Two good (and opposite) ways to teach

If you study writing, you will learn about two good (and
opposite) ways of writing. The same ways can be applied to teaching.

Article style: don't bury the lead. Good
articles are written like an inverted pyramid, so that the most
important things are first. If you only read the first two
paragraphs, you get the gist. If you want more detail, keep reading.
It is a good way to teach.

Novel style. A good novel has a twist; it has a
surprise ending. You keep this surprise buried. This too is a good
way to teach.

Test: which style is this article?

Clearly the first. If you don't read any more, you get that there
are two good and opposite ways to teach. Good communicators lean in
one direction or the other, they don't try to do both. It you want
more information, keep reading.

What is the big idea?

My life was forever marked by listening to the fine preaching of
my friend Sam Shaw. He was my pastor for five years and is one of
the best communicators I have ever heard. You wouldn't have to
listen to Sam talk for long before you heard him speak of the big
idea. Every sermon has to have a big idea: a main central truth that
the communicator is trying to communicate. Whether you use the
article style (don't bury the lead) or the novel style (surprise
ending) you need to be clear about the big idea.

I ought be be able to stop you before you walk into class and
ask, "What are you going to teach today?" and in a sentence or two
you ought to be able to give me the central truth that you are
trying to communicate.

I ought to be able to ask any one of your students after class,
"What did you talk about today?" and they should be able to give the
same big idea.

Good teaching has focus. Good teaching has simplicity. Good
teaching has one big idea. Andy Stanley says it this way: less is
more. Here is a Josh Hunt slogan: we teach so little because we try
to teach too much.

Once we have the good idea in place, then we need to decide on
one approach or the other of communicating this big idea. Either
tell them right up front, or, spend much of the hour making them thirst
for the answer. Depending on the content, either approach could
work. You do well to lean one way or the other.

These days, I am using the "don't bury the lead" approach in my
Double seminars. It starts this way:

My goal in this seminar is to infect
you with an idea about doubling groups. Doubling groups are
intriguing to me for two reasons. First, it is so incredibly
possible. All it takes to double a group every two years or less is
for the average group to go from ten to fourteen in a year. That is
40% growth and if you keep that up you can double your class every
two years or less.

Doubling groups are intriguing to me
for a second reason. A group of ten that doubles slightly more
quickly, every eighteen months, will reach a thousand people in ten
years. There is a world-wide movement by which this is happening. I
want to invite you to join God in what God is doing in a world-wide
movement of doubling groups.

If you don't get anything beyond that, you get the big idea. If
you want more information, keep reading.

On the whole, I probably prefer this approach. Simple.
Straightforward. Clear. But, there is another effective (and
opposite) way.

How to make the surprise ending work

It starts with the big idea. I think I said that already.

This big idea is framed in the form of a question:

• How can an undisciplined person become effective in having a
  regular quiet time?


• How can a shy person help with evangelism?


• How can we get over really bad hurts and forgive--really
  forgive those who have hurt us deeply?

With the question in place, we offer some answers. The order of
these answers is crucial. Save the best for last.

The surprise ending often has to do with a balancing truth. It
leads people into the narrow way. It is easy to fall of one side or
the other. Effective teachers teach balance.

Suppose you are teaching on how to be pleasing to God. Some key
points could be

It takes faith

And without faith it is impossible to
please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he
exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Hebrews
11:6 [NIV]

It takes living by the Spirit

Those controlled by the sinful nature
cannot please God. Romans 8:8 [NIV]

It is a gradual process

Note the phrase, "more and more."

Finally, brothers, we instructed you
how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now
we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more.
1 Thes. 4:1 [NIV]

Surprise ending:

You already please God. You are His son
or daughter. He loves you. Nothing you could do would make him love
you more. Repent of the idea that if you just behave just so that
you will earn God's approval. He sings over you as a mother singing
lullabies to her baby:

The Lord your God is with you,

he is mighty to save.

He will take great delight in you,

he will quiet you with his love,

he will rejoice over you with singing."

Zeph. 3:17 [NIV]

One more example

Suppose the big idea is all about the developing the Biblical
character of diligence. Here are some key verses:

He who gathers crops in summer is a
wise son,

but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son.

Proverbs 10:5 [NIV]



Diligent hands will rule,

but laziness ends in slave labor.

Proverbs 12:24 [NIV]



The lazy man does not roast his game,

but the diligent man prizes his possessions.

Proverbs 12:27 [NIV]



The sluggard craves and gets nothing,

but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.

Proverbs 13:4 [NIV]



All hard work brings a profit,

but mere talk leads only to poverty.

Proverbs 14:23 [NIV]

You spend much of the hour talking about the benefits of hard
work and the cost of laziness. You give examples, ask the group for
examples, read verses, make lists of cost and benefit of working
hard, show a video clip, pound, pound, pound on the idea that we
need to be diligent. Then, you turn a corner. Here is the surprise
ending.

The twist

Don't work too hard:

In vain you rise early

and stay up late,

toiling for food to eat--

for he grants sleep to those he loves.

Psalm 127:2 [NIV]

For some of you, your sin is not laziness, it is drivineness. Work
has become your god. You need to lay down in green pasture or the
Good Shepherd will, as Psalms 23 has it , "Make you lie down."
Sometimes, the most spiritual thing you can do is rest. Resting one
day in seven made it into the the top 10, the 10 Commandments.

What not to do

What I wouldn't do is both of these approaches at once. Give the
big idea right up front, or save it back as a surprise ending, but
don't let it get lost in the middle.

Research on learning suggests we tend to remember two parts of the
talk most: the beginning and the end. Don't let the big idea get
lost in the middle.

How to Double a Denomination

It occurred to me several years ago that we know how to grow a church. If you don't
know how, I could recommend a dozen or so books. Read them, and you
will know how to grow a church. It is a well-documented,
well-researched body of knowledge. We know how to grow a church.

What we need to know more about is how to grow
a group of churches--how to grow an Association, how to grow a State
Convention, and how to grow a denomination.

The sad reality is that many growing churches
are growing while all the other churches in their area are
declining, so that the area is not becoming any more Christian. I
have a vague memory that I read a George Barna statistic that said
there is not one single county in the United States where the
percentage of the population that is church-going Christians is
increasing. Not one. That is a problem. We know how to grow a
church. What we desperately need to figure out is how to reach a
people.

Most growing churches are growing because
their area is exploding. Often, they are, in fact, lagging way
behind the population growth of the region. But they are growing and
growing rapidly. We need to learn how to grow churches in stable and
declining areas. We need to learn how to grow a region of churches.

Hit the Bulls-eye, by Paul Borden

I am not sure this is the final answer, and I
am not sure that I agree with all the strategies, but I am
completely sure Paul Borden is asking the right questions. And, as
far as I know, he has had more progress in moving the ball down the
field than anyone I know.

Here is what Leith Anderson says about Paul's
work:

Centered in the earthquake zone of
northern California, the American Baptist Churches of the West
have demonstrated that a plateaued and declining region of
mainline congregations can become a model of healthy and growing
congregations. They have overcome the usual excuses that "our
churches are too small," "we have too many older people and
congregations," and "property here is too expensive." They
followed a powerful formula of biblical strategies, courageous
leadership, and much hard work. What is most amazing is that
they turnaround took less than five years.

What does a turn around look like?

Here is a summary of what the American Baptist
Churches of the West were able to do:

• They went from having 16% of their
  churches growing (pretty close to the national average) to 72%
  of their congregations growing by 5% or more per year.
  


• The typical congregation had been 100 in
  attendance. Five years later it has grown to 188. This is
  average across a region and over  200 churches.


• 11,000 more people attended church every
  weekend.


• Somewhere between 1.2 and 1.5 million
  additional mission dollars had been raised.


• Giving to the region was up by 47%


• Where there had been 800 baptisms a year,
  there were 6000 baptisms between 1999 and 2001.

All of this in an area where every statistical
indicator had been pointing downward.

How did they do it?

I would summarize Borden's strategy using four
words that spell out the word TRACK. TRACK is a fitting acrostic for
how they turned the region around.

Training

Everything rises and falls on leadership. They
found the pastors in their area knew the Bible and loved God and
loved people, but they did not know a whole lot about leadership.
Leaders have followers. The region freed up two million dollars to
spend on training and recruitment. They sent pastors to training
events. They brought trainers in. They built up an enormous library
of resources to help train leadership to lead.

Recruiting

"Training, is over-rated," I like to say.
"Recruitment is under-rated." Recruit the right Sunday School
teachers and your Sunday School will grow. Recruit the right pastors
and your region will grow. The American Baptist Churches of the West
developed and extensive strategy for recruiting pastors to their
area.

Accountability

No accountability; no change. Anyone who has
ever taken a shower has had an idea. The key is not the good ideas,
the good models, the good strategies. The key is implementation.
The key is follow-through. The key is accountability. The American
Baptist Churches of the West developed a ridged system of holding
pastors accountable.

Consulting

The heart and soul of the turn-around centered
around a consulting relationship set up by the region. A core of
consultants were trained who consulted with churches, started with
the most promising churches. Then, these consultants recruited other
consultants who would recruit still more consultants. It was these
consultants who held leadership accountable for implementing the
ideas they were learning in their training.

Knowledge

OK, this one is a little forced. This is
really just a re-stating of the first point--training. But, it needs
to be restated. The kind of thinking that got us here will not be
the same thinking that will get us to the next level. We must change
our thinking if we want different results. A massive infusion of
knowledge will be necessary to pull this off. Paul Borden and
friends spent a massive amount of money on tools that would get
knowledge to church leaders.

 

I am not sure that Hit the Bulls Eye has all
the answers, but I am pretty sure he is asking the right questions.
I'd recommend you buy the book and begin thinking about, praying
about and talking about how to reach your area for Christ.

 

Postmillennialism

I was profoundly aware of two things I didn't get while I was in
seminary. (Of course, it is the things you don't know you don't know
that will get you, but that is another topic.) One of them was
eschatology. I was determined in my early years after graduating to
close the gap doing some serious self-study into the topic.

I had one serious limitation: I didn't have a particular bias
going in. I can honestly say I was able to look at all the views in
an even-handed way. I listened carefully to the arguments made by all
sides with an open mind. It you really want to come to a conviction
about eschatology, I suggest you do the opposite: decide early what
you believe and only read people who agree with you. ;-)

Here is an overview of the major views of the end times.

Amillennialism

This was the belief held by most of my seminary professors. (I
graduated Southwestern in 1983.) Here is a description from
http://en.wikipedia.org

Amillennialism (Latin:
a- "not" + mille "thousand" + annum "year") is a view in

Christian eschatology named for its denial of a future,
thousand-year, physical reign of
Jesus Christ on the
earth, as espoused in the

premillennial and some

postmillennial views of the
Book of
Revelation,
chapter
20. By contrast, the amillennial view holds that the number of
years in Revelation 20 is a
symbolic
number, not a literal description; that the millennium has already
begun and is identical with the
church age (or
more rarely, that it ended with the

destruction of Jerusalem in
AD 70); and that while
Christ's reign is
spiritual in nature during the millennium, at the end of the
church age, Christ will return in
final judgment
and establish permanent physical reign.

Premillennialism

This is the view held by most preachers and popularized by the
LaHaye series, Left Behind. Again, from Wikipedia:

Premillennialism in

Christian eschatology is the belief that
Christ will
literally reign on the earth for 1,000 years at his
second coming.
The doctrine is called Premillennialism because it views the current
age as prior to
Christ’s kingdom. It is distinct from the other forms of
Christian eschatology such as
amillennialism
or
postmillennialism, which view the millennial rule as either
figurative and non-temporal, or as occurring prior to the
second coming.
Premillennialism is largely based upon a literal interpretation of

Revelation 20:1-6 in the
New Testament
which describes Christ’s coming to the earth and subsequent reign at
the end of an apocalyptic period of
tribulation.
It views this future age as a time of fulfillment for the prophetic
hope of God’s people as given in the
Old Testament.

