30 creatives and communicators is heading to Anchorage, Alaska on May 18 to spend a week pouring into dozens of ministries and ministers. You can read a little more about why we’re going and what we’re doing at the bottom of the campaign site.

Creative Missions operates on a shoestring budget each year; all missionaries donate their time and resources (in addition to paying a trip fee and arranging their own travel), and its your donations that allow us to pull of these logisitically challenging trips.

We need your help! Alaska is expensive, and we’re projecting a $7,500 shortfall for our ministry goals. Over the next week, we’re asking 100 individuals/organizations to “Join the 100″ and back this trip by donating $75. Even better, that’s 100% tax deductible through the Center for Church Communication. If you can give more, that would be amazing. If you can only give a little, we would really appreciate that too. Even if you can’t give, can you help us spread the word about the “Join the 100″ campaign?

Thanks so much for supporting Creative Missions!

Spread the Word and “Join the 100!”

Today’s post was written by Eric Murrell. Eric is the Co-Founder of MediaBLEEP, Communication Manager at Long Hollow Baptist Church and creator of Series Engine and Prayer Engine. Eric and his wife Lauren reside in Hendersonville, TN with their son and daughter.

For many people, that means their favorite tool for reading blog posts will be gone.

Fortunately, the fine folks at Feedly were ready with a solution to allow Google Reader users to seamlessly continue reading their old Google Reader feeds on the Feedly platform. According to slashgear.com, in the first 48 hours following the announcement, Feedly has gained 500,000 people.

There are three things the church can learn from Feedly’s post-Google-Reader activity.

1. Preparedness for Opportunities that Arise

Feedly has created a solid product and had a plan in place for just such an opportunity as this. They have a backend structure called Normandy that will help Google users’ feeds to seamlessly move over without any interruption.

They also immediately added 10x more bandwidth by deploying new servers right away.

If there were an event or action that presented your church with an opportunity for growth or expanded ministry, would you be ready? Do you have a plan in place for radical growth? What would happen if twice as many people randomly showed up to your services one Sunday? How would you respond in ministry if a natural disaster were to hit your community?

While it is impossible to prepare for every possible growth scenario, it is important to have a plan in place to cover as much as we can anticipate.

2. Increased Bandwidth

As I mentioned, Feedly increased their bandwidth to handle the extra traffic that the Google announcement would bring their way. What are ways you can increase your ministry bandwidth to facilitate growth?

Are people avoiding your church because of parking or difficulty getting onto the parking lot? Is your children’s ministry checkin process a bottle neck?

3. Listening to User Feedback

As someone who was already a Feedly fan, I was ecstatic when I heard Feedly is still looking for ways to improve. They are listening to existing customers as well as future customer comments and concerns realizing that this windfall growth doesn’t mean they still don’t have room for further improvement.

How do you gather and use feedback from those in your church and community? Do you have a means for people to speak in to your church operations? Or, is your organization content with the status quo?

I’ve heard it said that “Feedback is the breakfast of champions” and I believe that those who fail to listen will fail to grow.

What About You?

When the door of opportunity opened for Feedly, they were prepared to walk through it. Could your church say the same if a similar door were to open? What is something you can do today to help prepare for such an opportunity?

It was probably my favorite commercial.

Remember? It was narrated by Paul Harvey, the iconic American voice.

God Made a Farmer

Want to re-create that for your Easter experience?

Paul Harvey passed away several years ago at age 90, but his voice lives on through years of radio recordings.

If you want to jump on the Paul Harvey voiceover wave, I found this audio clip with several nuggets about Easter.

• Full story: 0:09
• Shorter story: 2:05
• “Purpose of Easter in a Dozen Words”: 3:35

Could be cool. What do you think?

