Encouragement Walk Out Video from Chuck Scoggins on Vimeo.

Producer: Chuck Scoggins
Writers: Chuck Scoggins & Beau Bekemeier
Video Elements: Beau Bekemeier
After Effects Compositing: Kyle Bradley & Chuck Scoggins
Voice Over: Brad Bretz
Talent: Niles Stephens & Rick Arthur

Software: After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Adobe Soundbooth

If you missed them, here are my notes from Day 1.

Authenticity

Authenticity starts with our relationship with God. When your outside matches your inside. When you care less about impressing people and more about impacting people. When you are okay with saying, “This is how God wired me to be.”

We need to learn to lead from our weakness…like Jesus’ disciples did.

What keeps us from being authentic & how do we overcome (in groups)?

• Fear of exposure // Live in God’s light
• Fear of rejection // Trust in God’s love
• Fear of hurt // Let God give you a new heart

You have to build trust before you can give truth.

Discipleship (continued from Day 1′s discussion of the 5 purposes in small groups)

The goal of discipleship is transformation, not just information. Discipleship is about us taking on the character of Jesus. It’s about people development.

Discipleship is an ongoing process that takes time.

For an effective small group, there needs to be a balance between the health of the individual and the health of the group.

***I had to leave early and didn’t get the end of this session, but thought I’d post the uncompleted notes for those who are interested.***

For free small group resources from Saddleback, visit smallgroups.net.

Here are my notes from day one (Tim wasn’t here, so someone had to do it):

• Most churches (that have a small groups ministry) are either a church with small groups or a church of small groups.

• 10-10-80 Rule:
  10 % of people in your church will not change regardless of the persuasive evidence presented to them.
  10 % of people will always change if you give them an overwhelming amount of logical evidence to persuade them.
  80 % will change if they can go on their change journey with someone else (that is, in groups).

• Sometimes we confuse “speciality groups” with “small groups.” Specialty groups are organized around a specific activity or purpose (softball team, theology class, knitting, etc.). Small groups are formed around the 5 purposes of the church (worship, discipleship, fellowship, evangelism, and ministry). Both types of groups are important, but small groups are more spiritual-health oriented.

• Worship
  Worship in the small group context doesn’t necessarily mean sitting around in a circle with someone playing the guitar and singing. It involves surrendering your heart, remembering what God has shown you, etc. Practically, in small groups, it means providing a context for expression and reflection, support & disclosure (surrender), sharing & support (during trials), and communal prayer.
• Fellowship
  Fellowship is not just about a meeting; it is about doing life together. There is both a formal and an informal aspect to it.
  B.E.L.O.N.G.
  B – Build [authentic connections]
  E – Experience [life together]
  L – Listen [to one another] Use the phrase “Is there anything else?” to get people to go deeper and show that you’re listening.
  O – Own [your group] Move people from “your group” to “our group.”
  N – Nurture [love] Meeting people’s needs is just as important (if not more so) as bible study.
  G – Grow [through tension]

• ASAP Is Poison
• Meetings Are Toxic
• Emulate Drug Dealers
• Planning Is Guessing

And many more.

I was going to write a full review, but then I remembered that Tim Schraeder has already done that – so instead, I’ll just invite you to go read his blog. Or, even better, go buy the book and read it yourself.

Injustice from Chuck Scoggins on Vimeo.

• We (the Creative Team at Calvary) are working on two pretty exciting upcoming series of worship gatherings. One is called “Bucket List” where we’ll be discussing the “one another” passages in the Bible. The other thing we’re working on is our Christmas series. Yes, we’re working on Christmas in August (we actually began in June). It’s going to be a pretty cool series of worship experiences. Stay tuned right here for the inside scoop on those two topics.

• A lot (no, really…nearly every one of my colleagues) just got back from a conference in TX called Echo. I didn’t get to go, but following several notes on Twitter and blog posts, it sounds like a really great conference. I’m really bummed that I missed it, but I am pretty excited about going next year. I’m really glad that many of my good friends who are doing really important work in church communications and media got a chance to be equipped and refreshed.

• Since I missed Echo, I was really excited about going to a conference coming up in Sept called Story. It’s at Park Church (a beautiful building in a really great location) in Chicago. Then, I realized that it will be the same dates as our scheduled family vacation to Disney World. I’m really bummed again that I will miss a great opportunity to connect with all of my church comm friends. I am, however, looking forward to our Disney get-away. All that to say, if you are in any field where storytelling is important (and when is it not?), you should check out Story (if it’s not sold out by now)[edited:Story is now sold out, so you'll have to go with me next year].