Postmillennialism

Postmillennialism was explained to me this way. This was the most
popular view of eschatology a hundred years ago. This hope fueled
much of the launch of the beginning of the great world missions
movement. People really did believe what the old hymn says:

We've a story to tell to the nations,

That shall turn their hearts to the right,

A story of truth and mercy,

A story of peace and light,

A story of peace and light.



For the darkness shall turn to dawning,

And the dawning to noonday bright;

And Christ’s great kingdom shall come on earth,

The kingdom of love and light.



We've a song to be sung to the nations,

That shall lift their hearts to the Lord,

A song that shall conquer evil

And shatter the spear and sword,

And shatter the spear and sword.



For the darkness shall turn to dawning,

And the dawning to noonday bright;

And Christ’s great kingdom shall come on earth,

The kingdom of love and light.

We've a Savior to show to the nations,

Who the path of sorrow has trod,

That all of the world’s great peoples

Might come to the truth of God,

Might come to the truth of God.



For the darkness shall turn to dawning,

And the dawning to noonday bright;

And Christ’s great kingdom shall come on earth,

The kingdom of love and light.

Postmillennialism holds that gospel really will spread like yeast
as the Bible says. It really will grow, as Jesus taught, from a tiny
mustard side to a huge plant. The world will not become perfect, but
it will become distinctly and authentically Christian as a good
church is Christian.

You gotta love postmillennialism. Even if you don't believe it,
you have to like it:

That all of the world’s great peoples

Might come to the truth of God,

Might come to the truth of God.

Here is how Wikipedia defines postmillennialism :

In

Christian eschatology, postmillennialism is an interpretation of
chapter 20 of the
Book of
Revelation which sees
Christ's
second coming
as occurring after (Latin post-) the "Millennium",
a Golden Age
or era of Christian prosperity and dominance. The term subsumes
several similar views of the end times, and it stands in contrast to

premillennialism and, to a lesser extent,
amillennialism
(see

Summary of Christian eschatological differences).

Although some postmillennialists hold
to a literal millennium of 1,000 years, most postmillennialists see
the thousand years more as a figurative term for a long period of
time (similar in that respect to
amillennialism).
Among those holding to a non-literal "millennium" it is usually
understood to have already begun, which implies a less obvious and
less dramatic kind of millennium than that typically envisioned by

premillennialists, as well as a more unexpected return of
Christ.

Postmillennialism also teaches that the
forces of Satan
will gradually be defeated by the expansion of the
Kingdom of God
throughout history up until the
second coming
of Christ. This
belief that good will gradually triumph over evil has led proponents
of postmillennialism to label themselves "optimillennialists" in
contrast to "pessimillennial"

premillennialists and

amillennialists.

Many postmillennialists also adopt some form of
preterism,
which holds that many of the end times prophecies in the Bible have
already been fulfilled.

Then, the explanation I got in seminary turned a corner.
"Postmillennialism was the dominant eschatology 100 years ago and
fueled much of the energy of the early world missions movement.
Then, two world wars and a depression came along and pretty much
snuffed out that belief."

That never made a lot of sense to me. It never made any sense that
a couple of world wars and a depression would change our theology.

From what I can tell, Postmillennialism is making a modest
comeback in out times, but that is not actually what i wrote all
this to say.

Oh, and by the way, the progress of the gospel is moving along
quite nicely. See

http://www.missionfrontiers.org/newslinks/statewe.htm

I never did come to a firm belief in my eschatology, but I have
come to one firm belief related to eschatology.

The pessimism that often accompanies some eschatology is both
unbiblical and damaging. I sense a mood from a lot of believers that
suggest, "No, our church is not growing, but, what can we expect? We
are living the last days. The Bible says that scoffers will come and
that is certainly true today. Things are just going to get worse and
worse and we just need to hunker down and hold on till the end."

Whatever your eschatology, we need to be people of great faith
and confidence.

Dawson Trotman said it this way:

http://www.navpress.com/EPubs/DisplayArticle/1/1.61.4.html

What is the need of the hour? That
depends on the person who is thinking about it.

For a beggar with a tin cup, it's a
dime. For a woman being taken to the hospital, it's a doctor.

But what is it in Christian work? I
started to list the things we often feel are the need—those things
which, if supplied, would end our troubles.

Some say, "If I just had a larger
staff." Many a minister would like to have an assistant, and many a
mission would like to have more missionaries.

Others say, "We don't need more
workers, but better facilities. If we just had more office space and
more buildings and a bigger base of operation, then we could do the
job."

In some parts of the world they say
it's better communications we lack, or better transportation, or
better health care, or literature.

Many feel the need is an open door into
some closed country. But the Bible says, "My God shall supply all
your needs." If we need an open door, why doesn't God open it—"he
that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth"?

Some say, "If we just had more time,"
or "If I just weren't so old, if I were only young again." People
have said to me, "Daws, if I had known when I was twenty years old
what I know now, I could have done a hundred times more for the
Lord. Why didn't I?"

Often the biggest need seems to be
money. Money is the answer to a larger staff, more facilities,
better communications and transportation and literature. "If we just
had more money."

An Army of Soldiers

What is the need of the hour? I don't
believe it is any of these. I am convinced that the God of the
universe is in control, and He will supply all these needs in His
own way and in His own time, all else being right.

The need of the hour is an army of
soldiers dedicated to Jesus Christ, who believe that He is God, that
He can fulfill every promise He ever made, and that nothing is too
hard for Him. This is the only way we can accomplish what is on
God's heart—getting the gospel to every creature.

Whatever your eschatology, I trust you will embrace this belief:
God is God and he can fulfill every promise He ever made. God, give
us an army like that.

I am not absolutely sure it is true, but I sure love the
sentiment of the old hymn:

For the darkness shall turn to dawning,

And the dawning to noonday bright;

And Christ’s great kingdom shall come on earth,

The kingdom of love and light.

The best $200 your church will ever spend

I normally try to fill these articles with helpful information
about how to teach and grow a class. This week, I'd like to invite
you to consider that subscribing all your teachers to the Lesson
Vault is the best $200 you will spend toward that goal.

When you consider the amount of money your church spends on
literature and other resources for you Sunday School, I know of no
better place you could spend $200 than on the Lesson Vault. The
Lesson Vault is your access to hundreds of online lessons. Three new
lessons are added per week that correspond with three of Lifeway's
outlines. I call theses lessons Good Questions and they have groups
talking. If I were a Minister of Ed today, I would do what I did
when I was on staff: I had these lessons printed every week and
delivered to my teachers. The Sunday School tripled in ten years.
Here are six benefits of getting an annual, church-wide subscription
to The Lesson Vault.

The Lesson Vault will significantly improve the quality of the
teaching of your classes.

I have watched--right before my eyes--these lessons dramatically
improve the quality of the class time in groups. Lecture groups turn
to discussion groups. Top-down monologue turns into lively, on-task
conversations. Group time dramatically improves.

What would you pay for that?

The Lesson Vault will save your teachers time.

Each lesson consists of 25 or so ready-to-use questions. These
are not lessons like you are used to seeing. They get groups
talking. Whatever background study you add to the preparation, is
going to help you be an even better teacher, but the truth is, these
lessons are ready-to-teach, right out of the box. They correspond to
three of Lifeway's curriculum outlines and there is a back list of
close to 2000 lessons on every topic and text imaginable.

What would would you pay for that?

Your teachers will have more time to spend on ministry

Who is the best Sunday School teacher you ever had? My wife asks
this question regularly in her seminars and has discovered something
puzzling. The best Sunday School teacher is usually not the best
Sunday School teacher. They are not the best teacher; they are the
most loving. They spend the most time and attention on the students.
Less time in preparation means more time available in ministry--more
time calling and keeping up with class members, while still
maintaining a high-quality class time experience.

What would you pay for that?

It will be easier to recruit teachers

Do you struggle to get enough teachers? Every church does. Big
churches and small churches struggle to get enough teachers. The
Lesson Vault makes it easier.

It is easier to recruit because it is easier to teach a great
lesson. People want to be successful and they hate to fail. If they
know they can teach a good lesson, they are more likely to volunteer
to teach. I have seen this in action when I was a Minister of
Education. I would talk to students that sat in classes that used
Good Questions. There response would be, "All I have to do is go
over those questions, right?" I would explain that it would be best
if they did some background reading, but yes, in class what they
basically needed to do was go over the provided questions.
Recruiting suddenly became easier.

What would you pay for that?

The Lesson Vault makes it easier to divide classes

How do you grow a Sunday School? By creating new classes. What is
the hardest part about creating new classes? Getting teachers. If we
can make it easier to get teachers, it is also easier to start new
classes.

What would you pay for that?

The Lesson Vault is really great when you need a last-minute sub

Things happen in church. People drop the ball. They get sick.
They forget. They get called into work at the last minute. When that
happens, you are going to be really glad you signed up for the
Lesson Vault. You will hand a copy of this week's Good Questions to
a sub and send them down the hall with the confidence that that
class will still be above the bar of half-way decent teaching. I
have watched it happen right before my eyes.

What would you pay for that?

Conclusion

There is always a tendency to believe that if something is more
work, it is better quality. Technology has proved over and again
that is not necessarily true. Typing on a old typewriter is more
work; Typing on a word processor is better.

There is an old mission story that illustrates this. There was a
missionary that was working with a remote people group deep in the
Amazon jungle. He spent three days rowing in on canoe and three days
getting out. Every furlough he would show his slides of himself and
the canoe. People were very impressed.

Mission Aviation Fellowship came along and said, "We will get you
in there in three hours, not three days." He refused, saying, "This
is what I am called to do."

What are you called to do? Row a canoe? Or preach the gospel?

What are you called to do? Spend lots of time in difficult
preparation? Or make disciples through life-changing conversations?
Difficult is not always better.

If we are going to join God in a world-changing doubling group
movement, we are going to have to provide consistent, high-quality
group experiences. Good questions get that done. We are going to ask
our teachers to spend lots of time not only in preparation, but in
ministry to the class. Good questions help us do that. We are going
to have to recruit lots of teachers. Good questions help us do that.
We are going to have to start lots of new groups. Good questions
help us do that. We are going to need last-minute substitutes. Good
questions will insure that even in this situation, the teaching will
be quality.

To sign up your teachers go to

www.joshhunt.com/vault.htm You can sign up with or without
PayPal. (With PayPal is quicker and renewal is automatic.) Plans are
available for churches as well as individuals, for one month at a
time, or a year at a time. You can cancel any time.

Bonus:  Place a NEW ALL-CHURCH ANNUAL
subscription to The Lesson Vault before Feb. 22, 2008 and receive
Saturday Morning Training DVD Volume #1 Reproducible FREE. (A $69
Value) This video teaches the basics of how to use hospitality to
double your group and is available FREE in a reproducible format for
all new annual church subscribers. See

http://146.82.67.88/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=YCD&Product_Code=SAT-1-REPRODUCIBLE&Category_Code=SAT

Guarantee: if you are not completely satisfied,
contact us and we will gladly and promptly refund your money.

 

 

 

 

ReGroup, part 2

What a time to be alive! There is such great content out there.
Such great resources, great curriculum, great Bible Studies, videos,
books, web sites.

Speaking of which, check out my new site at
www.sundayschool.ning.com

Last week I provided an overview of a great new resource called
Regroup. If you missed that article, see

www.joshunt.com/mail220.htm

Townsend, Cloud and Donahue taught five marks of great groups:

• Care


• Safety


• Authenticity


• Grow


• Help

As important as these are, I don't think they are the complete
picture. Below are five more marks of great groups:

This list assumes these groups are what could be called Basic
Christian Communities. That is, they are microcosms of the church.
They are basic Sunday School classes or home groups. There is
nothing wrong with a group targeted toward some particular purpose
like evangelism. But, all of us need to be in a Basic Christian
Community--a micro-church. In these Basic Christian Communities I
like to see five things, in addition to the five things discussed
last week.