Stop for a minute and consider these stats:

• 1,400 hours worked (in just two weeks)
• 18 websites
• 14 logos
• 10 videos
• 17 Facebook setups and social media strategies
• 8 churches with updated and optimized weekend tech/sound, etc.
• 20+ signs and banners
• 20+ printed items including invite cards, bulletin shells, welcome packets
• Multiple photography needs covered from staff photos to family portraits

Over the last several years, we’ve helped a lot of pastors who are bi-vocational. Essentially, they have two full-time jobs. Can you imagine running a church and holding down a 40/hour week job?

I’m so thankful for the hearts of folks who sign up to serve pastors who give up everything they have for the sake of the Gospel.

Helping pastors like Jay isn’t something we should reserve for one trip a year. Do you know bi-vocational pastors and planters in your town who could use a little help, creatively? Take time to reach out this week.

Click to watch the video below, or check it out on Facebook. Share and comment, too.

The Summit is a gospel-centered, seven campus multi-site church pastored by J.D. Greear, author of Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary and Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart: How To Know For Sure You’re Saved.

Web Director at The Summit Church

We’re looking for someone who is as talented as the rest of our creative team and passionate about using his or her gifts to create compelling experiences in the context of web and social media.

We are accepting resumes and portfolios for this web design and development position to oversee all of our online entities – websites, social media, and online marketing. Candidates for this fulltime staff role should have a strong history of web design, strong attention to detail, user interface experience, WordPress development, and social media engagement.

Visit SummitRDU.com for more information about the church and to view the job description.

How to Apply

Please provide a resume and work samples or portfolio (including your role in team projects) to our communications project manager, Alyson McCaskell, at amccaskell@summitrdu.com by Thursday, Feb. 28.

Today’s post was written by Katie Persinger. Katie is communications director for The Summit Church. She also consults churches and ministries in the area of communications – strategy, web, and print. Previously, she has served at The Chapel and Saddleback Church as well. You can follow her on Twitter @mrspersinger and read her blog, Mobile Mama.

A better question might be, “Would your spouse like to go on a solo trip to Alaska but sleep in the same bed with you at night?”

Hopefully the important information below will help clarify things as you guys consider making the trip together.

Remember, the work and ministry are the same this year as other years.

We would love to accommodate as many people as possible, but we also want to keep our primary focus on the tasks at hand – the churches. It is a very full week as we have a very short amount of time with the churches and ministries we help.

• The $399 participation fee only covers the cost for your lodging (based on double-occupancy with another creative missionary), two meals per day, and ground transportation for your assigned creative team specifically. There is no overhead added to that cost for administrative fees or other expenses. We still rely heavily on donations to make Creative Missions happen. Your spouse would be expected to pay the same fee and would be expected to find their own ground transportation around Anchorage and the surrounding areas while you are serving.
• This is a mission trip for people with specific skills. If your spouse would like to apply for Creative Missions, please have her or him apply. We have room for 25-30 creatives on our teams. Teams will be put together based on needs with churches. There are no guarantees that anyone will be accepted (though priority goes to alumni who have traveled with us previously).
• If you serve as a creative and your spouse does not, keep in mind that we are typically working approximately 11 to 14-hour days while on site. We have very little site-seeing and down time (typically one day total). We don’t want you in the dog-house mid-week due to the time you’re expected to serve.

Thanks for reading. If you have any follow up questions, please comment below or contact us at info@creativemissions.to.

This week’s is about soul care.

One thing we’ve learned over the past couple of years of Creative Missions is our work goes deeper than just helping churches communicate better. It’s actually about taking time out to listen and show a little love to pastors.

Just like pastors, we as creatives, artists, and techies all feel like we’re on an island sometimes, too. It’s a great thing when we can not only give encouragement but receive it from the pastors we serve on these trips.

Now, I invite you to join in the conversation by commenting below, or on Facebook.

Anchorage, Alaska, here we come, May 17-24, 2013.

APPLY.creativemissions.to

What’s going on?

We’ll be serving approximately 15 churches and a few parachurch organizations, helping them communicate the Gospel better to the communities they serve through print/web design, video, photography, social media, logos, signage, weekend experience, tech setup, etc.

