The Six Church Marketing Bad-Attitudes | Ministry Marketing Coach.

Chris Forbes, over in Okhahoma, has done another awesome job of articulating the attitudes that I believe are killing so many churches today. These six bad-attitudes represent six small-minded, closed-minded ways of thinking about outreach. Well worth the read!

I just finished reading The Creative Leader: Unleashing the Power of Your Creative Potential. It’s been an enjoyable and challenging read. I don’t know that I would ever do ministry just the way Ed does, but that’s really kind of the point - duplication and imitation squelches creativity.

As we’ve journeyed through change at Bethel, we’ve witnessed some friction here and there. God has graciously bound us together and I feel great about our unified direction, but one portion of the book ministered to my heart for days on end - it was a timely word.

Pay attention to what people have to say and evaluate their suggestions honestly. But don’t allow their fear of change to cause you creative cramps… Creativity is a long-term investment. If your top leaders are not totally committed to the vertical vision, then fear of friction will dismantle this God-given virtue. At Fellowship, we do not value upsetting people, but we do value upsetting their equilibrium to challenge them for spiritual growth… To be sure, creativity must be biblically driven and it must honor God. However, when we have our people off balance, we have a great potential to catch them off guard with a powerful punch from the pages of Scripture… It is very tempting to want to please people, but leaders often experience leadership cramps when they allow their vision to be compromised to appease a few negative people. Once the vision goes horizontal, disaster will follow.

One of the toughest aspects of leadership for me is finding the confidence to lead with conviction regardless of the reactions of people. We all want to be liked, and praise is one of the most dangerous traps for leaders. We certainly ought to be listeners and learners or we’ll stunt our growth, but at the end of the day, God has called us to lead, and if we aren’t leading, we aren’t leaders. (Profound, I know!)

This book has challenged me to be more creative in how I minister to people, how I present the word, and to be willing to do what it takes to reach people instead of just trying to keeping the fish tank peaceful. I highly recommend that every leader get this book, read it, and apply it by exploring your God-implanted creativity.

Does your family play the garbage game? You know, that game where the trash begins to overflow and you come up with imaginative ways of placing one more piece of trash in such a way that the mass of garbage doesn’t collapse, utilizing every nook and cranny and every physical principle of gravity and balance to your advantage. After all, the one for whom it comes tumbling down is automatically the trash-taker-outer.

That overstuffed trash can resembles our lives sometimes. We fill every moment of every day with something. In the meantime, we stifle our creative juices. There’s no room to be creative because we’re trying to do too many things at once - we’re trying to be all things to all people. Pretty soon, it all comes tumbling down like the end of a Jenga game.

I’ve been challenged lately to make more room for creativity. I’m not talking so much about the work of creating, but the time we need to get alone and relate to our Creator, to dream great things, to plan, to envision, to think creatively. The problem with cramming our lives full of stuff is that we get focused on maintaining the stuff we’ve created and can’t create anything new.

I want to challenge you the way I’ve been challenged. Take a walk, read a book, fill up on something other than the mental junk food of modern media. Take some time to do nothing but read, dream, pray, and envision what God wants to do in, around, and through you. Leave some margin and get creative!

I think creativity is overlooked and underrated among Christian leaders today. Quite frankly, we’re afraid of what changes creativity may bring. We’re paranoid some crazy guy will hijack our conservative churches and turn them upside down. But what about a leader who is focused on the Scriptures and simply wants to glorify the Creator by imagining great things? I’m currently reading The Creative Leader by Ed Young. I wanted to record a major quote here for posterity, and to share it with my readers…

So why should we implement creativity in leadership? God invented it. Jesus modeled it. The Holy Spirit empowers it because people need it. If we church leaders are going to live out the challenging mission that God has laid out for the local church, we must unleash the creative potential available to us, develop it, and use it to communicate the most compelling message ever given to mankind. Creativity is not an option for the church; it is a biblical mandate that flows from the very character of the Creator.

I couldn’t agree more!

God is the great Creator of the entire universe and all that is in it. He created time and He creates every life that enters into the world. In short, God is extremely creative, so He loves creativity.

I agree with many modern church leaders that creativity, in and of itself, is glorifying to God, so long as what we create does not represent any form of idolatry or contradiction to the revealed truth and standards of God’s Word. I have two tables in my home made by my late grandfather. He made them to the glory of God, with excellence. That’s a kind of worship. I have three quilts my grandmother made. They too, represent a form of worship. Creativity is good, so long as its God-honoring (no huge astrological towers allowed - e.g. Babel in Genesis 11).

In recent days, I’ve felt my own creative energy stirred by the Holy Spirit, partly due to observing the methodology of such guys as Andy Stanley and Ed Young. Last Sunday, I took a Dremel into the pulpit to illustrate that faith is not a magic formula that does anything, rather it’s a tool that we must put into action. This Wednesday, I’m taking a fish net with me to illustrate how God caught Jonah in the net of chastisement and Jonah caught God in the net of prayer. To some, I’m sure these symbols may seem trite, but to me, they merely present a way of communicating a truth in a meaningful, visible, and memorable way.

I’m afraid that we often have a tendency to squelch creativity in Christianity. We frown on new methods, new technologies, and that which may distract us from a plain-spoken message. I’m all for the plain-spoken message for that is God’s chosen method of communicating the gospel to all the world - preaching. I’m a believer in the primacy of preaching, but I’m also a believer in getting life-changing truth into people’s lives in whatever way we find beneficial.

I’ve been challenged to think beyond the borders of what is “normal” for me, and I hope that you are challenged to do the same. No matter who you are, no matter where you work, no matter what you do, ask yourself, “what can I create for God today?”

Yesterday I had the privilege of talking with Donny Parrish, Director of Church Ministries for the BMA of America about church ministry today. My heart and eyes were opened to some great principles concerning reaching the lost today. I was also reminded to lay down my own preferences in ministry so that I might be as effective and flexible as possible to see what the Holy Spirit wants to do next.

This morning, I preached from Romans 8:1-4 in which Paul talks about some of our great freedoms “in Christ.” The phrase the Scriptures use is a thrilling one - “now no condemnation.” When I arrived home, I flipped on the television to a Calvary Chapel pastor from Florida who just happened to be preaching on the same theme. I had tuned in at just the right moment to hear his closing prayer thanking God that there is “now no condemnation to them who are in Christ.”

Amazingly, this pastor’s approach to ministry was obviously different from my own. His church practiced a very contemporary form of worship, he was dressed in casual clothing, and the background of the stage created a much different atmosphere than my stained glass background in my home pulpit. Nevertheless, the content of our messages was essentially the same message - “now no condemnation to them which are in Christ.”

I want to thank God for the freedom we enjoy to differ slightly and yet remain true to the Scriptures. They will always provide our content in preaching and our context for ministry, but our methodology, within reasonable and biblical limits, must remain flexible if we are to reach each new generation of people with the life-changing message of the gospel. More on this generational shift in our ministry later…