Ready or Not, Here it Comes!!! - Part 3 (Repost)

Today we finish an article on How to Slay the Monster of Sunday. I would love to hear your feedback. Feel free to leave a comment,

Thanks,

Matt Keller

Taming the Monster of Sunday

(Help for Pastors under Pressure)

7. Use a Wall of Sundays to organize your thoughts. The way to see the long-range rhythm of your year is to have a place to put your creative thoughts when they come to you. We started doing this about 3 years ago and our wall of Sundays has become life to me and our team. I have to see things big and as a team, we need to plan ahead.

Here’s a picture of our most current Wall-of-Sundays.

8.  Practice your messages. Some pastors will say they want to "make sure the emotion of the moment comes through on Sunday," or that "you can't rehearse the anointing." But I think that's just an excuse. You wouldn't say that to your worship team. If we want our worship team to rehearse and come prepared, then so should we. It took me awhile to get used to practicing my messages out loud, but for me, there's no better way to actually get the content into your mind and spirit.

I can't tell you how many times I will be practicing my message in my home office on Saturday night and hear myself say something a certain way. In those moments, I'll actually stop and say out loud, "That didn't sound right. Don't say it that way again." ThenI’ll go back to the beginning of that section or story and practice saying it a different way.

By the way, for those of you who do multiple services, remember, first service is not your practice. We can either sweat in preparation or bleed in battle. I don't know about you, but I would rather sweat in preparation.

The Result:

As a communicator who now speaks 150 - 200 times/year as well as writes consistently, it is vital that I have a sustainable rhythm for message preparation and content. There's no way I could live out my calling otherwise.

If you're a communicator, begin to strategically work on developing your own rhythm. It will serve you well for years to come.

Ready or Not, Here it Comes!!! - Part 2 (Repost)

On Monday, we began talking about the burden of "Every 7 days, ready or not" in the ministry...

Here's part 2...

Taming the Monster of Sunday - Part 2

(Help for Pastors under Pressure)

4.  Learn to write to 80%. When I say that I'm 4 to 6 weeks ahead in message prep, this is what I mean. I have a goal to have the main points, verses and illustrations laid out (or 80% of the message) weeks in advance. This gives me peace of mind knowing that on any given week, I'm simply microwaving the message up to 95% on Monday morning, rather than trying to start from scratch every week.

5.  I write on Mondays. The common theme for most pastors is to want to jump in front of a bus on Mondays, but I have found that if I can get in the zone and think of it as a continuation of the day before, I'm actually capable of some pretty amazing creativity. The benefit of locking in my message on Monday is:

• I feel extremely productive. Doing what I do best on Mondays, rather than all the to-do list stuff, makes me feeling like a million bucks and sets me up for a more productive week.
• I don't feel as swamped later under all the details of church. Church work can drain you. And carrying the pressure of Sunday's message on your shoulders while I'm dealing with detail stuff during the week can be overwhelming. Details put me on edge, which is not good for my team.
• I have a clear mind to lead and make decisions. When the pressure of Sunday is off, the more confident I feel in my decision making. The bigger our church gets, the more pressure I feel on a decision making level. Having a handle on Sunday early in the week, helps me feel more empowered to make decisions that need to be made during the week.

6.  Learn to see "Sparks" everywhere. For any communicator, the distance from zero to a creative spark is infinity, but once you have the spark, the rest of the content for a message can flow pretty quickly. If you have to communicate on a weekly basis, you'll have to develop the art of seeing sparks for messages everywhere. I see sparks everywhere, so much so, that there are lots of messages that I never have opportunity to develop or preach anywhere. But just developing the discipline of seeing the sparks helps me as a communicator.

The second key to seeing the sparks is having a place to put them once you see them. That's where the Wall of Sundays comes in for me. Whether I use them or not, at least I know I have somewhere to put them.

Part 3 comes on Friday...

Ready or Not, Here it Comes!!! - Slaying the Monster of Sunday (Repost)

This week I am reposting an article I wrote for pastors & leaders who feel like they can't get ahead on their Sunday Message content. There's hope for you...

I hope this helps,

Matt Keller

Taming the Monster of Sunday

(Help for Pastors under Pressure)

One of the most taxing things about being a lead pastor is the drain of having to come up with completely new, creative, thought-provoking, challenging, engaging, funny, life-changing content every 7 days. I like to call it the Monster of Sunday. It's always licking at your heels and if we, as the primary communicators of our church, can't figure out a way to tame that monster, it will eventually become our undoing & hold us back from reaching the full potential of our calling.

Over the past eight years, I’ve learned a ton about my rhythm as a communicator. Hopefully these tips will help you as well…

1. Learn your Personal Rhythm. My personal rhythm is 6 weeks. After that, I need a change. If I speak more than 6 weeks in a row at Next Level Church, my creativity, drive and passion begin to sag. I know I’m not giving our people my best. Consequently, as a rule, I will not speak more than 6 Sundays in a row.

2.  Get out of your own reality. In order for me to remain creative, I need a change of perspective. Therefore, I build into my yearly schedule the opportunity to travel and speak in other churches a few times a year. Being away from home, helps me keep the greater vision of THE Local church in my mind. I can get tunnel vision otherwise.

I highly recommend for pastors to “sow into another man’s field.” For me this looks like developing relationships with pastors who are "a couple of steps behind us” and offering to pay my own way to come and invest in their church for a weekend.

When I travel and work with other churches, I learn from them as well. I get fresh ideas and perspective when I get out of my own pulpit.

3. Get 4 to 6 weeks ahead in message preparation. One of the ways I avoid the Monster of Sunday is by staying 4 to 6 weeks ahead in my message preparation. We short-change our content and our people when we write messages the week of. There are just some creative ideas that need time to marinate. And writing a message on Saturday afternoon, isn't sufficient time enough for that to happen adequately.