We’re giving a week away to good folks including Jay, a church planter who sold everything he had and moved his family 6,000 miles to reach out to the people of Wasilla, Alaska. He’s bi-vocational and works full time at Lowes Hardware. A trip like this is the least we could do to show appreciation to pastors who make big sacrifices for the Kingdom like Jay.

Don’t pay until you’re invited…

The cost of the trip is $399. This helps pay down general expenses – Lodging, ground transportation, meals, production costs, etc. However, it may be a little less than that depending on the financial donations we receive between now and early March. Have a rich uncle?

The only other expense on top of that is your plane ticket. Start checking rates now into ANC.

Once all applications have been processed, Creative Missions invitations and detailed trip information will be extended by early March. At that time you can choose to commit, and the participation fee will be due to hold your spot.

Please note, not everyone who applies is guaranteed an invitation. There’s a limited number we can take with us, and skill sets will need to match church needs.

Hurry, the deadline is Friday, February 15.

Need more information about Creative Missions? Check out all of these articles. Oh, and Church Marketing Sucks has written great articles, too.

APPLY.creativemissions.to

Don’t Lie

At first glance this probably seems like an odd lesson for a church. Doesn’t it go without saying that churches do not (or at least should not) lie? However, how often do we mis-represent who we are as a church? How often do we spice up our website or publications to make people feel that our church is something different than it is? I’m not suggesting here that churches shouldn’t have high-quality communications pieces. However, we need to work to make sure people don’t feel like we’re pulling a bait-n-switch on them when they walk through our doors.

• Be vulnerable about strengths and weaknesses.
• Be honest about vision and mission.
• Don’t exaggerate attendance numbers or misrepresent the atmosphere of the church and people.

Don’t Cheat

Similar to the lesson above, this one seems like an obvious one. However, when it comes to church growth it’s easy to try to cheat. Growth is hard and there are no shortcuts. We need a strong sense of mission, a compelling vision, a well thought out strategy, and a core group of generous people who are willing to get their hands dirty.

• Don’t be consumed with competing with the church down the street.
• Don’t give in to the temptation to be a carbon copy of other ministries. Sure, get inspiration from other churches…but be sure to adapt for context.
• Focus on reaching those in need in the community instead of “stealing” members from other churches.

You Are Only As Good As Your Reputation

Just as people have reputations, so do churches. What do people in the community think of when the name of the church is mentioned? I once worked with a church that, when considering a new logo, decided against re-branding because of the good will already associated with the church in the community. The brand is much more than a logo…the brand is what the church means to its community.

• Work to become a beacon of hope and a place of refuge in the community.
• Once there is momentum, be careful about doing anything that would change that progress.

Be Transparent

There are many ways where churches tend to become inward and secretive. From salaries and budgets to relationships and theology, it’s important for us to be as open as possible.

• Wherever possible, opt for transparency over secrecy.
• Teach people that its okay to have healthy conflict and to discuss areas of differences.
• Set up systems to protect against the need to keep things in the dark.

When You Mess Up, Confess It And Ask For Forgiveness

Every church is full of people. Broken people make mistakes. It’s really important to address mess-ups as soon as possible to avoid escalation and additional damage.

• Work toward an atmosphere of grace and forgiveness so people are comfortable admitting mistakes.
• Leaders need to lead out and go first in owning mistakes.

Avoid Operating With Your Head In The Sand

Every leader in every church has a weakness. It’s okay. God has given everyone strengths which also means that everyone has areas where not gifted. Rather than ignoring weaknesses, embrace them and leverage those with compatible gifts to compensate. Everyone around us already knows our weaknesses…there is no benefit in pretending they don’t exist.

• Use spiritual gift and personality inventories to learn strengths and weaknesses.
• Encourage delegation and volunteerism to involve as many people (and their strengths) in ministry as possible.

Whether a church is healthy and growing or struggling, we can all learn from the recent troubles Lance and Manti are experiencing.