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Did you know WiredChurches hosts workshops twice a year, led by world-class leaders in a variety of fields? And did you know they are a quick, affordable way to strengthen and inspire entire teams of people in one day? And did you also know we have a fresh batch of them coming next month?

It’s true! Now you know. Here’s what we have coming up in April—click the thumbnails for more information on each one:

Learn how to make great first impressions with the guests (old and new)
who walk in the doors of your church.

Have your message be heard loud and clear in every deliverable—
through what people read, touch or click.

From birth through fifth grade, a healthy kids’ ministry can have an enormous
impact on the children and families in our communities.

Go behind the scenes with Granger’s creative and production arts teams
to experience a download of Granger’s creative process and structure.

The First Impressions, Communications and Kids’ Ministry Workshops are one-day events that run from 9 a.m.–4 p.m. on Fridays. The Arts All-Access is a Saturday workshop, from 10 a.m.–6:10 p.m. Lunch will be provided for all workshops. So come with your team on Friday and stay for Saturday’s All-Access event, which includes attending a Saturday evening service. All events are held on the Granger Community Church Campus at Granger Commons near South Bend, IN, just 90 miles east of Chicago and five miles east of the University of Notre Dame.

by Tim Stevens, Executive Pastor

“You have to give up to go up.” I first heard John Maxwell say this in 1993 in a small leadership conference in Anderson, Indiana. Nearly 20 years later, I couldn’t agree more.

Many of you are pastors, the top dog in your church. You’ve either started the church from scratch, or you’ve come into an existing ministry. You want your church to grow. You may be looking for ideas to give your church a jumpstart. Or perhaps you’ve implemented changes, and the church is starting to grow. Now you want to take it to the next level.

Here’s a startling fact: Many of the things you do to help a small church grow are the very things that will eventually kill the church if you continue doing them. That’s right. A senior pastor who wants nothing more than to see the church grow could, in fact, single-handedly kill its growth.

Continue reading on Tim’s Blog...

Have you heard about our One-Day Workshops? These are intense and focused, interactive learning environments that your whole team can take advantage of. Get away for one day and join us at Granger Commons on Friday, April 25 to learn more about First Impressions, Communications and Kids’ Ministry. Then stay with your team for the Arts All-Access workshop on Saturday, April 26 where you’ll go behind the scenes and attend the Saturday night service.

by Mark Waltz, Pastor of Connections and MultiSite

Excellent guest service—whether in a local church, community non-profit, retail business or service industry—is really the compilation of lived-out best practices. Those benchmark behaviors that may be simple and common sense, but they are set as standards of practice by everyone in the organization.

Best practices can be produced in a board room.

• Respond to questions within 48 hours.
• Answer the phone before the fourth ring.
• Do what you do with excellence.

It can happen: best practices can come from the board room. But not most of them.

Most best practices come about in the moment. A one-time occurrence implemented by one team member that gets discovered and, because of its impact on communicating value, is repeated as a norm throughout the entire team. That’s what happened with our guest services four-point report.

A couple years ago our volunteer usher leaders began to email each other following each weekend of services. By Monday afternoon an email was circulating, celebrating highlights and asking questions about how to solve a challenge that had popped up. The email created conversation that birthed an ongoing best-practice-making machine. The Four-Point Email was born. It’s this simple:

Continue reading on Mark’s blog...

Have you heard about our One-Day Workshops? These are intense and focused, interactive learning environments that your whole team can take advantage of. Get away for one day and join us at Granger Commons on Friday, April 25 to learn more about First Impressions, Communications and Kids’ Ministry. Then stay with your team for the Arts All-Access workshop on Saturday, April 26 where you’ll go behind the scenes and attend the Saturday night service.

by Kem Meyer, Communications Director

Aside from “clutter and noise,” what are some of the major pitfalls many churches run into in their communications?

Ah, easy. The ministry silos. You’ve seen it: the missions department does its own thing. The student leaders do their own thing. The women’s ministry does its own thing. And the pattern repeats throughout the whole church. The result? Individual departments end up competing against each other with a carnival communication style trying to out-yell or out-explain.

If we each serve up a different experience, run off in our own individual directions—information gets lost or isolated. People and projects proliferate—as does confusion. This creates real liabilities for the church as a whole and puts a lid on overall impact.

A lot of churches acknowledge it’s a problem, but find it too exhausting to tackle. It’s simply easier to just ignore silos and let people do their own thing. The only way to resolve these types of issues is to connect multiple areas to operate as part of a larger family. Some examples:

• One mission statement. If everyone is working toward the same goal, there will be less territorialism and more teamwork.
• One budget. There are different categories for each ministry, but one church budget.
• One database. A single version of reality—reports and contacts.
• One URL. One church, multiple ministries. Not the other way around. A house has one front door—so should your web site.

(Excerpt from Ministry Matters Interview | 6 in series of 6)

And if you’d like to get more of Kem’s practical training for your Communications team, sign up today for her one-day workshop in April!

• a fresh perspective and some new ideas about how to craft communications so you can release the right response? (Less clutter. Less Noise. with Kem Meyer)
• hands-on training that will empower paid and unpaid wow-makers to make great first impressions? (First Impressions with Mark Waltz)
• insight into developing a kids' program that impacts the future of children and families in your community? (Kids' Ministry: From Leading to Legos with Ted Bryant)

Invest in this one-day learning retreat. You deserve some specific and practical encouragement. As a matter of fact, grab one or two teammates and bring them along to make the day even better. Kem, Mark and Ted will be here. And so will many others who have signed up to be here, too. Hope you can join us.

Get all the specifics and register now—it's not too late!

by Mark Waltz, Pastor of Connections and MultiSite

This is an ink pen. Its base is wrapped with a hair tie. Can you see what's bound in the hair tie? Yes. That’s human hair. Hair that was held by the tie before it was wound around this pen. 

Convenient, I suppose. Finished with it in your hair, just wrap it around the pen you’re using until you need it in your hair again. To each his—or her—own. 

Unless the person using the hair tie is a restaurant server and she hands her pen to her customer to sign their bill. 

That customer was me. Convenient for her. Disgusting for me. I dropped—maybe I threw—the pen on the table and asked my wife Laura for hand sanitizer and a pen. Gross.

It’s easy to live in Convenience World. We don’t intend to impede on anyone else. We just don’t think. 

This was just a pen. But think about the conveniences we hang on to, maybe insist on, without thinking how it impacts someone else. Say—your church guest or your neighbor:

• It’s convenient to park in the main lot closest to the door. You’re serving after all! And you must be on time (It would have been inconvenient to leave earlier). However that convenient parking spot could have been a guest’s easy-to-find spot.
• It’s convenient to find my friends and catch up. But if that’s all I do, I miss the opportunity to welcome and engage someone new to our church.
• It’s convenient to rush out of my neighborhood and just wave to my neighbors. But I may be missing relationship and a chance to communicate care with my time.
• It’s convenient to ignore the turn signal on the car next to me and not slow down to let the driver in front of me. But it might be a small way to defer, to care, to be second.

How is your convenience creating a not-so-great experience for someone else?

Not everyone can see a hair on a pen and turn it into a great lesson about making your church better. Get more real-world, practical tips and improve the experience of all your guests, from the parking lot to the auditorium. Come to Mark’s First Impressions One-Day Workshop on April 12. You can also sign up for Kem Meyer’s Less Clutter. Less Noise. Workshop or the brand new Kids’ Ministry: From Leading to Legos Workshop with Ted Bryant. Register by March 12 to get the early bird discount for you and your team!

 by Mark Waltz, Pastor of Connections & MultiSite