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Source: ACC News

Many churches have a good presence of God and culture, but many also lack the strategies, structures, systems and processes that harness presence into sustained growth. Equipping Church teams to do so is what Pastor Chris Hodges does exceptionally well.

Develop Strategies, Create Structures & Systems, and Operate Processes that will encourage and sustain growth.

Thousands of leaders have been attending the GROW Leadership Intensive at Church of the Highlands in Alabama USA where Ps. Chris is the founding and senior minister. The church has grown to average more than 40,000 people in attendance each weekend.

Pastor Chris is coming to Melbourne for GROW 2017. Some things need to be caught as well as taught so mobilise as many of your team to be there as you can.

DO NOT WAIT…Register yourself & your team. Take the opportunity to get discounted pricing if you register more than four people from the same Church. 

Where: At Encompass Church – 31-61 Mcleans Road, BUNDOORA VIC 3083

When: Tuesday, 14 November 2017 from 10:00 AM – Wednesday, 15 November 2017 to 4:00 PM

Tickets:

• Single up to 4 people : $125.00
• Group from 5 plus: $85.00

REGISTER HERE NOW

[vimeo 207571430 w=500 h=281]

The post GROW Leadership Intensive Melbourne 2017 appeared first on Australian Christian Churches.

Source: ACC News

Cross Purpose Church lead by pastor Joseph Sesay has seen amazing growth in the six months since they planted the church. Pastor Ian Kruithoff had the opportunity to be a part of the dedication of their new building in Hallam. They are already planning to go to multiple services. Pastor Joseph is a focused man who has a great vision for a Church that will minister to the whole man through God’s power and peoples’ grace. The weekend service also welcomed them into the ACC Movement. We look forward to many years of fruitful relationship.

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Source: ACC News

Hi Ben, can you tell us a little bit about Activate Church

Activate Church was planted in 2006. I took the role of Senior Pastor in 2013. We have been planted in Wantirna South near Knox Shopping Centre for the past 2 years. We sublease the foyer to Hey Mikey (specialty coffee and jaffles) –which just got #6 on Bean Hunter for VIC (it’s good). Our mission is to build the church through people who are saved, free, equipped and sent (the journey of every believer). This year God has blessed our church greatly and we are seeing a lot of people connected into our community.

What has been a highlight of your time as Senior Pastor of Activate Church?

It’s hard to say there has been one highlight. A few months after I became the Senior Pastor we were told to vacate the building we were using. It was a struggle to find a new place, but God blessed us greatly with our current building. The day we opened our building was a great day and made a big difference to our church. People sold furniture to raise the money required to build the church. But we don’t run church to have buildings. The real highlights are the stories of people’s lives that have been changed by Activate Church and our community. There are so many people that have encountered God through our services, small groups and ministries and I’m greatly encouraged by that.

What are 3 things you believe are key to building a strong and healthy church community?

1. Healthy leaders create healthy culture
2. Conviction about your identity as a church
3. Commitment and frequency. (I thought these were the same thing, then I realised we live in culture that is committed but not always frequent. If you want good relationships then you need frequency.)

Missions is a vital ministry in the life of Activate Church. Can you tell us about 1 local and 1 global initiative?

Locally, we are just about to open a CAP Debt Centre. CAP assist people by getting them debt free. This provides Activate with a great avenue to assist the families pastorally by providing meals, encouraging them to attend some of our workshops (i.e. Alpha Marriage etc.) while CAP manages their finances.

And overseas, we are currently reviewing our overseas missions to find a more effective way to reach people for Jesus. However we presently work with Compassion and Destiny Rescue. Destiny Rescue is a Christian based, non-profit organisation dedicated to rescuing children from human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

What was the best advice you received about life/leadership and how has it impacted/shaped the way you live/lead?

When I started in ministry, my Senior Pastor, Corey Turner said these words “whatever you do, stay close to Jesus. Never forsake that”. Ministry is busy and its easy to get distracted. However, you don’t have a ministry without Jesus or the Holy Spirit. That is good advice and has always served me well.

What’s one question you are asked most often by young leaders?

The theme is normally around hearing from God for future direction. They ask how to move forward without making a mistake or risk failure? I long time ago, I decided that sometimes you’re going to fail. I’d rather fail and know I tried than to never try. Its part of our culture to not be intimidated by failure –otherwise you’ll never have the courage or faith to try anything.

If you had the chance have dinner with 5 people, past or present, who would they be and why?

Hard question – I could give this some better thought but if I had to choose 5 people on the spot…

1. Michael Jordan: was my childhood hero
2. Anthony Hopkins: Great actor
3. Either The Rock or Will Smith: Comedic value
4. Jesus: I know I pray to him, but it would still be pretty good to have dinner. Also I could introduce the other guys if they haven’t met yet?
5. My wife Sarah: you should share good experiences with people you love

What are 2 events at Activate Church in 2017 that you are excited about and why?

The first would be the opening of our new kids room (construction to begin early next year). Our kid’s ministry has grown by 200% this year. We need more space and recently took up an offering for it. It will be great to have more space for families.

