church

First Impressions Church Resources and Where to Get Them

One of the best parts of my #tourdechurches trip was that I got a slew of resources from other churches, learned how they do guest services, guest relations, hospitality, and of course manage and train their volunteers!

At least once, if not two or three times throughout the month I get contacted by another church looking for resources, trainings, and simply wanting to talk and learn from each other. My favorite part is that they are all sizes, shapes, and colors. Everyone is looking to collaborate and learn, it is a beautiful picture of how God will grow and move His church. I love that my job allows me the chance to get to network with these other churches, to learn from them, and share what I have learned.

One of the biggest things I have realized as I learn more about what I do: there is a severe lack of information about First Impressions for churches. – Even if you expand your search to guest services, guest relations, hospitality etc.. there is very little (compared to pastoring, leadership, discipleship, worship, prayer, and kids/youth ministries etc..) that can serve as a resource or training. Most of what you find are basic “tips” buzzfeed style. So, because of the lack of information, I have begun to compile information to share with you.. The best part, most of it is FREE! Boom. Winning.

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Materials for guests and volunteers at Elevation Church

Lots of churches have created their own materials and resources, but there’s little out there for assistance to learn and grow from other churches like other ministry areas.

My goal is to create a place and begin networking to find information, to learn, and share. Some of this will be excellent and others mediocre.. The helpfulness of the resources will depend on your needs and church culture most likely.

I am hugely passionate about First Impressions and the Church; it matters to me a lot. I love when I get to train my own leaders and volunteers, or when I get to spend time with other churches doing the same thing. #Sameteam

I want to become a resource for people trying to learn how to reach others from different cultures, beliefs, backgrounds better. Understanding where they are coming from so you know how to engage with them, make them feel loved and cared for is hugely important. Paul was so great at this!

When I went on my Tour de Churches (You can read a bit about it here), I learned some cool things that you should know!

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A few of the Grow Network Materials

Church of the Highlands in Birmingham Alabama has a Grow Network, and IT IS FREE. You can sign up and they will help you grow your church! They have thousands of resources… all free!

Also, while I am at it, here are a few articles I have found on Hospitality and First Impressions for the Church. (Most of which are a couple of years old at this point):

Should Your Church Stop Having a Stand and Greet Time? – By Thom Rainer

Top Ten Ways Churches Drive Away First-Time Guests – By: Thom Rainer

Christian Hospitality is Key to Being and Inviting Church – Huffington Post

Inviting Someone to Church Without Being Awkward – Existence Church

Many of the resources I have found, like these below, are more just basics…
Sort of like a “First Impressions or Hospitality 101” for Churches:

Implementing Hospitality – Churchleadership.org

Fix Your Church Hospitality 

First Impressions: Ten Ways to Make Guests Feel Welcome

Then, there are some very helpful “outsider” perspectives that I think everyone should read, consider, and share with other church attenders to help everyone understand:

10 Common First Impressions Mistakes that Churches Make

Also, because I think it is helpful Google Church First Impressions and learn more… Read it all! – No, seriously, read as much as you can from as many different perspectives as possible.

Become a student of what it feels like to be an outsider to the church; because the longer you have been an ‘insider’ the harder it is to remember what it was like to be an outsider.

 

What does Scripture say about First Impressions?

Read more about the topic here, here, and here! – Also, keep coming back because I will be blogging more about the scriptural basis for First Impressions in the upcoming weeks and months. Coming soon are some stories that help to put all of this into perspective as to why First Impressions at Churches matters so much to me.

More resources and blog posts to come.

Do you have Hospitality, First Impressions resources and materials to share?

Do you have any questions?

Comment below!

#TourDeChurches for First Impressions

Passion City Church “Welcome to Church” Shipping Container

A few weeks ago, I went on my own “conference” of sorts and plotted and planned to visit as many churches as I could in a week’s time. I have finally caught up enough and processed enough that I feel I can begin to share what I learned along the way! There will be many posts likely coming from this, but this is a good place to start the processing and conversation!

I am so thankful that my boss came up with the idea, and pushed me to make it as large and encompassing as I could manage!

I deemed my trip Tour-De-Churches.

It was the best, most refreshing, but also entirely overwhelming experience I have had in quite a long time!

