Pastors, what are your goals for 2013?
Whatever they are, I’d like to encourage you to include at least one goal that helps other churches.
Helping other churches is a multiplication strategy. If you can help someone else do what you do well, you’ve doubled your effectiveness. More importantly, Genesis 12 indicates we are blessed to be a blessing. Helping others has always been God’s intention for his people, particularly for leaders.
How We Stumbled into Helping
New Song started helping other churches almost by accident. Three years after we launched the church, I had to lay off our entire staff.
We were transitioning from the “portable church” stage into a 24/7 lease situation, and it was obvious we weren’t going to have enough to pay our staff and our lease.
So we wrote pink slips which said: “We may not be able to pay your full salary for the next few months, but we’ve always lived by faith and we hope you’ll stay on. We believe God will provide for you until we grow into our increased budget.”
Each of our guys agreed to pray and see what would happen.
The next day, my Associate Pastor, Scott Evans, got a call from a church, asking if they could pay him to produce a mailer similar to the ones we had been sending to our neighbors.
Another church called the following week.
Scott began offering his services to more churches, and eventually Outreach, Inc. was born. Seventeen years later, Outreach has served more than 90,000 churches with mailers and other marketing tools because of a pink slip and a nudge from the Lord.
How to Get Started
1. Find out what God is up to.
The week before churches began to call, Scott and I had read Henry Blackaby’s Experiencing God. Henry’s chief tenant is Find out what God is up to and join him in his work. God is always at work around you. What is he doing in you or through you or around you that might benefit other churches?
2. Figure out what you do well.
One clue to how you might help is by figuring out what you do better than other churches. We’re all good at something. What’s your strength?
3. When you solve a problem, share the solution.
If your church has a problem, chances are others have that same problem. When you develop a solution, share it!
4. Don’t be afraid to share.
Church leaders are sometimes tempted to think they’re in competition with other churches. Not so. Other churches are our teammates. They want to win others to Christ as fervently as we do.
The competition is the beach, the sports league, the Internet and other distractions that keep people from considering church and Jesus on Sunday mornings. There are plenty of unchurched people to go around!
Sharing has changed our hearts.