Biblical content

Some where along the line I like to hear someone say, "Let's open
our Bibles and look at. . ." This may be a book study. It may be
video-based. It may have a lot of discussion and opinion sharing,
but somewhere I like for every group to read the Bible and discuss
the Bible.

Literature can be a great help to us, but literature should never
replace the Bible. (And, no, this will not a shock or offense to your
local Lifeway rep; they will agree.) Literature points us to the
Bible, it supplements the Bible, but it does not replace the Bible.

We are transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12.1 -
2). It is the truth that sets us free.  (John 8.32)

Accountability

I was nurtured spiritually in my early formative years by the
Navigators.
http://www.navigators.org My first son is named Dawson, in part
after the Navigators founder, Dawson Trotman. I am forever in the
debt of the Navigators who taught me to walk with God. They taught
me two important principles.

Navigator principle #1: the importance of the Word.
Every believer should start their day with the Bible on
their lap. We need to spend time on a regular basis in prayer and in
the Word. The quiet time is the basic discipline of the Christian
life. I have no concept of what it means to live the Christian life
if it does not include regular personal time in the Word. Going to
church is good. Attending a group is good. But, the win is creating
people who spend time alone with God.

I guess I differ a bit from my hero Andy Stanley on this. At
Northpoint, they define the win as getting people into groups. This
is a step up from many churches, who have either not defined the win
at all, or defined the win as how many people showed up to hear the
preacher preach. But, getting people into groups is not the end
game. Getting them alone with God is.

Truthfully, there is more to it than the outward activity of the
quiet time. Ultimately this is about creating people who love the
Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. It is
just that that is hard to measure. You could measure whether your
people were spending time alone with God. It is hard to measure
whether or not they love God and love people. Measuring whether they
spend time alone with God is the next best thing. My dad taught me
that you can't measure the most important things. You can measure
how many people came forward. You can't measure how much they meant
it.

Getting people in the Word is central to making disciples.

Navigator Principle #2: Most people need accountability.
Most people need someone to ask, "How are you doing these
days in terms of your time alone with God? What have you read
recently? What has it meant to you? What are you memorizing?" Most
people will never get it without this. We desperately needs groups
that ask the hard questions.

You can do this without running off newcomers. You can do
accountability in an open group. You can't set the bar too high, and
you might have to adjust the plan if you have new comers show up.
You might also encourage people toward other accountability groups
where you can set the bar higher. But, you can do some
accountability in Sunday School.

Outreach

This is a Basic Christian Community. It is a microcosm of the
church. This means, the group should be doing the things the church
does. It should be accomplishing the five basic purposes of the
church. It should be evangelism, discipleship, worship, ministry and
fellowship.

Too many groups are holy huddles--places where we try to get
higher and higher up the mountain of spiritual maturity and closer
and closer to God and farther and farther from people who are far
from God. One problem: when you get to the mountain you will find a
God who is relentless obsessed about people who are far from Him. If
you really are climbing up the mountain toward God your heart is
going to become a little more like the heart of God who is crazy
about people who are far from Him.

You may not be gifted to do classic, in-your-face evangelism, but
you are going to care. You are going to think about people who are
far from God. You are going to be drawn to them. You are going to
pray about them.

I teach full-time on helping groups double every two years or
less and have an aching convictions that the problem is not that we
cannot figure out how to double a class every two years or less. The
problem is, we don't want to. We don't like them. And they can tell.
And, all the while we think we are moving up the mountain of
spiritual maturity. We are not. We are not getting more godly. We
are just getting more churchy.

I have a sermon that I do on this. I preached it one time in
North Carolina. I assume this lady didn't understand what I was
trying to say. Her reactions was, "Your darn right I don't like
being around sinners. They smoke, they drink, they swear; I don't
like being around them." Her tone suggested, "Look at me! Look how
far I am up the mountain of spiritual maturity! I don't like being
around sinners!" God, help us.

Fellowships/ Fun

One of the best ways to do outreach is the Levi way. Have a party
once a month and invite every member and every prospect to every
fellowship every month. It is not only a great way to do outreach.
It is a lot of fun. I have written about this so often I will keep
this brief. If you are new to this concept, see

http://www.joshhunt.com/friday.html

To to this effectively, you need to do evangelism as a team. Have
an inreach leader, outreach leader, fellowship leaders and so forth
in every class. What a wonderful plan: let the teachers teach, the
leaders lead and the party planners plan the parties.

To do this, you need to have a vision day once a quarter. I have
written about these things in other contexts. See

www.joshhunt.com/articles.htm for a backlog of previous
articles.

Worship

The Navigators taught me about discipleship. Jack Taylor taught
me about worship. He was the Interim Pastor at my brother's church
for about a semester. He did a sermon series on praise. It forever
changed my life. It was the single most influential series of
sermons I have ever experienced.

There is something about worship that changes us. There is
something about worship that transforms us. There is just something
about worship.

This is one thing that can be done better in a big group than a
small group. But, you can still do worship in a small group. You may
have someone in your group that plays the guitar or piano that could
help. Have you ever asked? I'd love to play my guitar, and no one
asks. I wonder why.  Hmmm.

Another approach is through videos. It will help if you can get a
projector and some big sound. People don't sing well unless you can
get the volume loud enough that they can't hear themselves.
Projectors are getting cheaper all the time.

There are other ways to worship besides singing. Just watching
this video will help your people worship:

http://www.bluefishtv.com/ProductDetails.aspx?cid=1005&id=1433&f=s1m&cc=&csc=&ldr=&s=amena%20brown

Here is an idea: have a prayer time that is limited to
thanksgiving and worship. Don't ask for anything. Just say thank-you
to God.

Conclusion

Well, there are ten marks of great groups. What ideas do you
have? What makes for a great group? Share your insights at
www.sundayschool.ning.com

ReGroup

What a time to be alive!

I am constantly amazed at the number and quality of resources for
churches. From training resources, to outreach resources, to music
resources, to books to curriculum. Whatever our reasons for not
taking our world for God, lack of quality resources is not one of
them.

I just ran across a great new resource that I thought you might
like to know about. It is called Re-Group and is produced by
Townsend and Cloud (authors of the best-selling book, Boundaries, as
well as many others) and Bill Donahue (the small group guru for
Willowcreek, and author of many books). This is a great resource for
any group. If I were a Minister of Education today, I would ask
every one of my groups about going through this training.

Re-Group is made up of two DVDs. DVD #1 features four sessions
that train your group on how to do group. This is not small group
leader training; this is small group group training. This piece
trains the group as to how to do your group effectively. There is
about twenty minutes of video, leaving time to discuss the points
covered. During these four sessions, this DVD is the curriculum for
the group. The four topics of these four sessions are:

• Getting connected--God's purpose for Small Groups


• Five Habits of Life Changing Groups


• Setting ground rules


• Determining your groups purpose

DVD #2 consists of thirteen extended tips. Each tip is a five to
ten minute segment that can be shown in class to augment whatever
curriculum the group uses.

The thing that really makes this teaching come alive is that the
teaching is interspersed with a dramatization of group life. I found
these dramatizations to be really true to life. They make group life
come alive.

David Frances told me his research indicates that many Southern
Baptist Sunday Schools are not small group life at all; they are mid-sized groups. They are more like mini-congregations than they are
like big small groups. It occurs to me that many Sunday School
classes have likely never experienced group life. They have
experienced sit-in-straight-rows-and-listen-to-a-teacher-teach. This
video will give you a great taste of what group life is like--both
the good and the bad.

It seems to be there are three ways you could use this training:

• You could use it as it is intended, where it becomes your
  curriculum for four weeks, then you spend thirteen weeks viewing
  and discussing a short piece from disk 2


• You could go through the whole thing on a Saturday morning
  with just your teachers. This would give them a good feel for
  the content without having to disrupt your curriculum plan. The
  downside, of course, is your class doesn't get to benefit from
  the content.


• You could have each teacher go through it privately. There
  are obvious limitations to this, but I suspect many teachers are
  never going to do #1 or #2 and this would get them some help.
  This is the way I went through it and definitely felt like I got
  something out of it.

Probably some of you are going to find this training a little too
psycho-babel; a little too touchy-feely. For some of you I would
say: that is why you need it. Not that you need to become a therapy
group, but a step or two in this direction probably wouldn't hurt
you any.

The best training is somewhere in between this in
ReGroup piece and what I have long considered the best
teacher training ever: Bruce Wilkinson's Seven Laws of
the Learner. As  good as that piece is, my only
complaint is that it is a little too lecture oriented. Still, an
excellent piece and every teacher ought to go through it.

This new piece would be great for every group to go through as
well. I think your group would forever be a better group if you did.
Here are some of the things you would learn.

How to grow

How do Christians grow? We know that Sunday School is supposed to
help us grow in Christ, but exactly how does that work? How do we
grow?

Townsend and Cloud have long taught that we grow by being in the
right environment. Just as a seed needs water, soil and sunshine to
grow. We need three ingredients as well:

Grace

The Bible says, "It is your kindness, Lord, that leads us to
repentance." We only grow in an atmosphere of grace. We need to feel
acceptance. We need to feel acceptance by God and we need to feel
acceptance by people. The group needs to be a place of acceptance
and grace.

Truth

But, grace alone will not change. We also need truth. The truth
may be biblical truth, or, it could be the truth about us. We need
to be confronted with the reality that is truth.

It is easy to imagine a group with grace or truth, but not both.
If we have grace but not truth, we feel accepted, but are never
challenged. If we are exposed to truth without grace, it tends to
just make us mad. We grow in an atmosphere of grace and truth. But,
we need one more ingredient.

Time

Change takes time. There are no micro-wave saints. There are no
instant Christian leaders. Change takes time. Growth takes time.

But, it must be time in the right atmosphere. It is not
discipleship by hanging around. The atmosphere must be charged with
truth.

Session two contained five marks (or habits) of great groups.
Getting these to be part of your group would be worth the effort of
going through this training.

Five marks of a great group

Care

Sunday School is not a School. It is not just a place of
learning. It is not a place where we make smarter sinners. Groups
are a microcosm of the church. They are a place where we care. The
Bible commands over and again that we are to love one another. This
is where it happens. This is who we should love.

Safety

Groups need to be a safe place. It needs to be a safe place for
me to share who I am and what is going on in my life. It is a place
of grace. It is a place where I don't have to be perfect. We grow as
we confess our sins, one to another. Not just to God, but to one
another. This can't happen if there is sarcasm or biting humor.
Groups must be a safe place.

Authenticity

Good groups are honest groups. We honestly talk about what is
really going. We get beyond the word "fine." To everyone else, you
can be "fine" but the group needs to know, "How are you really?"

Grow

Groups love each other as they are, but they love each other too
much to leave each other the way they are. They push one another to
go to the next level--to higher and higher levels of grace and
truth. We push each other to become a little more loving, a little
more kind, a little more joyful, a little more forgiving, a little
more at peace, a little more like Jesus.

Help

Groups help each other. They fix meals, they mow lawns and they
babysit kids.

Five more marks of a great group

As I went through this list, I thought, "This is great. Every
group needs to hear this. Every group needs to be a little more like
this."

But, then I thought, there are a few other things every group
should do. That is the topic of next week's article.

Vision Day

Success in life is about habits. If you are having to remember to
do the things that lead to success, you are probably not doing them.
You have to find a way to put them on auto pilot. You have to make
them part of the culture. You have to make them a tradition. You
have to make them a habit.

One of the best habits your group can get into is the habit of
Vision Day once a quarter. I recommend you do it on the first day of
every quarter. On the day you get your new literature, make that
Vision Day.

Vision Day is about Re-casting the vision

I can summarize the vision for your class in five words: make
disciples of all nations. Anything less is disobedience to Jesus'
command. It was the vision of Jesus' original small group and it
is should be your vision as well.

Right here we find the problem in many groups. They don't have
the right vision, or, they don't have any vision. The vision of many
groups is to have a group. That is an inadequate vision. It is
not the vision Jesus gave us. We need to embrace Jesus' vision: Make
disciples of all nations. Put a poster up on the wall and point to
it once a quarter. Say it together: our vision is to make disciples
of all nations.