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To help you follow along, and also create a space for networking for you as well, I went to:
Crosspoint in Nashville, TN (Talked with Kylie)
Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, AL (Talked with Janah and Amy)
Passion City, Atlanta (Talked with Stephanie)
Northpoint, Atlanta (Talked with several staff members)
Newspring, South Carolina (Was hosted by Sarah, but met with SO many staff members/teams)
Elevation, North Carolina (Talked with Stephen)

Also, when I was at Northpoint, I attended their NP Lead Labs one day conference, which was awesome and a great (inexpensive) learning conference for churches to help them engage non-believers! But, it was also SUCH an amazing way to network with other churches. – I met some amazing people doing really cool things and had great discussions because of this!

One of the unexpected positives from my #Tourdechurches is that it is just nice sometimes to be around other people who are doing church ministry, and realize in solidarity how difficult it can be. It is intensely draining on you mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally and you must be careful to hit the reset button and refresh.

Here are some of the highlights that I learned:

Guest Relations,

Guest Services,

and First Impressions looks different EVERYWHERE you go. 

Cultivating a first impressions experience for guests is different for church. The strategy of every church I visited had vastly different goals. – Each of them the purpose crafted the experiences to be very different.

Every Church that I met wants to learn as much as they can from others. – #Sameteam

If your church does not have money/budget to spend on first impressions things: Every church I met with agreed, THE best way to create a friendly environment is how your volunteer teams are trained and are greeting and welcoming your guests.

If you are on a church staff: One of the most valuable things I have learned, be certain and clear about your goal each Sunday morning in regards to First Impressions, volunteers, and the guest experience. – Communicate it clearly and often.

Love. On. Your. Volunteers. – This was the biggest thing I saw globally at each church. They love on their volunteers well; the best ones create amazing community among serving teams and go above and beyond to take care of them.
Also, feed your volunteers! – Snacks, lunch, something, feed them as much as possible! haha

A great litmus test I learned: Take a few of your key staple pieces of materials, and ask someone who is not in your church (maybe is not even a believer), and see if it is clear, makes sense, do they understand it?… Test to see if you are using the right language.

If you think it is clear, it probably isn’t. The thing I think stood out to me the most is that there is a huge lack of clarity on the part of new guests. If you think something is clear, they are probably too confused to notice.

Smile and step into awkwardness. You must be ever-conscious of your face – Smile. Smile. Smile. But also, if you do not recognize or know someone, it IS your job (and that of your volunteers) to go say hello and introduce yourself.

Training. It is crucial; literally the life-blood of your teams to train them well. But, not just train them HOW to do their jobs, but also WHY what they do is important. – Also, simple piece of advice, never stop learning yourself.

I have a few additional blog posts here, here and here about this if you want to learn more! (with many more to come)

To Be Continued…

More to come.. I have a whole list of resources to share from these churches. That is coming next blog post! (I’ll back-post a link to this post once it’s up!)
I also plan on sharing some (attributed to anonymous) stories of people who had good or bad experiences, and talking through what I have learned in and through these situations…. Basically, stay tuned, there is so much more coming!

Have questions? Post in the comments!

Yes, It Is Normal…

I want to be known for my blending of Grace and Truth exactly perfectly…

Unfortunately, I tend towards Truth naturally and really have to work on being better at HOW I say things.

And, in the spirit of honesty, one of my biggest struggles is learning how to blend Grace into my words to mitigate my natural leaning towards Truth in a way that reflects the Holy Spirit and Jesus well.

You see, I believe that one of the biggest tricks the devil uses against us is making us to feel like we are isolated. I think often many do not share openly their lives in a way that could be helpful to someone else because it is personal, private, and feels intimate… But, if we are alone, and if that thing we are struggling through is believed to be abnormal, if we are the only one, then clearly we are weak or there is something wrong with us…

I regularly find myself in conversations with people that allows for me to share my own story, struggles, and in a completely honest light offer them authentic encouragement because, after all, we are now in this struggle together.

Over the last few months, I have been given this amazing opportunity to share about my ministry/job with other churches around the country. Some of them were referred to me, others found my name and title (First Impressions Director) on our website, and others I am not entirely sure how they found me. But, I have gotten to talk to them, encourage their ministries, hearts, and share whatever information I could about how and what I do… As well as simply connect over our common bond of “overwhelmed but passionate” for our ministries.

One of the biggest things I have come to realize, regardless of the ministry, church size and even occupation, it needs to be said frequently: 

What you are feeling, that’s normal. 

