Written By Ed Bahler, Aspen Group President

1,500 pastors resign from their position every month due to ill-advised growth, moral failure, or contention within their church.

Why is it that some churches grow too fast, while others are stuck in place, some teams work together with remarkable synchrony, and other teams struggle?

It seems that God would want every church to be healthy, growing, alive and transforming communities. But what is it that truly frees the Spirit to work powerfully in a church and allows Him to change lives?

The Aspen Group team and their CKN partners have learned from working with hundreds of churches that the alignment of culture, ministry, leadership, and facilities creates a clear and compelling environment within a congregation. It’s this kind of environment that frees the Spirit to accomplish remarkable things.

The first session at the upcoming Alignment4 Conference will set the stage for the entire day as we explore three keys of alignment together:

1. The alignment of ministry with culture
2. The alignment of leadership with ministry
3. The alignment of facilities with each of the three areas of ministry, culture, and leadership

Bill Couchenour, President of Cogun, and I will dive into these three key points of alignment and highlight how each speaker throughout the rest of the day will offer critical insight in these areas.

This is a topic so vital to your church that you can’t afford to miss it! Be there with us on March 16^th in Indianapolis and discover how to fully free the spirit to transform your ministry.

Join Ed at ALIGNMENT4 and find out for yourself just how important it is to align ministry, culture, leadership and facilities.

If you would like more information about the upcoming ALIGNMENT4 conference or to register, simply visit www.cornerstoneconferences.com or call 888-595-7360.

Are you Capitalizing on your Team's Strengths?

Rex Miller, futurist, author, and TAG Consultant, will be speaking for the first time at the Alignment4 Conference on March 16th in Indianapolis.  His presentation, Aligning your Leadership, will address the importance of not only having the right people on the bus, but getting them in the right seats.  
 
Using the principles and tools from the book Living Your Strengths, Rex will give a starting point for discovering your strengths and beginning the process of aligning your team.  He will share how developing and aligning roles with people's natural talents can help your team function more effectively and with greater joy, and organizations can avoid burnout and keep performance at a high level.
 
Rex Miller is author of the book The Millennium Matrix: Reclaiming the Past and Reframing the Future of the Church. He is an organizational expert with a well proven track record of building and leading high-performance teams. He recently completed a second book for the construction industry, The Commercial Real Estate Revolution, and was awarded the 2009 CoreNet Global Innovator of Year Award. 

If you would like more information about the upcoming ALIGNMENT4 conference or to register, simply visit www.cornerstoneconferences.com or call 888-595-7360.

A building project has the capacity to throw a church into an identity crisis, as facility changes create tension between a congregation’s hopes and its history.  

Pastor Matt Giebler will be presenting “Guard your Heart” on March 16th at the Alignment4 Cornerstone Conference in Indianapolis.  Leaders must guard their heart, especially through a building project and the growth that comes along with it.
 
“If we allow Him to,” Matt shares, “God will use these growing pains to refine our vision, stretch our faith, and open our eyes to new ministry possibilities.  If we aren’t careful, however, Satan will use the very same conditions to distract our focus, magnify our differences, and divert our energies.” 

Matt is the Executive Minister of Programming at Greenwood Christian Church (GCC) in Greenwood, Indiana. He currently coordinates GCC’s teaching ministries and shares the weekend preaching with GCC’s Senior Minister.  Matt played an integral role in the planning and completion of GCC’s recently completed project: an addition of a 1,300 seat auditorium and conversion of the former worship space to a vibrant connection space. Join Matt as he shares his first-hand experience with you and your church.
 
If you would like more information about the upcoming ALIGNMENT4 conference or to register, simply visit www.cornerstoneconferences.com or call 888-595-7360.

By Kevin Ford, TAG Chief Visionary Officer

What is your church all about, at the core?  Do your buildings and facilities reflect what is absolutely most important?  At TAG Consulting, we talk about a church’s “code” as being the essence of what a church is all about.  Your church’s code is what makes your church unique from any other church – even from churches who share your same doctrine.  And your buildings and facilities must align with your code. 

Imagine a barometer.  Code, when applied in a healthy way, enables us to measure the climate within our church as well as how external forces are shaping us.

Think of a rudder.  The code keeps us on the right path and enables us to safely reach our destination, but it is not the same thing as our destination.  It provides the stability to navigate turbulent waters as we move toward our destination.

Consider a magnet.  The code attracts people to the church who fit that code and who are eager to buy into and exemplify the code.