Once a quarter we do well to say to our group, "Let's remember
what our vision is. Jesus gave it to us: make disciples of all
nations. That is our marching orders."

Zig Ziglar taught us, "Yard by yard, life is hard; inch by inch,
its a cinch." So, let's break it down. How can your Sunday School
class make disciples of all nations? By doubling every two years or
less. A group of ten that doubles every eighteen months will reach a
thousand people in ten years. That is an indisputable fact of
mathematics.

The second ten years, your group would reach one hundred
thousand. The third ten years you would reach ten million. The next
ten years you would reach your first billion. It is all down hill
from there!

I echo the sentiment of Andy Stanley: until you come up with a
plan, or until you come up with a better plan, I'd invite you to use
this plan. You don't have to learn to sing, dance, play the guitar,
juggle, or do anything else. All you have to do is get a group that
is committed to growing and dividing. Until you come up with a
better plan, why not do that?"

In order to double a group every two years or less, all we have
to do is have halfway decent teaching and invite every member and
every prospect to every fellowship every month. This quarter, I
recommend you have four fellowships:

• Christmas Party


• New Years Party


• Super Bowl Party


• Valentine's Day Party

You might set the dates for each of these events on Vision Day.
The middle two are actually set for you. The first and last might
have some flexibility as far as scheduling.

Vision Day is about recruiting a team

On vision day recruit a team. John Maxell says, "One is too small
a number to do anything great." Recruit a team. Say something like
this. "O.K. we have these four fellowship set. Who wants to help
plan the parties? Who would be willing to invite every member?
[Inreach leader] Who would help us invite every prospect? [Outreach
Leader] Who will be the over-all group coordinator, or Class
President?

This last role is especially important. It could be the teacher,
if he or she is so inclined, but often, they are not so inclined.
Often they are inclined to teach. They like to read, study, prepare
and present. They are not into a lot of fun and games. Teachers, as a
rule, do not tend to be the funnest people in our churches.

If you have someone who uses a PDA, they"d make a great candidate
for a Class President. People who carry PDAs don't tend to do any
real work. They just delegate and supervise and coordinate and
oversee. They realize it is work getting other people to work. So,
they will set aside a Monday night to help the class, but it will go
something like this:

• They call the fellowship leaders: how are our plans coming
  for the fellowship?


• They call the inreach leaders: do you have your list? How is
  it going calling every member?


• They call the outreach leaders: how is it going calling
  every prospect?

My wife would make an excellent candidate for a class president.
She is talking to our church about being Children's Director. Her
son asked her, "What is involved with that, organizing stuff
and telling people what to do? You will be great at that!"

 

That is what the Class President does: bosses everyone around and
keeps everybody organized.

Allowing everyone to serve for a quarter does two things: it
allows them to test-drive the job, and it allows you to test-drive
them. If they don't work out all that well, you can find a different
role for them in three months. You are not locked into a long time
commitment on either side.

Ultimately, people may settle into roles that they want to do
over the long haul. That is all well and good. That is the way it
should be. They discover their gifts and minister according to their
giftedness. They use their gifts to grow their group to double their
classes every two years or less. But, until then, let them test
drive a role for a quarter and see how it fits.

Conclusion

If you would be successful in any arena in life, learn to develop
habits that contribute to your success. For a group, there is no
better habit than vision day. Vision day is about two things:

• Recast the vision: make disciples of all nations


• Recruit a team to get it done

 

Reinventing the Quiet Time

I consider the daily quiet time to be the fundamental discipline
of the Christian life. I have no concept of what it means to live
the Christian life except that we start our day with the Bible on
our lap.  Not that there would not be exceptions, but the
normal thing to do on a normal day is to start the day with the
Bible on our lap.

I was taught the importance of the quiet time in High School.
This message was reinforced in college and seminary days. I worked
some with the Navigators who are real big in creating people who are
disciplined in their daily life in terms of spending time alone with
God.

In my early days as a Minister of Education I used the Navigators
2:7 Series to teach people discipleship. I was shocked to discover
how common it is that people are very active in church but do not
start the day with the Bible on their lap. Lifeway's MasterLife
Series is a similar product to the Navigators 2:7 Series.

2:7 Series:

http://www.navpress.com/Store/Product/2200000000.html

Having worked at practicing a quiet time for three decades
plus now, I have noticed something. I have noticed a reoccurring
trend that repeats about every nine months.

About every nine months, I have to reinvent the quiet time.

Bible reading for geeks

Several years ago I was reading, but getting a little bored with
my reading. So, I reinvented the quiet time.

I am a bit of a geek. So, I decided it would be fun to start
reading my Bible off my hard drive. I have several translations of
the Bible on my laptop and I began reading the Bible on my laptop. I
then created a Microsoft Access database where I could record my
progress. Each day I would make a new entry. The database would
automatically insert the date, and a sequential number that I could
use to calculate the number of quiet times I had had over the last
week or month or year. I would record what I read and a little bit
about what I meant to me. Later, I added fields to record
reflections on what I was grateful for and what I wanted to get done
that day. This reinvention made quiet time come alive for me.

For about nine months. Then I had to reinvent the quiet time.

The One Year Bible

I spent some time at some Lifeway stores looking for a new Bible
Study that might rejuvenate my quiet time. I was looking for an
Experiencing God style Bible study when I stumbled onto the One Year
Bible. This is really cool. Someone taught me once that all
Scripture is inspired by God and is all equally inspired. But, it is
not all equally inspiring. If you doubt that, it has been too long
since you read Leviticus. With the One Year Bible, there is a New
Testament reading, an Old Testament reading, a Psalm and a Proverb
every day. So, on the day you are reading Leviticus, you are also
reading Luke. I knew that this would be a bit of a commitment for
me. I knew from my database plan that I was skipping some days here
and there--sometimes quite a few days. Reading through the Bible in
a year works out to about five chapters a day which is fine till you
get five days behind. Then you are really behind. I knew I was going
to have to step up to make this work. But, I figured I needed to
step up. So, I got the One Year Bible and it made Bible reading come
alive for me.

For about nine months.

Then I started getting bored again. I get bored easily. About
this time I got my first PDA--a Palm. Turns out, there is a One Year
Bible for the Palm. So, I got the One Year Bible for the Palm and
picked right up. Now I could read the Bible and be a geek again.
This made Bible reading come alive for me.

For about nine months. Then I started getting bored again.

The Dawson Plan

Last summer my oldest son, Dawson, said to me, "Dad, would you mind going to
El Paso with me to help me pick out a new Bible study?"  (This
is Dawson-speak for, "Dad, would you mind buying me a Bible Study,
pay for the gas to get there, and how about lunch while we are at
it?) It occurred to me that I was getting a little bored with the
plan I was on so I decided that whatever Bible study he picked out,
I would get two of them and would read along with  him. I have
been doing this, on and off, for some time now, but am getting a
little bored with this plan.

Time to reinvent the quiet time.

Listen to the Word

I am a very auditory learner. That is why I love listening to
content on audio. I have been on
www.audible.com for years where
for $20 a month you can download and listen to two books a month.
For a guy who does as much traveling as I do, this is great. I find
that even driving around town I can listen to quite a few books just
while I am driving.

One of the books I downloaded was the NIV Audio Bible dramatized.
It retails for 41.99, but if you are a member of the club, you can
get it as one of your monthly downloads--in essence, for $10. Don't
you love a bargain?

So, here lately, I have been listening to the Word. It has made
Bible reading come alive for me. Here was a moment of insight I had
yesterday:

The more time I spend in the Word, the closer I feel to God.

The more time I spend in the Word, the closer I feel to God.

I said it twice for emphasis.

This particular Bible is cool because it is dramatized. That is,
when Mary says something, you hear it in a female voice. When the
text says, "They said. . ." you hear a chorus of voices.
When Goliath speaks, he has a really Goliath sounding voice. There is
even movie-style musical background appropriate to the mood of the
scene. Way cool. I don't start the day with my Bible on my lap any
more. I start the day with my IPOD in my hand and my ear buds in my
ears. For a guy who likes
to listen more than read, this is way-cool.

The question, part one

All this is introduction to this question: how are you doing
these days in terms of your quiet time? How are you doing these days
in spending time alone with God? Is it time to re-invent the quiet
time?

The question, part two

The next question is this: how is your group doing? How do you
think your Sunday School class is doing these days in terms of their
time alone with God? I think you ought to ask them. Ask them
regularly. Ask them often. Most of us need to be asked. Most of us
need to reinvent the quiet time on a regular basis and it helps if
the group we are apart of is regularly asking how we are doing.

Conclusion

The quiet time is the fundamental discipline of the Christian
life. How are you doing these days in terms of your time alone with
Jesus? Do you need to reinvent it?

If you would encourage your group to start their day with the
Bible on their lap, I'd encourage you to ask them on a regular basis
about how they are doing with their time alone with God.

Best Bible Studies for Quiet Time

What are some of your favorite Bible Studies
or other resources for Quiet Time? Share your
answer at

http://sundayschool.ning.com/

 

The Repeated Phrase

One of the many smart things Rick Warren has said is that people
don't remember paragraphs; they remember slogans.

They don't remember sermons or lessons or books. They remember
sayings:

• Give me liberty or give me death.


• The truth will set you free.


• People don't care what you know until they know that you
  care.


• Only one life will soon be past. Only what's done for Christ
  will last.

Here are a few of my favorites:

• You must come to love the Christian life or you will never
  come to live the Christian life.


• If you can get them to the party, you couldn't keep them
  from class.


• Teach a half-way decent lesson each and every week, nothing
  less will do.


• Community must proceed content.


• People are not looking for a friendly church; they are
  looking for friends.


• People matter to God.


• Give Friday nights to Jesus.


• Love at its best is a little bit boring. It is pedestrian,
  earthy, stuff you can touch and feel. It is Diet Coke and table
  games and bowling pins and somehow in the mix of all that stuff,
  people feel loved.


• Invite every member and every prospect to every fellowship
  every month.


• If we love them they will come and they will come to love
  our Lord.


• If we will be gracious to them, they will stick around long
  enough to hear the words about grace.


• There is an epidemic of loneliness.


• It is not enough to tell them about a God who loves them;
  you must love them.

Slogans can be used in every lesson. You would do well to reduce
every lesson to a slogan--a memorable sound-bite of condensed truth.
People don't remember paragraphs; they remember slogans.

But, having a slogan is not enough. Reducing all that you will
say to a slogan is important. Developing the slogan is good.
Focusing the content into a memorable slogan is an important first
step, but it is only one step. The next step is the real key.

Spin the slogan into a repeated phrase. Say it over and over
again. Say it loud. Say it soft. Say it early. Say it late. Say it
and say it and say it.

Jesus did this as he began the greatest sermon every preached,
the sermon on the mount. He made great use of the repeated phrase:

Blessed are the. . .

Blessed are the. . .

Blessed are the. . .

Blessed are the. . .

Blessed are the. . .

Blessed are the. . .

What is this sermon about? How to be blessed. How do we know? The
use of the repeated phrase. By repeating the repeated phrase over
and again you drill it into people's heads. You make it stick. You
make them remember. Make liberal use of the repeated phrase.

The classic example of the use of the repeated phrase comes in
one of the most famous speeches of all time. Count how many times
Martin Luther King says, "I have a dream" in this segment of his
famous speech:

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we
face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.
It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise
up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths
to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of
Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave
owners will be able to sit down together at the table of
brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of
Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice,
sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an
oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will
one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color
of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama,
with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping
with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right
there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to
join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and
brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be
exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places
will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight,
and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see
it together.

Do you get the idea that Martin Luther King has a dream? This is
one of the most powerful pieces of prose ever written because of the
use of the repeated phrase. If you would be a powerful communicator,
make liberal use of the repeated phrase. Distill your message down
to a slogan and say it over and over again. Make it a repeated
phrase.