It doesn’t really matter what you’re feeling:
Overwhelmed,
Annoyed,
Blessed,
Content,
Frustrated,
Excited,
Like you’re drowning,
Struggling,
Overjoyed,
Dry inside,
Agitated,
Numb, etc…
AALLL of the feelings are normal, they are being experienced by someone else also in your same place trying to keep that same pace.

I have been asked SO many times, “How do you manage it all?”

And, my very real and honest answer:

Sometimes I handle it well, flawlessly, and feel energized!…

Aaand then other times, I find myself binge watching Netflix with a glass of wine and snacks, locked away in my room with my puppy for six hours. – Totally healthy coping mechanism 🙄

Sometimes my daily Jesus time is SO GOOD! Then all of a sudden I look up and it’s been TWO WEEKS and I’m not entirely sure where my Bible is even located.

Sometimes my journal and prayers are overflowing, and other times I just sit and stare blankly.

Sometimes I wake up looking forward to my day, having slept well and stoked about what I have planned. Other times I hit snooze until I’m late for work (sorry boss!) and have to bolt out the door without brushing my teeth (I promise I make up the work time)!

Sometimes I go to the gym and eat so well totally dominating the meal prepping for the week. Other times I can’t even remember the last time I ate something other than fast food.

Sometimes I am overwhelmed with the love and joy for my job and life. Other times I am just overwhelmed with a heavy and discouraged heart.

Life is hard. 

Following Jesus is hard. 

Life and following Jesus are all real things, real struggles, authentic joys and sorrows, love and hate, anger and repentance. These are normal life things that so many try to hide or pretend are not a normal part of their lives. Why are we not highlighting the good, bad, beautiful and ugly as ENTIRELY normal?!

Some days we will feel ready to go and like we can conquer the world. Other days we will do all we can to merely survive the day. 

So, Yes, it (whatever “it” is) is normal. 

Don’t let the smiles, adventures, Instagrams, Facebook posts, snapchats or 30 second conversations of and with others fool you… We are all swinging back and forth on this pendulum of so good, and really just trying to survive the suck.

 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer; and our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort.”– 2 Corinthians 1:3-7

Trust me, those feelings are normal, and experienced by others! Share your feelings with others, be honest, choose to help someone else see their feelings are normal and accepted too.

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Generosity is the Key…

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I have always sorta known that being generous was important. Without realizing it, I saw it growing up in my parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents etc.. I understood that they were kind and loving, but I do not think I interpreted their actions as generous at the time because it was just sorta how they were.

Grandparents on both sides of my family were generous with food… Literally feeding everyone who came and went from their house. People in my family seem to be known for taking people in to live with them… and feeding them. They always had things to give them, and lived a life that repeatedly said “people are more important than things” – Sometimes actually repeating this mantra.

Now that I am grown, and trying my best at this adulting thing, I have realized so many of the ways that my parents were generous. My parents never ran out of time for you. Hours upon hours have been spent talking and spending time with people in my house growing up. Sometimes it was me and my siblings that needed the time, other instances it was cousins or other family members, students, co-workers, friends; regardless, my parents have always been generous with their time.

Growing up it would drive me bonkers because we were endlessly late places. – Why? Why could my dad not stop talking and get in the car so we could go?!… Looking back, so many hours were spent in parking lots and at restaurants giving people what only my dad could give, and what people needed most: his time. People are drawn to my parents, to their kindness, to their wisdom, to their knowledge, to their genuine authenticity, and to the joy and love that they spill out to everyone. Whether people realized it or not, they have always been drawn to the way that Jesus exudes from my parents.

Thankfully, I feel like these traits of my parents has been passed on to me and all of my siblings.

I never totally understood growing up what was happening because generosity was just a part of our family… But, because we did not have money, I had separated in my mind that generosity was supposed to mean with your money, everything else was sorta just how my family was.

As an adult, I realize how flawed and totally wrong that perspective was. So totally wrong.

Being generous certainly can include money.. which is why I think tithing and gifting is so important. It helps you separate yourself from the control that money can have on you. But, in reality, generosity is so much more pervasive and multi-dimensional that just currency.

Generosity of any kind changes people’s lives.

Generosity has a rippling effect that impacts people we will never meet face to face.