And the second, the launch of several local mission initiatives during our vision series in February 2017. Some of these include: CAP Debt Centre, Ranges and Mainly Music. Each mission will put us in touch with more families in our community.

Thanks for your time Ben!

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Source: ACC News

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The post test appeared first on Australian Christian Churches.

Source: ACC News

GROW Intensive gives pastors the tools to see their Churches grow. Phil and Tracey Shand and Phil Linden took workshops on practical subjects that will help church planters and leaders who want to bring health to their Church. God bless everyone who invested a Saturday to be in an encouraging and creative environment to get new ideas and new skills.

The exciting new is that next November 1st and 2nd GROW will feature ps Chris Hodges, senior minister of Church of the Highlands which has 45,000 members. They run GROW in the USA for thousands of ministers in a training environment that is scaleable for churches of 40 – 40,000 people. Watch for information about this day but put the dates in your diary.

The post Growing Together appeared first on Australian Christian Churches.

Source: ACC News

Are you afraid of the ‘B’ word? You should not be. It should be in every vocabulary. Budgets are absolutely necessary to have a healthy Church. Let me share some thoughts on budgets.

First, the basis for developing a budget is not simply faith. That is a lazy approach. Some of the items in the budget will be based in faith but the budget for the faith venture should be based in good stewardship, sound financial processes and principles, and strategic planning as well as the ability to inspire and motivate. Good budgets apply good stewardship to real faith.

There is nothing that inspires giving more then good outcomes. Success creates buy-in. Creating a budget and sticking with it produces trust in the givers. When a church is constantly running near empty and having to curtail events or expenditures or when the Church is constantly asking for more money out of need rather than vision, people lose trust in financial integrity. No amount of words will motivate them when the evidence is demotivating them.

I was at a board meeting trying to help a church create a budget when someone said; “there is no point in doing all the work of creating a budget, it changes at our pastor’s next good idea or after-the-fact excuse”. Though most board members are more diplomatic, the comment shows the lack of trust and ingrained frustration many board members can feel. Some Pastors express worry about a board’s lack of faith but it is often more a lack of trust due to past fiscal failures.

Budgets should follow the vision, ideally be closely balanced in ministry, facility, and staffing needs, allow for a margin in each area for truly unforeseen needs or opportunities, have a savings component for future credit rating, be easy to understand but all encompassing, have a year-to-date reporting mechanism to allow for awareness and adjustments, not include department or allocated funds so that robbing Peter to pay Paul does not occur, and such other principles as can be found in many available church budgeting tools found on the web.

I have found that a church that is struggling out of a bad financial position can be helped by creating a three tier budget and sticking to. First tier – the absolute essentials to exist and pay all debts; Second Tier – the ability to pay down outstanding debts and develop more ministry capacity; Third Tier – the place where saving can occur and expansionary ideas can be funded. Knowing the quarterly tier income and living within it will help to alleviate angst, keep discipline and move things forward.

One mistake that many churches make in budgeting is to take the past year’s income and project an increase for the next year. Most of the time that doesn’t happen or if it does, the budget is still maxed out. A better approach is to keep next year’s budget the same or even create a 5-10% lesser expenditure margin like ps Chris Hodges of Church of the Highlands espouses. Check out https://www.stewardshipcentral.org/posts/3-ways-to-create-more-margin-in-your-life.

My encouragement to you is to find someone who understands Church budgets and buy them a coffee.

The post Afraid of the ‘B’ word? appeared first on Australian Christian Churches.

Source: ACC News

The saying ‘ministry builds people but leadership builds the Church‘ is largely true. Dr. Ian Jagelman, in his book ‘the Empowered Church’ writes; ‘Ministry is any activity which serves the needs of people. It includes such things as preaching, teaching, counselling, praying, visiting, feeding and cleaning and, Leadership is any activity which directs, influences, or facilitates ministry by others. It includes such things as planning, decision making, personnel selection and vision setting.

The Church in which the pastors become the professional ministers will grow to a certain size but then invariably fall back. A small group can only keep a limited number of people engaged for a limited time. If the people are not being mobilised, equipped and resourced as Eph 4:11-14 requires, they will never find fulfilment now nor one day hear their own ‘well done’ from Jesus. In NCD surveys, the ACC rates lowest on ’empowering leadership’. The view by many pastors is that it’s easier to do it themselves than to train others or that there is no one who wants to do it. Both views will keep Churches small.

Ministers default to ministry. Their diary tells the story. The church calendar and the board agenda also illustrate it. There is little leadership development only ministry meetings. Lots of presence but little process. Limited discipleship happens because people have limited engagement in growth opportunities.

Leadership can be cultivated but it requires changing long held patterns, operating out of comfort zones, associating with effective leaders, and trial and error processes to find new ways. When long hours and hard work see little result perhaps it’s time to work smarter and not harder.

The post Work smarter appeared first on Australian Christian Churches.

Source: ACC News