The repeated phrase over time

We don't just do it one time. We don't just repeat the phrase in
one lesson. If you just repeat it in one lesson they will forget.
Spend some time thinking about what Christian living is all about
and distill your thoughts into a handful of repeated phrases. Use
these phrases over and over again. Weave them into every lesson.
Don't worry about being boring. Make liberal use of the repeated
phrase.

As I think about the use of the repeated phrase, I think of one
of my heroes, Bill Hybels. There are a few phrases he has said over
and over and over again. He doesn't just repeat them once. They come
out in numerous sermons over time. The repetition only makes them
more powerful. The are memorable sayings. But we remember them
because Hybels turns them into a repeated phrase. Here are some
examples:

• People matter to God.


• There is nothing like the church when the church is acting
  right.


• Everyone wins. The believer wins as we join God in the
  breath-taking adventure of following Him. The lost win as they
  come to know Christ. The church wins. Everyone wins.


• What a wonderful plan: let the leaders lead; let the
  teachers teach; let the mercy givers give mercy.


• Even unchurched people will bring their kids where their
  kids want to go if their kids want to go there.


• People matter to God. (He says that a lot.)

An example in a recent lesson

I thought it might be helpful to close this article with an
example of a repeated phrase taken from a recent Sunday School
lesson that I have written. I didn't have to look at many lessons to
find an example. The first one I looked at had this use of the
repeated phrase: The lesson is from Genesis 12.

What do we learn about Abraham from the first three words
in verse 4?¹





Abraham was characterized by instant obedience. God spoke
and he moved. Can you think of other examples in the Bible
when God spoke and someone moved?




Can you think of opposite examples–when God spoke and
someone hesitated?²





How do you respond when you sense God is calling you to
do something? Would you say it is instant obedience, or
something less?




What are the benefits to us of following God in instant
obedience?




What does a lack of instant obedience cost us?

Footnotes:

1. Instant obedience is the key phrase.

2. Jonah is one classic example. Another is when
Israel didn’t want to enter Canaan at Kadesh. They later changed
their minds and wanted to go in, but it was too late.

Once we discover this key idea and distill it into a repeated
phrase, there are a handful of questions we can ask over and again
every week about a million topics. The above example is on being a
person of instant obedience. Suppose the topic is becoming a person
of faith and confidence. The questions might look like this:

1. What is the benefit of being a person of faith and
   confidence?


2. What does lack of faith and confidence cost us?


3. What keeps us from being people of faith and confidence?


4. How can we become people of faith and confidence?


5. Who are some examples of people you know that are marked by
   faith and confidence?


6. What are some examples of people who limited their potential
   by not having any faith and confidence. No gossiping, but do you
   have any stories like that?


7. What is the relationship between faith and confidence and
   the John 10.10 abundant life that Jesus promised? Can you have
   one without the other?


8. Imagine a world where everyone was full of faith and
   confidence. . . what would that look like?

By the way, if you would like access to lessons that make liberal
use of the repeated phrase, see

www.joshhunt.com/sunday-school.htm

Conclusion

If you would teach and make it stick, make liberal use of the
repeated phrase.

 

 

How to Influence, Part 2

I am blessed and cursed with the profound conviction that it
really is possible for groups to double every two years or less.
Something I ponder regularly is why it is not happening routinely.
Why isn't it happening all the time? More importantly, how can
doubling groups be a widespread movement in your church? How can we
join God in what God is doing in a worldwide movement of doubling
groups?

I picked up a book recently that casts a floodlight of
understanding on this subject. It is called Influencer.
We introduced it last week, but let's review the six
principles of influencers, and apply them to influencing Sunday
School teachers to double and to use hospitality as a means to
growth. Again, here are the six principles of influence:

Personal motivation:

• He must believe he can change


• He must believe he wants to change (it is in his
  self-interest to change)

Social motivation:

• He must be led by leaders that model the desired behavior


• He must see his peers engaging in this behavior

Structural motivation:

• He must be rewarded by the system


• He must be empowered by the system.

Now, let's apply these principles to the idea of persuading
teachers to double their groups.

He must want to double. He must see that it is in his best
interest to double.

People often say to me in response to my talks, "I don't know if
we want to double our classes; we are happy the way we are." I want
to ask in response, "Do you think your happiness will go up or down
if you embrace this vision?" I ask this because I have known
hundreds of teachers that have actually doubled their classes. Here
is the dirty little secret: doubling teachers are happier than
non-doubling teachers. It is absolutely in your best interest to
double your class in two years or less. One teacher described his
doubling class as the single most exhilarating thing in his life. He
is the CEO of his own company. Has a nice home, nice family, nice
job, nice car, but the single most exhilarating thing in his life is
his Sunday School class. I have been in a lot of Sunday School
classes that no one would describe as exhilarating. But, doubling
teachers feel that way.

I am in about a hundred churches a year. About half of them
growing--many of them growing rapidly. The other half are
struggling. The dirty little secret is this: the growing churches
are having more fun. If you didn't have any more noble,
high-sounding goals than just to have fun at church, I would invite
you to give yourself to the magnificent obsession of trying to
double a class every two years or less.

If you would like to persuade people to embrace the vision of
doubling groups, you must persuade them that it is in their best
interest to do so. In the long run, people will only do what they
believe is in their best interest.

He must believe that he can double. We are only motivated to do
what we think we can do.

All it takes to double a class every two years or less is to grow
from 10 to 14 in a year. Forty percent growth this year and next
will get us from 10 to 14 to 20. You can do this.

I often ask groups, "Could you do it if I offered you a million
dollars to get it done?" Of course we could.

There must be a careful balance in any attempt to motivate
between why and how. Why would we give ourselves to this? A group of
ten that doubles ever eighteen months can reach a thousand people
for God in ten years. This is an undeniable fact of math. We do it
to glorify God. We do it because God said so. We do it to get
sinners out of hell and into heaven. We do it because it is fun and
a wonderful way to live.

But, we must also show people how. The best way how that I know
is through the party driven strategy modeled for us by Levi. The
scripture says about Levi that when Levi became a follower of Christ
that Levi held a great banquet. We are told in scripture to "offer
hospitality without grumbling" and "Get into the habit of inviting
guests home for dinner."

Dr. Barry McCarty, an early adopter to this strategy emailed me
this week. Here is a part of his email: 

BTW, thanks to you, 10+ years later my wife and I
are still giving

Friday nights to Jesus, only now it's a

Saturday evening "Pizza with the Pastor" because in

Texas the population worships FOOTBALL

on Friday nights!  We do it once a month, adding every
new visitor to the invitation list.  We keep inviting them for
six months until a) they come or b) they tell us to go away and
leave them alone.  This idea, along with a church membership
class--which I also teach--continues to be the two best church
growth ideas I've ever put into practice.   I still bless
the day you asked me to be one of the critical readers for Double
Your Class!

If you would influence people to double their classes, teach them
about hospitality. Show them how.

He must have leaders who set an example.

If we would motivate people to double their classes, we must set
an example for them. You have heard it so often it has become trite:
everything rises and falls on leadership. The leader must embody the
vision.

I don't know how many pastors I have had tell me they love my
ideas, but they just can't get their people to do them. My response:
how are you doing?

I have heard Andy Stanley say on several occasions, "We are in a
group that is doubling; I want you to be in a group that is
doubling." Pastor, you have enormous influence on your people.
If you will join Andy Stanley in saying, "I am in a group that is
doubling; I want you to be in a group that is doubling." 
Minister of Education: same thing. Lead by example.  I have a new coaching and
consulting plan I am working on. The first thing I will do on the
very first night I am with the church is meet with the staff and
their wives. If I can't get this group excited about embracing the
vision of doubling groups, we are done. People follow the example of
leaders.

For more on the coaching plan, see

www.joshhunt.com/coaching.htm

Average Sunday School teachers can double their classes every two
years or less. They can reach 1000 people in ten years by doing so.
But, they need the example of their leadership.

He must see his peers doubling

People need to see not only the example of their leaders, they
must see the example of their peers.

I'd encourage you do some reading on the topic of how ideas
spread through a group. Here a a few good reads:

• The Tipping Point


• The Diffusion of Innovation


• PyroMarketing (full MP3 version available for free at
  www.pyromarketing.com
  )


• Unleashing the Ideavirus

The big idea is this: people are strongly influenced by their
peers. A few people will listen to experts. A few people will Give
Friday Nights to Jesus because Josh Hunt told them to. A few more
will do so because your pastor and staff do so. Once people start
seeing their fellow teachers giving Friday nights to Jesus, the idea
becomes almost irresistible. People do what they see the people
around them doing.

What we must do as leaders is, "catch them doing something
right." Every time an early adopter takes a step in the right
direction we need to get out a big spot light and point it on him.
Talk about it in the newsletter. Mention it in the pastor's blog.
Talk about it from the pulpit.

Every time you have a group divide and create a new group, make a
big deal about it. Births are big deals. Get the whole group on the
stage and pray for them. Buy them all a steak dinner. (Trust me, if
you bought every group member that doubled a steak dinner, you will
never get hurt financially by this plan.)

For more on this, see previous articles:

http://www.joshhunt.com/mail178.htm

http://www.joshhunt.com/mail177.htm

http://www.joshhunt.com/mail146.htm

He must be rewarded for doubling and held accountable for not
doubling.

Whatever gets rewarded gets done. We need to spend more time
catching people doing something right and less time telling them
what they ought to do and should have done. (For more on that, take
a look at Ken Blanchard's classic, One Minute Manager.)

Your church is perfectly designed to get the behavior you are
getting. We don't get what we ask for. We don't get what we hope
for. We get what we reward.

If you want people to double their groups, reward them for doing
so.

If you want people to give Friday nights to Jesus, it is not
enough to teach about it. It is not even enough to model it. We must
reward it. Whatever gets rewarded gets done.

I have written quite a bit about this in the past. Here are a
couple of articles.

http://www.joshhunt.com/mail49.htm

http://www.joshhunt.com/mail50.htm

He must be enabled to double. He must be supported with the
resources necessary to double

I asked Paul Byrom of First Baptist Church, Midland, Texas for
his key to growing a Sunday School:

"Chalk."

Short reply, and unusual growth strategy. As I unpacked his
answer further, he made the point in more detail. He just gets
people what they need to be effective. He gets them the resources
they need to be able to double. He makes sure the chairs are set up,
the rooms don't have a little stacks of old literature, and, yes,
every teacher has chalk.

I have known a number of churches that actually pay the bills
when teachers do hospitality.  The denomination I worked with
in Australia paid people $1000 a year to help cover costs if they
would do thirty parties a year. I have known churches that
encouraged members to take visitors out to lunch after church on
Sunday by offering to reimburse people for the lunch.

I know what you are thinking, "We could never afford to take
every visitor out to lunch."  If you think you can't afford it,
do the math. In my experience over half of them that you take out to
lunch will end up joining the church. Many of them will give. In
short, it will pay for itself.

The system must enable people to do what we want them to do.

Oh, by the way

Seeing the complexity of these six sources of influences helps me
to understand why people might need more than a video series and a
weekend seminar to make doubling groups through hospitality a part
of the culture of your church. If you want more help, consider the
Coaching and Consulting plan. See

www.joshunt.com/coaching.htm

Conclusion

You can double your class in two years or less. You can motivate
your teachers to do so. To motivate them, follow the six steps
outlined in Influencers. It is not as difficult as irradiating
guanine worms! You can be an influencer!

 

 

 

 

How to Influence, Part 1

One of the most common questions I am asked is, "I know the
hospitality-based strategy will work. How do I motivate my people to
do it?" I am asked this by laymen wanting to know how to motivate
their groups, as well as pastors who want to motivate their people.

I just read a great book on this topic: Influencer,
by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron
McMillan, and Al Switzler. It is a great book. If you are interested
in how to influence people, run, don't walk, to get this book.

If I were a pastor, I would be studying this book with my staff.
If I were a Minister of Education, I would put this on the schedule
to study with my teachers. . . soon. I love this book so much I
bought the book and the audio. I will likely listen to the audio
more than once.

Here is a story that illustrates the power of using the
principles in this book.