I find that as I get older, I take note of the generous people in my lives and are drawn to them, respect them, and desire to surround myself with them at an ever-increasing level.

Two of the most generous people I have ever met are my lead pastor Mark Batterson and his wife Lora. I do not really understand how they always find the time, money, and attitudes of generosity, but they do, endlessly. Pastor Mark says all the time that he wants those who know him best to respect him the most; and it is true. The more you get to know him, the more you respect him; I am fascinated by how true this fact plays out, even working at the church that he has been pastoring for 20 years! He and his wife’s giving spirits are so built into their lives that I do not even think they realize some of the ways they are generous. Interactions with them are teeming with graciousness, kindness, and generosity… So much so that it is tangible!

Sometimes, I think my friends get tired of how much I love and respect this next person (who I have only met once); but Josh Garrels is another person whose generosity has made a huge difference in my life. I shared once a while ago about how much his generosity weathered me through a horrible season because he put his albums up on Noisetrade for free. This week I was once again reminded of his double blessing generosity; he put out on Noisetrade an anniversary album that included bonus tracks, and instrumental tracks from his album Home. While the album is free until April 28th, he also included a note that any tips you leave him on Noisetrade will be donated to World Relief and One Million Thumbprints (Check them out, it’s pretty amazing).  – All I could think is of the abundant generosity that exhibits of him and his wife!

Here I am as an adult, finding that the most generous thing I have to offer is my time, my joy, my kindness… and a little food certainly doesn’t hurt. People are more important than things, and letting people become more of “my people” and join my community is one of the most generous things I can do. And, oh how I love it.

I cannot always give money, but I can always give time. – Especially as I become more diligent with my time management.

I think the world can absolutely become a better place with more kindness, more generosity, and more stepping into community that is hard to love people well.

Generosity is the key to changing the world one impactful moment at a time.

The Single’s FOMO…

I was talking with a couple other girls not long ago, and we were discussing the difficulty in being single in Christian circles…

In many instances, and in many churches, getting married quickly becomes the goal or at least the thing that girls (and guys I suppose) should aim towards. Getting married young is common, and in some cases being married is seen as automatically having more maturity than single counterparts.

Quick side note before I plunge deeper into this thought; I am still firmly in the I think it would be great to find someone one day, but this post is not at all a reflection of feeling lonely or jealous of my married friends.

I know from personal experience, it is pretty frustrating to have someone who got married much younger than I am currently, try to offer encouragement in the form of “just be patient”. And, not so much because what they are saying is not true, but because they have not experienced the additional years of patience, and it can feel like they are entirely missing the feelings of desiring to find someone and being unable.

However, while we were talking the other night, we stumbled upon what I believe is the real (ok, maybe just a huge portion of the) struggle for girls (and maybe guys) as they get older and find themselves still single: The fear of missing out (fomo).

“What if I don’t get married until my mid-thirties and miss so many of the things my friends are getting to do now?”
“What if I am too old to have kids when I get married?”
“… I don’t want to miss the possible ten or more years that we could’ve spent together!”

It can definitely be hard at times to watch so many people get married young and have amazing love stories, being so happy and thankful for the person God has brought into their life… While you are still single, and in some cases single for many more years to come. Watching others have these experiences of building lives together, someone to adventure with, someone to support and encourage, families, children.. and of course someone to help you through difficult times… all while being told to be patient just feels like an insult at times. There is a very real fear of missing out on years of love, laughter, and support…

“IF I end up getting married, will I regret the years we didn’t have together?”
“IF I get married, will we be young enough to also have years and energy to enjoy each other’s company?”
“IF I do get married, will we be young enough to have the number of children I’ve always wanted?”

But, the fear goes deeper than just fear of missing out on being a 20-something with a spouse.. What if, by the time you do end up getting married, you still regret and mourn the lost years that you were single?

I do not know of many pastors or churches that even touch on these fears.

But, the reality is, both faith and hope in not just who God is, but how much He loves us, and how much our singleness (for however long we have it) bring Him glory.

I am by nature a more adventurous person, I enjoy seeing what could happen, traveling to far away places, or just sitting and talking with friends laughing until way too late into the night. And while one day, I would love to find a man, fall in love, and get married, that time is not now, and I do not regret my life so far. There have certainly been difficult seasons, and they would have been easier for sure with a partner, at the same time, I realize there are elements of things that I likely would not have learned… and would not be able to use to help someone else later.