• There is a new book that is scheduled to hit in the Fall that I think is going to change the face of church communications. It is called OUTSPOKEN and it is being written by an all-star list of contributors. I’m super-excited (almost freakishly excited about it…if you didn’t know better, you’d think it was my book). Be sure to follow OUTSPOKEN on Twitter, like it on Facebook, and watch Tim’s blog to keep up with the latest news about the book.

• I’m about 5 weeks in to teaching this quarter’s Design & Media course at Lindenwood University. Each new session presents a new set of surprises, challenges, etc. It’s fun to teach others what I’ve learned and to continually learn from others. I seriously learn something new each week – even though I’m supposed to be teaching. I have an awesome group of great people as students this time. I’m going to try to post some of their best projects in the next few weeks.

• Finally, this past weekend was consumed with Mark & Rae’s wedding. The Michalski’s are close friends of our family (they’re really more like family) and Rae is like the daughter I never had. Amy (my wife) coordinated the wedding and Trip & Quinn (my children) were the ring bearers (or, as they say it, ring barrels). I was honored to do the welcome and opening prayer in the ceremony and it was a fantastic week of two young people expressing their love and commitment. As all weddings are, it was a great reminder of my love and commitment for my awesome wife, and Christ’s amazing covenant love with us, his bride. It was an exhausting weekend…but it was a lot of fun!

That’s it for the Random Thoughts on Tuesday. I’d love to hear what’s on your mind in the comments!

The premise (as I understand it) is when a company has a creative need (video, print, web, branding, etc), GWC connects the company with some of the world’s top artists. Ten percent of the fee that the artist charges goes right back to GWC where they use it to “do good” – primarily by using those funds to help non-profits with their creative needs.

As a person who is passionate about helping non-profits, churches, and small businesses reach their creative potential – potential that only big companies have been able to traditionally afford – I think this is an epic endeavour.

Hit up Good World Creative’s website and if you need any creative work done, be sure and “do good.”

Here’s the low-res PDF.

Congratulations Rae & Mark!

Background
Perhaps some quick background information might help. About a year ago, we were producing a weekly bulletin. It was bloated and full of information that was irrelevant to the majority of our target audience. Our metrics were showing that few people were reading the information in it and it was pretty ineffective. On top of that, it wasn’t providing us with the opportunity to tell the Calvary story, one of our stated goals for the publication.

Our Monthly Bulletin Journey
So, about 6 months ago, after some inspiration from Tim Schraeder and Park Church, we decided to move to a monthly format where we would produce the bulletin once-per-month but hand it out to every attender every week. It still had an over-dose of information in it, but the layout was much more aesthetically pleasing and provided us an opportunity for storytelling. Perhaps the biggest up-side to the monthly format is that it allowed the Communications Team to work together with the Leadership Team to create a communication plan for the upcoming month (determining which ministries and events  would be promoted at what time and in what venues – bulletin, service promotional videos, platform announcements, website, etc.).

There were some significant growing pains. At first, our staff was not very fond of the advanced deadlines to the monthly format. We also had to print a weekly “insert” to cover all the information that came in after the print deadline or that pertained to a specific campus. In spite of all its down-sides, it was a significant improvement over our previous weekly format. That is, until a few weeks ago…

Full Circle
A few weeks ago we realized that we were losing a significant amount of readership (and, thus, event registrations, information dissemination, etc) in the later weeks of the month and it was causing a strain on our ministries’ ability to function. So, the Communications Team entered once again into a dialogue with our Leadership Team and came to an agreement that we would return to the weekly bulletin format with some stipulations. The main stipulation is that we would still determine what would be in the bulletin for the given weeks of a month in advance as part of an overarching communications plan. This would allow us to remove information about events that had passed (less noise and clutter) earlier in the month, but still have a plan to coordinate the items remaining in the bulletin as part of the larger communications plan.

So far, after one month of implementation, the new production plan and schedule seems to be working very well. As always, time will tell how truly effective this strategy will work, but I’m very excited about the dialogue that has opened between our leadership staff and communications team as we’ve taken this journey together.