Imagine it is your job to fight a disease that
has plagued humanity for over 3000 years. This disease has the
capacity to ruin lives, deepen poverty, incapacitate entire
villages. More than 3.5 million people in Asia and Africa alone are
infected and there is no cure.

Meet the Carter Center's Dr. Donald Hopkins, one
of the influence masters studies in the research for
Influencer. For the past twenty years, Dr. Hopkins has
waged a war against the guinea worm--the world's largest and most
noxious human parasite. In years past, the worm would infect 20% -
60% of a villages population. It involves three foot long worms that
people get by drinking microscopic forms of the worms in open
sources of drinking water. A year later, this three foot long
worm--about the width of a strand of spaghetti emerge through the
skin on any part of the body. (You can actually see one of the
little critters in an online video at
www.influencerbook.com )
The worm incapacitates a person for periods averaging two to three
months. People may have more than one worm.

There is no cure for this disease. The only hope
is to influence how whole villages behave. Dr. Hopkins has been able
to do just that. He and his team have been able to completely
eliminate the worm in more than half of the previously suffering
countries. When the Carter Center began working on this in 1986
there were an estimated 3.5 million people infected around the
world. By the end of 2005, we are down to just over 10,000 cases,
and it trends continue, within a few years, the last guinea will be
eradicated, making the disease and the worm extinct.

All this was accomplished, not with a shot or
vaccine or pill, but by influencing the behavior of people spread
across thousand of remote villages. 

The power of influence has conquered many other similarly
daunting problems like drug addiction and the spread of AIDS. I'd
like to summarize the six influencer principles, then apply them to
the idea of
influencing people to double classes using hospitality as an
means. If we would encourage people to double their classes, six
things must happen.

Personal motivation:

• He must believe he can change


• He must believe he wants to change (it is in his
  self-interest to change)

Social motivation:

• He must be led by leaders that model the desired behavior


• He must see his peers engaging in this behavior

Structural motivation:

• He must be rewarded by the system


• He must be empowered by the system.

This change is all about a vital behavior. Influence always
starts here. It starts by defining behavior that we want people to
engage in or refrain from. In the guinea worm example above, the
vital behaviors included straining water and staying out of public
water supplies when infected.

If you would influence people to double a class every two years
or less the vital behavior is this: get people in the habit of
inviting every member and every prospect to every fellowship every
month. I have seen it happen more times than I can count; you get
them to the party and would not be able to keep them from class. It
doesn't happen every single time--there are plenty of
exceptions--but it does happen often enough to double every two
years or less.

If you want to make disciples, one vital behavior is influencing
people to read their Bibles and pray daily. It is a fundamental
discipline of the Christian life. Let's examine how we might
influence a church to read their Bibles daily.

As you look at this list, you might think it is a bit over the
top. You might think it is over-kill. This is one key of every
master-influencer. They over-determine success. They apply more
sources of influence than might be absolutely necessary to insure
the change. They make change inevitable by what might look like to
some as over doing it.

Motivating people to read their bibles

Let's apply these six principles to a basic discipline of the
Christian life: having a daily quiet time.

Personal motivation:

• He must believe he can be disciplined in reading his Bible. This
  is why the Navigators talk about seven minutes with God. It is
  not to limit our time to seven minutes; it is to make it
  something he can do. Many people see themselves as just
  basically undisciplined. The research does not bear this out.
  There is not a discipline gene. It is about learning skills that
  support our discipline. Here is one: set your alarm seven
  minutes early.


• He must believe he wants to change. It is in his
  self-interest to change. He must come to love the Christian
  life, or he he will never come to live the Christian life. Quiet
  time becomes a sweet hour of prayer, or he is not praying very
  well. The thing is, it really is a wonderful life. The Bible
  teaches that God is a rewarder or those who seek Him. He really
  is. Some of the sweetest times in my life have been times alone
  with God. You must come to believe this, or you will never be
  consistent in your time alone with God. Discipline is over-rated
  in a lot of Christian teaching. There is a place for discipline,
  but if you live your whole life trying to make yourself do
  what you basically don't like doing, you are going to struggle.
  You must come to love Bible reading and prayer, or you will
  never do it consistently.

Social motivation:

• He must be led by leaders that model the desired behavior.
  Most people do well to be in a discipleship group, at least for
  a time. Most of us need to be in a group that is led by a leader
  that will set the pace for us. The leader must embody the
  vision. When I was a Minister of Education, I led several of
  these groups, and trained others to lead these groups. One group
  was not working well. I investigated why. Word on the street was
  this. The leader would ask the people how they were doing in
  their time alone with God. Predictably, they would be struggling
  establishing the discipline in the early days of the group. The
  leader responded, "It is OK, I didn't have a good week with my
  quiet time either." The group actually reinforced the wrong
  behavior. If you would influence your group to spend time alone
  with God, you must model it. The leader must embody the vision.
  If you do embody the vision, it will just come up from time to
  time. "This week, I was reading in my quiet time and God spoke
  to me. . . " has more influence than an occasional lecture on
  quiet time.


• He must see his peers engaging in this behavior. It is one
  thing to see the leaders engaging in desired behavior; it is
  another to see my peers. When my pastor has a quiet time and
  tells about it, that is good, but I sorta expected that. When my
  friends are all having quiet times, I feel I need to step up. I
  think we ought to talk about this regularly in Sunday School. I
  think we ought to talk about how we are doing in terms of our
  time alone with God in our groups on a regular basis. At least
  once a month we ought to ask, "What are you reading these days?
  What is it meaning to you?"

Structural motivation:

• He must be rewarded by the system. It is easy to imagine how
  this can work with kids. Bible drill is a classic example. Kids
  are challenged to learn Bible verses and then they compete on
  how well they know them. (They don't actually compete against
  each other. They compete against themselves and the standard.
  Everyone can be a winner.) With a little creativity, this same
  principle can be applied tastefully with adults. What if you had
  an emphasis next year to encourage everyone to read through the
  Bible. Everyone who does it is invited to a steak dinner with
  the pastor. Perhaps we give everyone a Bible or a gift
  certificate to a Lifeway store if they successfully read through
  the whole Bible in a year.


• He must be empowered by the system. The system can reward,
  but it can also empower. When I was a Minister of Education, I
  supplied everyone who wanted them with the Daily Walk--a daily
  devotional guide that helped people read through the Bible in a
  year. There are a number of similar products available. Perhaps
  you could subsidize the cost of the One Year Bible for all your
  people.

These same six principles can motivate people to double their
classes every two years or less and use hospitality to grow their
groups. But, this article is a little long. Let's get into that next
week. In the mean time, you might pick up a copy of
Influencer. For an MP3 version, see
www.audible.com I think you
will be glad you did.

 

 

 

 

Four Questions you can use every week

Asking questions is the best way to teach adults. And a few
questions can be used over and over and never get old. Here are four
questions you ought to ask your group regularly.

 

1.  How are you doing these days in terms or your time alone with
God?

I have asked groups to discuss this at conferences many times at
it is always a positive, encouraging thing. Most of us want to have
a quiet time. We just need a little help from our friends. We need
to encourage one another to have a quiet time. One way to do this is
to ask the questions regularly: how are you doing these days?

The quiet time is the fundamental discipline of the Christian
life. We want to create people who start their day with the Bible on
their lap. Most people need a little help from their friends to do
this.

I have found that in in own life my consistency in time alone
with God ebbs and flows a bit. For me, I tend to do better when I am
at home and worse when I am on the road. Trouble is, I am on the
road alot. I need a little help from my friends.

Every month or so, ask your group: what are you reading? What
have you read lately that was meaningful to you? Have you memorized
any verses? What are your praying about?

Of course, it works best when this question flows naturally out
of the text. The good news is, it often does. Whenever the subject
of the Bible or prayer comes up, ask your group: how are you doing
these days in your time alone with God?

2. What do you love about following Christ? What has been great
about it recently?

Every so often, we just need to review the size of the stockpile.
We all have a tendency toward negativity. We all tend to complain a
bit. Gratefulness is one of the healthiest disciplines we can
develop as an individual, and as a group.

What do you love about being a Christian? Here is a short list
that comes to my mind:

• I love having a Bible that instructs me on how to live.


• I love sensing the presence of God in my life on a daily
  basis.


• I love enjoying Christian teaching. We have such great
  Christian teaching these days in books, radio, podcasts and
  other media. What a time to be alive!


• I love serving the Lord. Jesus said as we engage in the task
  of making disciples, that He will be with us. We know He is with
  us always, but there is a special sense of His presence when we
  are serving Him.


• I love the sense of calling and purpose--a reason to get out
  of bed in the morning. A Christian needn't ever be bored.


• I love the church and the fellowship of Christian friends.


• I love the knowledge that I am forgiven of all my sins.


• I love the knowledge that death is not the ultimate enemy.
  (What would you pay for that?)


• I love knowing that God is God and I am not. I love resting
  in the fact that He is boss. The world is not running recklessly
  out of control. There is a throne in heaven and Someone is
  sitting on it. Not pacing  the floor and wringing His
  hands. Sitting. Relaxed. In charge.


• I love the promises of God, especially Romans 8.28. Life is
  hard; often very hard. In a difficult world it is great to know
  that there is a God who is working all things together for God
  as we love Him and follow His calling for our lives.

An old hymn describes our heart as, "prone to wander, Lord, I
feel it." It is really true, isn't it? We need to be reminded on a
regular basis of what we have in Christ.

Some of the sweetest times in my life in church were in my High
School years. This was the era of the Jesus movement and Lay Witness
Missions that had a profound impact on my life for the good.
Christianity came alive for me. One of the components of church life
in that era was the share group. It was not a Bible study, we just
talked about what God was doing in our lives. It was great.

I had a similar experience for a time in college where fellow
believers would get together and just share what God was doing in
our lives. Rich times of fellowship. We need to include some of this
in every Sunday School class. Not all the time every week, but some
of this in every class.

I recommend asking the previous two questions regularly. These
next two questions can be asked every week.

3. How does it benefit you to follow Christ?

There is a foundational verse in Hebrews says "And without faith
it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must
believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek
him." Hebrews 11:6 [NIV]

I draw your attention to the word "rewards." We must not only believe that God exists. The demons do that. We
must believe that he rewards. We must believe that following Christ
has its own rewards. We must believe it is in our best interest to
live the Christian life over the long haul. In the short run it can
cost us, but in the long run, it is always in our best interest to
live the Christian life.

It is important because we are hard-wired to do what we believe
to be in our best interest. We can't avoid it. You can for a time,
but eventually what you believe is in your best interest will win
the day.

You must come to love the Christian life or you will never come
to live the Christian life.

Quiet time becomes for you a "sweet hour of prayer" or you are
not praying very well.

In every arena of life, no matter what you are teaching, you
need to ask, "How does this benefit you?"

• How does it benefit you to give?


• How does it benefit you to forgive?


• How does it benefit you to discover your spiritual gifts?


• How does it benefit you to serve?


• How does it benefit you to seek to double your class?

People will only do over the long run what they believe to be in
their best interest. We need to ask about every arena of life, "How
does God reward as we follow Him in this area?"

Self-discipline is over-rated. Not that there is not a place for
self-discipline; there is. But if you try to live your whole life
forcing yourself to do what you basically don't want to do, you are
not living the abundant, John 10.10 life. We must come to love the
Christian life, and every part of it, or we will never come to live
the Christian life.

4. What does not following Christ cost you?

Psychologist tells us we are motivated by two things: pain and
pleasure. Of the two, pain is a slightly greater motivator. We need
to talk about both, just as the Bible does:

See, I set before you today life and prosperity,
death and destruction. Deut. 30:15 [NIV]

Which do you want--life and prosperity, or death and destruction?
If you want life and prosperity, choose obedience. If you don't want
that, choose disobedience. Your call.

Not following Christ will always cost us in the long run. Get
people in touch with the cost.

