Tag: tony morgan

Posted on

Velocity 2010 Session and Breakout Notes

velocity-buttonVelocity 2010 Church Planting Conference

Mountain Lake Church was not able to ramp up their bandwidth for the WIFI network in time for the Velocity 2010 Church Planters Conference. This was like a forced Blogging and Twitter fast for me, but it wasn’t a bad thing. All of my attention was on the speakers and taking old school notes 🙂

Here is a landing page for all of the notes I was able to take (now posted on my blog) for each session, except session 5, and for the Breakouts I attended, some of the notes may not make any sense to you, they probably will not make much sense to me once I go back and review some of them, because several of the speakers had in-depth studies and terms that I couldn’t record before they moved on:

Main Session 1: Shawn Lovejoy
Main Session 2: Alan Hirsch
Main Session 3: Steven Furtick
Breakout Session 2: Pete Wilson
Main Session 4: Dave Gibbons
Breakout Session 3: Tony Morgan
Main Session 6: Rick Warren

Posted on

Velocity 2010 – Tony Morgan

tonymorgan-buttonVelocity 2010 Church Planting Conference

Breakout #3 Speaker: Tony Morgan (Twitter)

“The Giant Inflatable Blue Monkey”

You can’t have a clear communication strategy without a clear discipleship strategy

People enter the church at Point A and hopefully we’ll move them to Point B (A fully devoted follower of Christ)

The steps that happen between Point A and Point B helps determine the effectiveness of people moving from Point A to Point B

*The churches ministries & processes are the “Steps” to get from Point A to Point B*

Too many choices make decisions more difficult – which can lead to paralysis (or sitting in neutral)

Complexity Creep – We keep plugging new things in, without unplugging old things.

It helps by first defining what a fully devoted follower of Christ looks like for your church.

Our message should be focused…Jesus’ message was focused.

Questions Each Church Should Ask:

  1. What Event or Program requires a pulpit announcement in order for it to succeed?
  2. What would you NOT participate in if you were not the pastor or leader?
  3. Does this program reach people outside the church? Or does it satisfy insiders?
  4. Where is the fruit?

Are the next steps clearly communicated?

When all ministries of a church are communicating about their ministries at the same time, it produces chaos!

5 Basic Communication Strategies:

  1. Clarify Missions, Vision, & Values
  2. Develop a Focused Strategy
  3. Consistency in Branding & Voice
  4. Prioritize your Message
  5. Be Intentional to Eliminate Competing Messages

It is possible to do the work of God, without doing the work God has called you to do.

Every time we say yes to things outside our vision it pulls us away from what we are called to do.

75-80% of people come to a church because of an invitation from a trusted source (friend/family)

Build through relationships not through promotions (promoting things)

Velocity Conference: Main Session 1 Highlights – – Main Session 2 Highlights – – Main Session 3 Highlights – – Breakout Session 2 with Pete Wilson Highlights – – Main Session 4 Highlights – – Main Session 6 Highlights

Posted on

Killing Cockroaches by Tony Morgan

killing-cockroaches-reviewIf I could describe Killing Cockroaches by Tony Morgan in one sentence, it would look something like this. I would run a commercial and on one side I would have Tony Morgan and on the other I would have John Maxwell. Tony would start off by saying “Hello, I’m a Mac” John would follow “…and I’m a PC!“

Don’t get me wrong, I love John Maxwell, he is Mr. Leadership, and I am sure Tony has learned a thing or two from him, but I also love my Grandma, but she would have a tough time telling me how to relate to my generation. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and here are a few reasons why:

  • 18-34: That’s Me! I am 28 years old and Killing Cockroaches is a leadership book that spoke to me, kept my attention, and has a huge focus on helping the church reach my generation.
  • Simple: Its clean and its in an easy to read format. I hate books with small fonts with the spacing all scrunched in together. A book with 234 pages worth of reading content ends up being more like 568 pages. Tony uses bullet points to keep your attention on the important principles or thoughts he wants to keep your attention on, oh yeah, its a leadership book and it has no graphs!
  • No Chapters: Huh? No Chapters. Yeah, that’s right. You could just keep reading all day if you are a chapter a day kind of reader.
  • Interesting: I am a slow reader. I like to take my time and I like to highlight things that speak to me or that catch my attention. My white page book is now yellow 🙂 Here is one huge reason why I would read another Tony Morgan book over another John Maxwell book. Tony kept my attention. I can’t tell you how many books I’ve laid down because it was boring. Its kind of like why people are leaving our churches…its boring!
  • Sandwiched: All through the book you get sandwiched  in by great stories. You’ll be reading about Tony duct taping his rented Mustang hood down, and then out of nowhere, he hits you with some thoughts and principles that are relative to you as a leader, whether you are a Mac or a PC.
  • New Ways to Say Old Things: A wise man once said that there is nothing new under the sun. He said that before the iPhone was even created, pretty profound. Tony says a lot of new things, because they come from his personal experiences, but he also reinforces principles that will never change, but he says it in new and creative ways, so leaders can re-think how they are implementing or practicing those principles.
  • Leadership Empowers: Tony mentions in the book that you are not a leader if you feel you have to be say something to be heard. There are several articles in the book where Tony is silent and allows other big time leaders to share their thoughts, struggles, and wisdom on leading. I love that he gave up so much of his book to allow others an opportunity to invest into our lives.
  • My Favorite Quote: “If we are to achieve results never before accomplished, we must expect to employ methods never before attempted.” Sir Francis Bacon – This reminded me of what Craig Groeschel said in a recent conference: “To reach the people no one else is reaching, we have to do what no one else is doing.” I love these quotes because it reminds me that we can never quit learning, we can never stop adapting, because there are people we need to be reaching with the Gospel.
  • Open Ended: Alot of the book is left open ended to give you the opportunity to think about what is being discussed or to answer the questions being asked. I like being able to be involved in what I am reading.

I loved this book and highly recommend that you buy it and read it if you have not done so already. Tony Morgan blogs at http://www.tonymorganlive.com. You can subscribe to his blog and stay on top of his thoughts on leadership and ministry. You can also follow Tony on Twitter by Clicking Here.

To purchase Killing Cockroaches on Amazon Click Here. Its also available on the Kindle. For a further review of the book Click Here.