Envision a picture frame.  The code frames everything that we do, providing boundaries, color, and shape – but its rarely the thing that we pay attention to.A few months after Hurricane Ivan destroyed much of the panhandle of Florida, I was driving on a recently opened road on Pensacola Beach.   Despite nearly around-the-clock work to restore the beach community, it still looked like a war zone – once luxurious homes littered like into giant toothpicks, and the beaches themselves rearranged and nearly destroyed. 

As I drove along, I began to notice the focus of the restoration work:  a series of giant machines – each at least the length of a freight car.   Into each of these machines, sand was continually being pumped and filtered.  The debris – every imaginable form of glass, wood, steel, and plastic was then emptied into giant piles was the sand was returned.  For months, the machines worked round the clock to filter miles and miles of beach!  Years after Ivan, the work continues.  That is the work of code provides – a filter for what the church is and what it becomes, what the church does and doesn’t do, what the church permits and doesn’t permit.  A healthy code screens and sifts, keeping out ideas and decisions that do not fit the code. Those who resonate with the code tend to stay in the organization; those who don't, leave--or never apply in the first place. 

Once your church has truly defined its code, you will want to filter everything through the code.  Your values should protect the code.  Your mission statement should reinforce your code.  Your vision should express your code in the coming years.  Your code should guide decision-making.  It should empower who leads, who is hired, and who is fired.   Just as sand is the essential for beach living – it defines it – so code should determine everything your church does.  All that is not sand should be jettisoned as debris.

On March 16, I will be talking about this in more detail at the Cornerstone Conference.  Hope to see you there!

Join Kevin at ALIGNMENT4 and find out for yourself just how important it is to understand your church's code.

If you would like more information about the upcoming ALIGNMENT4 conference or to register, simply visit www.cornerstoneconferences.com or call 888-595-7360.

Written By Lynn Noe, Aspen Group Customer Relations Coordinator

What ministry opportunities are being missed because we haven’t discovered the God given strengths of our team and our church family?  Think what could be possible if people were fully engaged because they were doing what they are passionate about?  Do you think that would make a difference?

Rex Miller, futurist, author and consultant for TAG, was the guest speaker at Aspen Group’s Indianapolis Pastors Luncheon hosted on February 11th.  Nearly 50 attendees listened as he dove deep into the Clifton StrengthsFinders (registered trademark) tool in the book “Living Your Strengths”.  Rex talked not only about assessing your own strengths, but also the dynamic of the strengths of your team.  This approach allows you to get the right people involved in what they do best.  It also helps you see the good in the strengths each person has, no matter how different their strengths are from yours.   And just as important, this tool helps you understand the how’s and why’s of the way your team members connect or possibly disconnect.  Maximizing team dynamics equals maximum ministry potential.    The Pastors Lunch attendees where challenged to see how a strengths-based congregation could transform lives. 

Many of the pastors said they were challenged to rethink how they are approaching who is leading and participating in current ministries and all the potential there could be for other ministries.  When you  consider that recent Gallup research showed that less than 20% of people are in a job that matches their God-given strengths, what is the cost?  Be challenged to use this tool to assess your strengths, not just your personality type, and see what happens when you  uncover the gifts and talents of those around you. 

My strengths….maximizer, empathy, communication, arranger and developer.    What are yours?

Written By Mel McGowan, President and Founder of Visioneering Studios

When you think about building a church in America, we typically feel like we have one of two options/paradigms. The first is to create something that meets the conventional definition and expectation of “sacred space.” Church architects often seem to draw from the same “toolkit” in creating this traditionalist church environment, typically employing the following techniques, designed to artificially induce aMariners Church - Photo courtesy of Visioneering Studios physiological / emotional sense of “sacred”:

• Ascending stairs or a ramp
• Extensive use of natural light
• Stained glass windows
• Steeples / spires

The second option/paradigm, which has been popularized in the Church Growth movement, but has American roots in the austere Quaker meetinghouses, is the minimal functionalist model. The logic behind this approach, particularly popular amongst Evangelical churches, may either be a) financial stewardship in reaction against perceived opulence of traditional sacred spaces, or b) a desire to present a “seeker sensitive” secular appearance in order to disallow religious iconography to “get in the way” of unadorned gospel.

Increasingly, both of these paradigms are being challenged.

Throughout history, God has shown Himself to be passionate about community, from the eternal relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to the “good” environment He createdThe LAB / Rock Harbor - Photo courtesy of Visioneering Studios in the Garden, to the intentional wilderness camp layout, and on to the City of Heaven.  A key aspect of God’s architecture of community has been environments that simultaneously facilitate horizontal connection between people, as well as vertical connection with Him.  In America, we have “neutered” the word “community” by divorcing it from the concept of place (eg. the “Gay community,” an internet “virtual community”). However, when we get back to the original definition of “church” as “Ekklesia”, we rediscover that the intersection of “place” and “people” matter to God.