5. What are you burdened about these days? What is on your heart?
What has you tempted to worry?

So often when we ask for prayer requests, people have to think
about it. Andy Stanley says, if you have to think about it, it is
not a prayer request. Your real prayer requests you don't have to
think about. That is what this question seeks to get at.

We share prayer requests about Aunt Bertha's hung toe nail and we
need to be sharing about the tax bill we got this week and we don't
know how we are going to pay for it, or our kid who has been
diagnosed with Schizophrenia or a job we don't know if we should
take. This is the real stuff that is on our heart and that is what
we should be praying about. That is what we are praying about, and
it is what we should be asking the group to pray about. Let Aunt
Bertha's group pray about her hang nail.

This is, of course, part prayer request and part life sharing.
This is how it should be. We need to do life together. Pray
together, yes, but just share life together. Sunday School needs to
be a place where we share what is really going on on one another's
lives.

Need more help?

Asking questions is the fundamental skill taught in
Disciplemaking Teachers. If you would like more help on this, there
are books and videos in our online store.
www.joshhunt.com Or, you might consider a
live conference.
www.joshhunt.com/conference.htm

Also, you might consider subscribing to the Lesson Vault. It is
an online resource of hundreds of lessons that include these types
of questions regularly. See

www.joshhunt.com/vault.htm

 

The Growth Funnel

When I was in sales, my broker taught me about the sales funnel.
It occurs to me there is great application for growing a church.

We sold commercial property. The steps to selling a property
looked like this:

1. Get a listing


2. Develop a brochure


3. Place ads


4. Receive calls/ send brochures


5. Call back/ assess interest/ answer questions


6. Negotiate an offer


7. Sign a contract


8. Due diligence


9. Close sale


10. We get paid

The key point my broker wanted to communicate to me as he
explained this was, you have to have a bunch of #4 if you ever
expect to get any of #10. The mistake of the rookie salesman is
assuming every inquiry is a paycheck.

Seen graphically, it might look like this:

The Growth Funnel

Just as salesmen have a sales funnel, churches have a growth
funnel. (This is the idea behind the parable of the seed and the
soil.) The Growth Funnel might look like this:

1. Pre-evangelism events


2. Visitors


3. Repeat visitors


4. People join


5. People get involved


6. People become disciples


7. The process repeats

The usefulness of the growth funnel is in answering this
question: where is the funnel blocked?

• Are we not getting enough visitors? (Do more pre-evangelism
  events)


• Are the visitors not coming back? Are they not joining?
  (Give Friday Nights to Jesus; Invite every member and every
  visitor to every fellowship every month.)


• Are we not making true disciples of the ones that attend?
  (Improve disciplemaking process.)

Magnet Factor / Velcro Factor / Growth Rate

Let's say you set a goal of doubling your church in five years.
This works out to 15% growth. I suggest you have someone actually
keep up with this on a month by month basis. Each month we measure
whether this month's attendance was above the same month a year ago.
Tracking this month by month accounts for seasonal differences in
attendance, and smoothes out weekly variations in attendance.

I suggest you create a graph each month that looks like this:

Clearly, the growth rate is slipping. The question is, Why? 
Are we failing to get visitors to visit, or are we failing to get
people who are visiting to join? Or, is it something else?

So, the next step is to look at the Velcro factor. How sticky is
our church, and is this number moving up or down?

We look at the number of visitors and it looks like this:

No big change in the number of visitors. When we look at the
number of visitors joining as a percentage of number who visit, we
find a problem:

The Velcro Factor is way down. That is our problem. We don't need
to work on getting more visitors; we need to work on getting the
visitors to stick around.

Bottom Line

In most cases, the problem is with the Velcro Factor, not the
Magnet Factor. Most churches have plenty of visitors; the problem
is, the visitors don't stick around.

But, this does vary from church to church and it is important
that we know. The strategies for fixing the Velcro Factor are
completely different than those for fixing the Magnet Factor. If we
don't have enough Visitors we might do some advertising, hold a
friend day, do a series of sermons on evangelism, or host some
pre-evangelism events.

If the problem is the Velcro Factor, we might look at some
different things. We would look first at the quality of our worship
services. Then, we would get systematic and consistent about
inviting every member and every prospect to every fellowship every
month. My experience has been corroborated by the stories of many
others--about 90% of the people we get into our homes and feed our
coffee cake to join the church. Again, it is a good idea to track
this--actually measure how many visitors we invite and how often
they respond.

What does the Bible say?

This all may sound a little too business like for some. You might
be wondering, "What does the Bible say?" Here are a couple of
verses:

•  Be sure you know the condition of your flocks,
  
  give careful attention to your herds; Proverbs 27:23 [NIV]


• Any enterprise is built by wise planning, becomes strong
  through common sense, and profits wonderfully by keeping abreast
  of the facts. Proverbs 24:3 [Living]

Jesus taught this concept in the parable of the four soils. The
idea is you have to distribute a lot more seed than you expect to
come to harvest. Some will be lost to the hard soil, some will be lost
to the weeds, some will be lost to the birds. Only a small amount
will make it to the harvest.

Does anyone famous think this way?

This is roughly the concept taught by Rick Warren in the Purpose
Driven Church. Rick Warren's funnel looks like this:

1. Community


2. Crowd


3. Congregation


4. Committed


5. Core

The idea is move people through the funnel to become fully
devoted followers of Christ.

Need some help?

If you need some help figuring all this out, you might consider
our Coaching and Consulting Process. See

www.joshhunt.com/coaching.htm

The most important things

My dad taught me an important principle: the most important
things are the things you can't measure. You can measure how many
attended, how many came forward, how much they gave and so forth.
What you can't measure is whether they love the Lord their God with
all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. Those are the most
important things.

Martha could count how many muffins she baked in the kitchen. No
one could measure Mary's love for Christ in the den.  

Time Management for Teachers

It is possible to double a class every two years or less. I have
heard testimonies of hundreds of teachers who have doubled. (See

http://www.joshhuntnm.blogspot.com/ )

It is possible, but it is not easy. It is hard work, and it takes
time. In order to double a class every two years or less, we must
learn to manage time well. The good news is, this skill of managing
time will help us in every area of life. Here is the magic: we work
on doubling the class, and God works on us, making us to be the kind
of people He wants us to be. One of the qualities of being the
people He wants us to be is people who manage their time well.

Most of what I have read about time management is wrong. Or, at
least, it didn’t work for me.

Most time management courses will tell you to do this:

1. Make a list of things that have to be done

2. Sort them in the order of their priority

3. Start working on item #1

4. Don’t stop working on #1 until #1 is completed

5. When you finish with #1, go to #2 and so on through
the list.

Logical. Well meaning. And it never worked for me.

Here is my method:

Make a list of things that need to be done

Lets apply this to Sunday School Teachers. Let's assume you want
to double your class every two years or less, and you want to do it
by inviting every member and every prospect to every fellowship
every month. Here is a partial list of things you would need to do
to accomplish this

1. Lesson preparation. You don't have to
be Chuck Swindoll, but the teaching does have to be half way
decent each and every week, nothing less will do. It takes
time to prepare an interesting, life-changing lesson each
and every week.

2. Plan monthly party. All good ideas
degenerate into work. Someone has to buy the Diet Coke.
Someone has to put up the decoration. Someone has to cook
the food. It is hard work having fun. If you have not gotten
into the business of inviting every member and every
prospect to every fellowship every month, let me give you a
heads up: it is work.

3. Invite every member. Most class rolls
could be divided into three sections: top third that come
all the time; middle third that come every now and then;
bottom third that never come. Here is my advice with
reference to that bottom third: don't invite them to class.
Instead, invite them to the party. Have a party once a month
and make sure that every member and every prospect gets
invited every month.

4. Invite every prospect. I have gotten
this feedback from some: We had a party, but we couldn't get
any outsiders to come. "Tell me about how you invite them."
"We announced it three times in class." That won't do. We
have to invite every member and every prospect to every
fellowship every month. Calling is better than emailing,
although, in an ideal world we do both. This may take the better part of an
evening to do. The people who are best at it tend to be a
bit chatty. They don' just invite people to the party in a
down-to-earth kind of way. They chat.

5. Training. There is a proven
relationship between training and church growth. Churches
that train tend to grow. Churches that don't train tend not
to grow. If you want to double your class in two years or
less, you need to make an ongoing commitment to being
trained to do so. My best deal on training is the Big
Double Bundle. See

http://www.joshhunt.com/bundle.htm  for details. My
newest training piece is the Saturday Morning Training. It
covers more or less the same territory but is designed to be
used in a one time shot Saturday morning rather than on a
weekly class basis. For details, click here:

hhttp://www.joshhunt.com/sat.htm

If you are interested in a live training event, see

www.joshhunt.com/conference2.htm

6. Spend personal time with your students.
People don't care what you know till they know that you
care. If you would make disciples of them, you must love
them. You must spend time with them. Take them to lunch.
Play golf with them. Jesus made disciples by spending time
with them. You must spend time with your students if you
wish to make disciples of them. I think it is unfortunate
that you are called a teacher. Since you are called a
teacher, you might get the idea that your job is to teach.
That is one job, but it is not the only job. Your job is to
pastor the microcosm of the Church called your Sunday School
class.

7. Devotional time.  Disciples
start their day with the Bible on their lap. They start the
day with God. The quiet time is the core discipline in
following Christ. Effective teachers spend time alone with
God in the Word and in prayer--not looking at the Word for
what we can teach to others, but looking at the Word in
allowing God to feed our souls.

8. Crises ministry. In every life some
storms will come. If you see yourself as the pastor of your
micro-church, it means visiting the hospital when your
members are in the hospital. It means preparing meals when
there is a death in the family. It means being there. Loving
people means being with them in times of crises. The bigger
the class, the more crises there are.

Delegate what you can

There is no greater waste of time than doing efficiently what you
should have never done in the first place. About half the things on
the list above can and should be done by someone else. As Bill
Hybels says it, "What a wonderful plan God has! Let the teachers
teach, let the leaders lead, let the mercy givers give mercy, let
the inreach leaders invite every member, let the outreach leaders
invite every prospect, let the party people plan parties." (I
actually added that last part, but the first part is from Bill
Hybels.)

In the church, we don't delegate to get out of doing things. We
delegate to get lots of people involved in the work. We want every
one to discover their gifting and use their gifts to grow their
groups. Every groups would do well to have the following people
involved:

Teacher in training. This is the person to who
you will eventually say, "The things you have heard me say in the
presence of many witnesses, entrust to reliable men who will be
qualified to teach others." 2 Timothy 2.2 It is a good idea to let
them substitute for you from time to time. Here is a time saver: let
them teach once a month.

Fellowship leaders. More often than not, these
are ladies. I have found that, as a general rule, ladies are more
fun than men.

Inreach leaders invite every member. It is a
good idea if they also keep roll in the class so they keep a real
personal, hands-on feel for who is there and who is not.

Outreach leaders invite every prospect.

Prayer leaders take prayer requests and
distribute by way of email the prayer needs of the group.

Leader. This person doesn't actually do any
real work. They just delegate and supervise and coordinate and
oversee. They realize it is work getting other people to work.

One of the best ways to get these workers is to have a Vision Day
once a quarter. Get in the habit. Make it part of the church
culture. Put it on auto-pilot. The first Sunday of every quarter is
Vision Day.

On Vision Day you recast a vision for the class: we want to
double every two years or less. A group of ten that doubles every
eighteen months will reach 1000 people in ten years. In order to do
that, we want to invite every member and every prospect to every
fellowship every month. So we want to do three parties in the next
three months. Who wants to do what? Who wants to do inreach? Who
wants to do outreach? Who is good at planning parties?

Do whatever you feel like doing

Basic time management theory suggests you do things in the order
of their priority. Here is the problem with that. Often, when I look
at my to-do list, it all needs to be done. It is all #1 priority in
the sense that it all has to be done. And I find I work best when I
do what I feel like doing.

Of course, you can't always do this. Some tasks are not that
pleasant and must be done anyway. In this case, you do well to do
them first and get them out of the way.

