My Little Star

My daughter Marissa was one of the leads in her grammar school production of Seussical the Musical. Here she is singing one of her songs:

Address Objections

Salespeople are trained to anticipate and be able to overcome objections. If you don't you won't get the sale.

The same is true in preaching to a cynical audience. Most pastors speak to a agreeable bible-believing audience every week, and so this isn't a concern. But if you want your church to be filled with non-believers, in the hopes that they might eventually become believers,
you must anticipate and address objections.

It's amazing to me how seldom preachers do this. When I listen to sermons, even my bible-believing but still cynical mind starts objecting, "Yeah, but how do we even know that's true?" "Okay, but what about..." "Sure, but you're not totally being honest because..." And I find myself starting to tune out.

If you're someone who speaks to (or wants to speak to) cynical people, when you write your message picture it more like a conversation. Ask questions like, "So if I say this, what would a skeptical person say? How would they respond? And then what would I say?" Anticipate and address objections. If you don't, cynical people will tune out and not come back.

Co::Lab - Are You In?

A Vision co::Lab is a unique six-month training process born from the deep conviction that God wants every church to thrive through having a stunningly unique vision and model of ministry. I'll be leading an Auxano virtual co::Lab starting June 26. Perhaps the best investment you can make in your church is investing in clarity. So join this co::lab. Space is limited to about 8 churches, so register today!

Details at: auxano.com/colab/  

Clarity in your ministry isn't everything,

but it changes everything.

Yelp

One Sunday morning a couple weeks ago a guy here in Las Vegas woke up and had a thought that surprised him, "I think I should go to church today." It had been years since he'd been. He had no connection to any church in Las Vegas. So how does he choose where to go? What do you think he did?

He decided that he would go to the church that had the best reviews on Yelp. So he got on his computer and started looking, and decided to try our church, Verve. Not because of an advertisement we had paid for. Not because a friend had invited him. Just because people had given us good reviews on Yelp.

What does this mean for those of us who are pastors and church leaders? I'm not exactly sure, but it definitely means we live in a new world and we'd be dumb to ignore the implications. And so we better be thinking about Yelp and Facebook and how our website looks on mobile devices, and if your service sucks or is irrelevant to people who don't typically go to church -- don't think that's gonna stay a secret, and ...

Verve Documentary

One of the odd things that's happened at Verve is that we've been asked multiple times about making our church (and/or my family) a Reality TV show.  We've said no every time. But then a friend of mine, Logan, who runs a media company asked about making a documentary for us. His idea was that we could use it to create awareness about our church and do fundraising for our ministry. That felt very different - there wouldn't be endless cameras around, there wouldn't be the potential for people at Verve to feel like their stories were being exploited, etc.

So we said yes. We asked a few people at Verve if they would like to share the stories of what God has done in their lives, and my wife and I shared our story of moving to Vegas and launching the church.

Well, the documentary is now done - there's a website for it with a trailer for the movie - and it's been interesting already. The trailer had over 2,000 views in less than a week, just through word of mouth. There's a marketing company asking if they can help to get the film on TV or perhaps even a (very) limited theatrical release. (Which makes no sense to me personally, almost the whole thing is me talking!)

But anyway, check out the trailer, and pray that God uses this in a cool way for His mission in Las Vegas.

Vince Recommends...

Jack White (the brains and creative energy behind The White Stripes and The Raconteurs and Dead Weather) has put out his (I think) first solo album, and it's pretty awesome.

Blunderbus is raw and weird and honest and compelling and raucous. Great songwriting, though not quite as memorable guitar riffs as some of White's previous work.

You'll feel like you're listening to R&B in Memphis, and/or a Led Zeppelin inspired rock band, and/or an Opryland jam session at different points, but it all sounds pretty unique.

And you've got to love a guy who puts the word "eponymous" in a song title.

Check it out.  And you're welcome.

Hustle

Some great posts from Todd Henry this week. This one was great, and I LOVEd this post, quoted below:

If you hustle – all out, fully hustle – and you succeed, then you gain the satisfaction of a job well done. If you hustle and fail, you never have to worry about what might have been if you’d given everything.

If you slack off, you might get lucky and still succeed, but there’s little satisfaction other than the temporary thrill of escaping with your life. If you slack off and fail, you have to live forever with not knowing what you were truly capable of.

Hustling is the best insurance policy against lifelong regret.