New typologies and paradigms which move beyond the impoverished theology of the traditionalist or functionalist model are being created as churches around the world are recognizing that in order to most effectively reach their community, new approaches may be necessary which have more in common with missionary strategies:

• Understand and distill the unique cultural context and flavor of the community
• Build on the unique sense of calling, purpose, and giftedness of the called
• Take advantage of – rather than ignore—God’s architecture (natural context, landforms, hydrology, climate, etc)
• Recognize that at the core of what we do is telling the “story” of the Gospel in a relevant, compelling way

Despite spending twice as much money on church walls, the American church is losing ground and on its way to becoming a post-Christian nation. In charting a new course, or a “third option”, we have come to the conviction that church walls have actually become the biggest obstacles separating Church Crossroads Christian Schools - Photo courtesy of Visioneering Studiosfrom the community, the lost and the found, and the truth from those who need it the most.  Clues to a new direction are found in God’s provision of the Court of the Gentiles, Paul’s ability to point people to Christ through the cultural connection at Mars Hill, and Christ’s ability to meet a Samaritan woman as she was trying to get a bucket of water at Jacob’s Well.  She would never have made it to Jerusalem, to the Temple and the Most Holy Place. God came to her at the community watering hole. In the same way, today we can create postmodern wells which serve living water in environments that can function as a much needed spiritual, social, and cultural “heart” of the community.

Perhaps more architects and pastors are called to be “well-diggers” than “temple-builders.”

Join Mel at ALIGNMENT4 and find out for yourself how to make your church space count.

If you would like more information about the upcoming ALIGNMENT4 conference or to register, simply visit www.cornerstoneconferences.com or call 888-595-7360.

• That multiculturalism is only about race.
• That only white people and “white” churches need diversity or cultural competency training.
• That tolerance is the answer.
• That multicultural ministry is easy.
• That the world is too far gone for this to work

Please RSVP to Lindsay @ lindsay@fishhook.us by Friday, February 12.

For more information about this and other Fishhook Roundtable events, please visit http://fishhook.us/church-communication-roundtables. 

Please don’t forget that the extended Early Bird price of $100 will end on Feb 15th. Take advantage of this great deal and register today!

Aspen Group is privileged to support our friends at Parkview Christian Church with their upcoming Synergy Conference in Orland Park, Ill.  Not only is Parkview a valued Aspen client, but they share a passion for collaboration and learning.

All Chicagoland ministry leaders are invited to attend the:

Synergy 2010 Leadership Gathering

“The DNA of a Dangerous Church”

Tuesday, March 2, 2010
9:00am – 3:30pm
@ Parkview’s Orland Park Campus

Synergy 2010 is a FREE, one-day gathering for all pastors and ministry leaders throughout the Chicagoland area who are interested in getting together to share ideas, resources, experiences, and support for one another.
 
Mike Breaux will be speaking about “THE DNA OF A DANGEROUS CHURCH.”  Mike is the teaching pastor at Heartland Community Church in Rockford, Illinois.  He is also a former teaching pastor at Willow Creek in South Barrington, and the former senior pastor of Southland Christian Church in Lexington, Kentucky, where he helped the church grow to 8,000+ in attendance during his time there.
 
The event will also include lunch and small group ministry roundtables to brainstorm and get to know one another.  
 
For more information or to register your ministry team for Synergy 2010, click here or contact Nikki Petrey at 708-478-7477, ext. 235

Guest Blogger - Rex Miller

There is a wonderful scene in the movie Chariots of Fire. Eric Liddell, the 400 meter Olympic champion, is portrayed as struggling with the choice of racing or going to the mission field. At that moment he said two very important things:

“We are all missionaries. Wherever we go, we either bring people nearer to Christ, or we repel them from Christ.”

"I believe that God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast. When I run, I feel His pleasure."

What would it be like if we could better help people discover how God made them and then allow them to perform in such a way that they could say, "When I do (you fill in the blank), I feel His pleasure."

The current economic difficulties have placed even more demands and more pressure on organizations and their people. Organizations can avoid burnout and keep performance at a high level by developing and aligning roles with people's natural talents.

The book, Living Your Strengths, provides a starting point for discovering how God designed you.  Please join me in Indianapolis at Aspen Group’s Pastors Lunch on February 11^th as I show you how to take the principles and tools from this book back to your church and begin the process of helping your teams get into the right seat so they can function with greater effectiveness and with greater joy.