Here is the real key to me. I can divide most tasks on a to-do
list into two categories: thinking and doing. Lesson writing is
thinking; calling prospects is doing.

I tend to find myself in one of two moods: thinking and doing. If
I am not in a thinking mood, I am not terribly productive at lesson
writing. I try not to do doing tasks when I am in a thinking mood or
thinking tasks when I am in a doing mood. As much as possible, I try
to do what I feel like doing. I find I am more productive that way,
and life is a whole lot more fun.

Closing Thought

Show me, O Lord, my life's end

and the number of my days;

let me know how fleeting is my life. Psalm 39:4 [NIV]

Is it my imagination, or is each year going a little more quickly
than the last? We don't have forever. As the old hymn said it,
"Work, for the night is coming!"

 

 

The Likeable Teacher

I had dinner with Chris Imbach, an early adopter to the double
your class strategy a couple of weeks ago. I told you about him
before. He told me once that he now has great great grand daughter
classes. For that article, see

http://www.joshhunt.com/mail179.htm

As I reflected on our time together, I thought, "What makes
doubling work for Chris and other teachers that I have known that
have doubled not once, but several times over the years? What is it
that makes some teachers so successful at growing classes?"

There are a number of things involved, but there is one thing
that is true of every doubling Sunday School teacher I know. You
can have this quality and not double, but I have never known a
doubling teacher who did not have this quality. And, I have known
teachers that were dedicated, hard working, knowledgeable,
and articulate and were largely ineffective
because they lacked one quality:

People didn't like them.

It is not just true of teachers. Pastors who effectively lead
churches tend to be pastors that people like. Ministers of Education
that effectively lead Sunday Schools to double have strong people
skills. To be successful at almost any job, it helps to be likeable.

The prize goes to the likeable

Tim Sanders has done extensive research into the likeability
factor and has written it up in a book by the same name. Here are
some of his findings:

1. Doctors give more time and better care to patients they like.


2. In his book Primal Leadership, Daniel Goleman
   discusses the fact that a positively charged work environment
   produces superior profits.


3. A Columbia University study showed that success in the
   workplace is more about likeability than what you know or who
   you know.


4. A Yale University study revealed that people, unlike
   animals, get ahead not by being aggressive, but by being nice.


5. When they go to court, likeable people are found not guilty
   more often than non-likeable people.


6. Likeable candidates get elected more often than non-likeable
   candidates.


7. One of the primary elements of marital success is
   likeability.

In short, everything in life will go better if you are likeable,
including your Sunday School class. What then, does it take to be
likeable.

A touch of class

All things being equal, people like people who comb their hair,
press their shirts and can be described by the word sharp. We like
people who have it together. We tend to not like losers. On a
team, we like people who can catch the ball, throw a strike or drop
the three pointer. In a choir, we like people who can sing on pitch.

The Bible says, "Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will
serve before kings; he will not serve before obscure men." We could
paraphrase this, "Do you see a man who is skilled in his work? He
tends to be well-liked by everyone except his competition." We like
people who dress well and do well. We like people with a touch of
class. We like people who are successful in whatever endeavors they
take on.

I knew a guy once that was very dedicated, studied hard, worked
hard to grow a class, but it never went all that well. What was the
problem? He stunk. Literally. I don't mean he stunk at teaching. I
mean when you got within ten feet of him, you had the feeling he had
not taken a shower in a few days. It was bad.

Now, I know what you are thinking. "Wow, that is quite a story. I
knew someone like that once. But it isn't true of me." And, likely
it is not. But, here is the real question: how would you know? Do
you have anyone in your life that you could ask that would give you
honest information about you? Do you know anyone in your life that
you could ask, "Is there anything about me that is unlikeable?" and
get an honest answer? Have you asked lately?

"Well, that's just me. I am not into ironing my shirt and looking
all preppy." Careful. "Just me" could be costing you more than you
know. And, it is not just you. It is a choice you make. You can make
a different choice.

Rapport

We like people who dress well and do well. . . to a point. As
long as they don't dress too well, do too well, or talk too high and
mighty, we like a touch of class. But, we also like someone who is
down to earth, someone we can relate to, something we have something
in common with.

If you would seek to be likeable, and enjoy the benefits in every
arena of life, seek to find common ground. Seek to establish
rapport. Dress like the people you would serve. Talk like the people
you would serve. Maybe a little better, but not a lot better.

It is a basic missionary principle. Missionaries know that to
reach a people, we must learn their language, culture, and customs.
To the degree that we can, we need to walk like them, talk like
them, dress like them.

"But, I have nothing in common with them; we are totally
different." This is almost never actually true. Life is complex
enough that if you dig around long enough, it is possible to find
common ground with almost anyone. Find it. Find movies you both
like, places you have both been or food you both enjoy. Perhaps
there are sports teams you both like, a common approach to
parenting, or maybe you are part of a common group.

Ultimately, if we are talking about Christians, we have that in
common, and our faith should be central to all of our lives. If you
can't find anything else in common, lean into that.

Paul said, "To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have
become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might
save some." 1 Cor. 9:22 [NIV] Follow Paul. find common ground.

Be nice to them

One of the first verses I memorized going to Sunday School
growing up was, "Be ye kind one to another." Ephes. 4:32a [KJV] It
is amazing how many Christians have not yet learned this verse. At
least, they have not yet learned to practice this verse. Many who
believe in the doctrine of grace are not that gracious. If you want
people to like you, be nice to them.

And, this is not the only verse that has to do with being nice.
Consider memorizing these verses:

•  Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is
  near. Philip. 4:5 [NIV]


•  Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing
  with one another in love. Ephes. 4:2 [NIV]


•  Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances
  you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave
  you. Col. 3:13 [NIV]


•  If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live
  at peace with everyone. Romans 12:18 [NIV]

You can't be godly and mean. [Bad joke: what do you call someone
who tries to be godly and mean? Answer: A deacon!] Godly people have
a winsome graciousness about them. People like that.

We need to be sensitive and caring. We need to think about how
the other person is thinking. Don't say things like, "Other than
that, did you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln?"

Time

We tend to like the familiar. We tend to like people we know. If
you just hang out with people, they will tend to like you better.
There is nothing quite so comfortable as an old pair of slippers.

Don't just teach your class; hang out with them. Consider this
verse: "He appointed twelve--designating them apostles--that they
might be with him and that he might send them out to preach." Mark
3:14 [NIV]

I draw your attention to two words: with him.
Jesus called his disciples to be with him. His discipleship program
was not a book or a course or a series of PowerPoints. It was that
they might be with him. Discipleship is more caught than taught. If
you would make disciples of the people you teach, spend time with
them.

Of course, like anything, it can be overdone. "Don't visit your
neighbors too often, or you will wear out your welcome." Proverbs
25:17 [NLT]

It can be overdone, but usually it is not. Most teachers would do
well to take their students out to lunch, have their students in
their home and spend time with them.

Don't try too hard

Jesus taught us to walk the narrow way. It is narrow because it
is easy to fall off one side or the other. We saw that in last
principle. We ought to spend time with the people in our group, but
not too much.

There is a balancing principle to the whole idea of being
likeable. Here is one way of saying it: we need to try to be
likeable; not necessarily try to be liked. Me trying
to be likeable is about me working on me. Me trying to get you to
like me goes to far.

The Bible says, "On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God
to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but
God, who tests our hearts." 1 Thes. 2:4 [NIV]

One of the ironies of ignoring this last principle is this. If we
try too hard to be liked, we end up not being liked. Of course, the
bigger problem is that we can't please God, as the verse above says.
But, the other problem is that it just doesn't work. No one likes
someone who tries too hard to be liked.

 

 

Scripture Memory

At what point do we quit doing scripture memory in Sunday School?
Little kids do scripture memory all the time in Sunday School; at
what age do we stop?

Too soon, I say.

At what age should we stop doing scripture memory in Sunday
School? At what age do we graduate from this childish approach to
learning?

Never.

If you want to create (spiritually speaking) meat-eating lions,
if you want to create take-no-prisoners soldiers of the cross, if
you want to create spiritual giants, if you want to create people
who love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind and
strength, if you want to create people who are being transformed by
the gospel a little more each day, from one glory to the next,
encourage people to memorize God's word.

I know of no other spiritual discipline that will drive steel
into the foundation of your soul like scripture memory.

Want to sin less than you do? Consider the promise of this
verse:

I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you. Psalms 119:11 (NIV)

The word translated "hidden" in this passage is an old Hebrew
word: mee-mo-rize.

Want to sin less than you do? Memorize God's Word.

Want to worry less than you do? Memorize the first verse I ever
memorized. From the Living:

Don't worry about anything; instead,
pray about everything; tell God your needs, and don't forget to
thank him for his answers. If you do this, you will experience God's
peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can
understand. His peace will keep your thoughts and your hearts quiet
and at rest as you trust in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7 (TLB)

You say you can't memorize? Memorize it the way I did. Just read
it about a thousand times and you will find that, walla! you have
memorized it. You will also find you worry a little less than you
did.

Want to beat off temptation?

Do it the way Jesus did--by memorizing God's Word. This gets into
a bit of the mystery of the incarnation, but how do you think Jesus
knew to quote those verses in the desert? I think He memorized them.
(I think Jesus' knowledge of Scripture is one of the things He
emptied Himself of (Philippians 2); otherwise, He wasn't tempted in
every way we were (Hebrews 4.15))

My wife and I have both recently stumbled into a renewed
appreciation for the benefit of Scripture memory. We got here in
different ways. She is going through Rick Warren's Purpose Driven
Life and memorizing the verse of the day each day. I started
bookmarking and memorizing key verses on my phone (What? You don't
have a Bible on your phone? Say it isn't so!) Great thing about that
is it is always with me. I find myself having to wait on this and
that a lot. When I do, I pull out the phone and start meditating and
memorizing. If you don't have a phone with the Bible on it, you
could, of course do it the old fashioned way--with little scripture
memory cards. (Blank business cards you can get at Office Max or
Staples work nicely.) But, for geeks, you gotta use a phone.

Want to see answer to prayer?

Consider this promise:

^15:7
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever
you wish, and it will be given you. John 15:7 (NIV)

Notice the condition: "and my words remain in you." The Greek
word has the sense of, "to be at home in God's word." God's Word
needs to become as familiar as an old pair of slippers. It is a
condition of answered prayer.

Want to be prosperous and successful in all that you do?

It is my experience that memorization and meditation go hand in
hand. It is hard to do one without the other. In fact, I would say
the point of memorizing is to meditate and the way to meditate is to
memorize. If I am right about that, consider this promise:

^1:1
Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the
wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.
^1:2 But his delight is in
the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
^1:3 He is like a tree planted by
streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf
does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. Psalms 1:1-3 (NIV)

Want to prosper in whatever you do? Meditate day and night on
God's word. Want to have a group full of people who prosper in all
they do? Teach your group to meditate on God's word.

How to memorize in class: the 3 X 3 X 3 rule

Here is how to get your group memorizing in class. I call it the
3 X 3 X 3 rule. If you have been using
online lessons, you are
familiar with this rule and its variations. Here is how it works.

Select a verse to memorize. I wouldn't necessarily do this
every week, but I would do it often. I'd pick something somewhat
short.

1. Have everyone say it three times out loud. That is the first
   three. For some of the people in your group, this is all it will
   take to memorize the verse. Some of these verses will be
   familiar to the group. In fact, I would say always memorize the
   most familiar verses in the passage. Some will have already
   memorized these verses.
   
   Oh, one other thing: I would do this early in the class session,
   for reasons that are about to become clear.


2. Second three: have three individuals say it out loud. Get
   volunteers; don't call on anyone unless you know you won't
   embarrass them. This is the second three.


3. Repeat this three times during class. About every ten or
   fifteen minutes, say, "What was our verse again?"

3+  If you really want to nail it
home, go over it each of the next three weeks.

If you are new to scripture memory, I recommend you start where I
did, with the Navigators' Topical Memory System. It includes 60
verses printed on little cards you can take with you. Plus, there is
a lot of useful information in the packet as to how to memorize.