We'll continue with Part 2 on Wednesday...

A New Year's Challenge for Your Leadership Growth. I dare you to...

Hey leaders, I got one for ya. I challenge every leader reading this right now to take this personal growth challenge in 2011. I call it a "Thinker Saturation."

Here's what it is:

When you find an author, leader or communicator that you admire in some area (finance, leadership, marketing, team-building, etc.) make a decision to "saturate" yourself in how they think for 3 months.
For an entire quarter of your year, dunk yourself in everything that leader writes, says, blogs, records, or tweets.

This information is so easily available on the internet and costs next to nothing to acquire.

Over time, you'll start to pick up on themes in how they think, how they make decisions, etc. You'll also pick up themes of how you listen to them.

A Real-Time Illustration:

I did this recently with Author and Thought-Leader, Seth Godin. (SethGodin.com) For several years now, I've really admired the thoughts & writings of Seth Godin. Seth is what I consider to be the premiere mind in the marketing world today. Brilliant.

So, for 3 months, I decided to saturate myself in how Seth thinks. I did a google search for "Free Seth Godin Audio" and then spent an hour downloading every podcast and interview I could find, putting them in a file on my iTunes that sync's to my iPod.

Then, for the next 90 days, whenever I would work out, or was in the car, I listened to those audios. I'll end up listening to each one 2 or 3 times. Sure, it is redundant, but repetition is a phenomenal teacher.

In addition to listening to Seth, I subscribed to his blog and read or re-read several of his key books. After 90 days, here's what I learned:

1.  How Seth processes information for decision making.

2.  How Seth sees ideas everywhere.

3.  Seth Godin is Courageous. The main reason I love Seth Godin is because he is courageous. He breaks all the rules & succeeds at it very well! I need more influencers in my life who do that!

Now It's Your Turn:

So, here's the challenge... pick 4 thought-leaders and saturate yourself in each one for 90 days next year. I'll even give you the homework for the first one (if you want to use Seth Godin) click here. That's all the audios I downloaded in an hour.

Imagine what your personal leadership growth could look like a year from today if you saturated yourself in 4 premiere thought leaders this year.

I dare you to take the challenge. It could be the most valuable decision you make this year.

How I think about Discouragement - Part 2

#2: Discouragement is Temporary.

The best thing to remember when discouragement hits is that it's not forever! I have adopted a phase that says, "Don't worry, Matt, it won't look like this forever." When I was a kid I used to love watching these painter guy on PBS after school. Inevitably he would start whatever he was painting with some horrible shade of gray or tan. I can remember thinking, "What are you doing? That's gonna look horrible!" But somehow, within a few minutes he had turned that clump of gray into a cool picture.

Discouragement is a snapshot, not a whole picture. When we're in a season of discouragement it's easy to begin thinking that this is the whole picture of your life. What we must remember is that it's just a snapshot, not the whole thing. Don't be too quick to judge your entire life by one snapshot. That would be like summarizing someone's life by their Kindergarten picture. There's no way it could or should be done.

Where have you been tempted to Over-estimate your life in light of a discouraging season you find yourself in?

Just a bloggish thought,

matt

5 Words I Use to Describe my Team - Part 1

This week I want to zoom in on the Leadership Team that God has placed inside of Next Level Church. There is no doubt in my mind that our organization would not be where we are today if it weren't for the efforts of the team around me. This week is dedicated to the 5 words I use to describe the team around me.

"Friends..."

I am truly one of the luckiest guys in the world (& I don't even believe in luck) because each and everyday I get to go to work with my best friends! I remember hearing one pastor say, "I try to find people I love to hang out with and then hire them!" That's the way I feel. I love being friends with the people I work with everyday. Not just office mates, but friends.

1. They are people I love to do life with. We spend a lot of time together, and we all just genuinely love doing life together.

2. They are people I can be real with. I don't want to live in a plastic world! Authenticity is a huge driver of the culture of NLC, and I love that our staff feel so comfortable to be real with one another. We laugh together, cry together, pray for each other and are vulnerable.

3. They are people I want to invest my life with. As a leader, I take seriously the idea that I'm not just living my life, I'm investing it. We will never get back this 24 hours. I love that I get to invest large amounts of time with the people on my team! They are truly rock stars!

Is your team, your friends? If not, why not?  and if so, why?  Tell them this week how much they mean to you and your organization!

I love my team,

Matt

The Thing about Being a Pastor

One of the craziest things about being a Pastor is that you have to live what you're preaching! So we're in this series called Pete's Blog... a journal of trust. For 4 weeks, we're talking about Trusting God. In the Storm, in the face of Unconventional Thinking, etc.

Well, trust me when I say I've had to live this whole trust deal! Wow. Let me just go on record and say that Pastors don't live in a bubble. We face the same challenges and real-life issues as everyone else.

I'm excited about the new places in God that "Trust Tests" are taking me.

If you haven't heard the messages, I highly recommend downloading them asap. Especially if you're going through a "Testing Time." 4 ways to do that:

1. Order a CD at the Resource Table on Sundays at NLC.

2. Go to www.NextLevelChurch.com and click resources, then listen to messages. You can listen through live streaming or.

3. Right click and then save target as to download the mp3 to your desktop. At that point you can make your own cd's if you want!!!

4. Go to iTunes, click on podcasts, then search Next Level Church. Click on us, and all of our messages are available to automatically sinc with your iPod.

5. You can also subscribe through iTunes as well. Simply click subscribe and you'll start getting each and every week's message automatically in your iTunes library and on your iPod. (I highly recommend this option by the way!) What a great way to make sure you are feeding your spirit every week.

I'm so excited about Part 3 of Pete's Blog.

See you Sunday at 9 am and 10:45 am.

Matt