So, in my experience, if you have a “young but older young single” person in your life, be gentle and wise in the way you encourage. For the love, do not quote Jeremiah 29:11 to them, instead take time to wade through the complicated maze that is their heart. Understand where the fears come from, and instead of offering trite quick bits of advice, take the time to share their journey with them… I have discovered that my struggle to traverse my singleness (alone) is much more satisfying when I feel like my situation is understood by someone else, I feel less alone when I am not given a quick “you just need to..” and instead, my heartaches, thoughts, fears, wondering, and desires are listened to and responded to with wisdom and insight.

Being single and fearing the potential loss of years of building a life together are real, but put in the right perspective that our God is a good God, He tenderly loves us, and looking back we will have the satisfaction that even Job experienced at the end of his (much more traumatic) journey.

Social Church Summit

I do not often post informational things or “work” style things on my blog, but I felt like this was a better and more useful Social Media Platform for sharing the content from the #SocialChurchSummit earlier today.

Some of the notes below are directly from the summit, other portions are me expounding on the information to help clarify or adding my own thoughts and recommendations.

Also, this is not a total or complete transcript or notes from every point made. This is a compilation of the ones I found to be the best and most important.

The first speaker was , and he shared about content strategy:

Content must have a solid strategy.

He shared five strategies that they utilized:
Inspiration – Churches have lots of inspiration to share! Scripture, pastor or speaker quotes, theologians etc.. All can be put to graphics, videos, meme’s etc..
Information – Churches have lots of information to share, groups, events, needs, etc..
Communication – Social media is meant to be SOCIAL. Which means things should be shared, retweeted, liked, commented on, responded to etc..
Diversification – Diversify between platforms. Obviously there simply isn’t time to cover ALL social media platforms, but choosing a few to focus on is very important.
Consistency – Posting and sharing on a regular basis is crucial to engage with the people you are trying to reach and connect with, as well as the congregation that already attends your church.

Different platforms need different messages.

“We would never close our church doors, so we would never ‘close’ our social media.” (We should be consistent and open to communicating with people in this way)

Next, the real questions is, Ok, so we must use different platforms, and change the message depending on the platform. How and what does that mean and look like?

Where to say it?:
Start by learning the basics of Facebook, then learn how to adapt that to other platforms.
Start with a Personal Profile. This will be your personal voice and face in the social media realm.
Second is a Page. This will be the corporate voice and face of the organization in the social media realm.
Third is the Groups function. In groups is where community really happens on Facebook.
Each of these are different and serve different purposes.

@seancannell shared about Marketing and Content creation…

“Good marketing won’t make up for bad content.”

Content:

  1. Know your audience
  2. Provide value
  3. Level up your production
  4. Engage your audience – Calls to action

Marketing:

  1. Optimize your videos for discovery – Name things well, tag them with key words, anything that will aid search engines to find your video.
  2. Maximize your social media channels. – Post and promote across several channels.
  3. Don’t just publish videos, build a brand. – Build a catalogue that is strategically tied together so that everything you post builds upon what you have posted previously.
  4. Review your YouTube insights. – What’s working and what’s not?.. What gets lots of views? What is not getting searched? Did a particular tag work well?

What is your Brand? Simply put, it is what people think and feel about your church/ organization.

“Content is fire, Social media is gasoline”

You can learn more about ways to utilize Youtube at your church from: Youtubeforchurches.com

@HaleyVeturis  shared about Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat, and how churches can use them effectively.

Instagram is similar to twitter but with images and videos (and no character limit)

  1. This is a fun way to connect with your audience – be sure to Follow Back.
  2. Use quality to get to quantity – Take a bunch of pictures, and post the best one. She suggested Afterlight as an app to use. Personally I also use Picstitch to create collages.
  3. Spread out your posts – 5x per week up to 1-2x a day
  4. Hashtag it. (What is a hashtag?.. The pound sign: #) – Why use a hashtag?.. It creates digital “file folders” for searching, so everyone that used that same hashtag will be added into the same “file”. – Use them to create fun or funny things. #IAmAwesome #- Make everything one word, and no punctuation is useable.

Pinterest is a virtual idea bulletin board. You can create boards for different ideas.

  1. Organize and categorize your boards. For example, “The Word” board she created has typographic scripture.
  2. Provide useful content – The “wisdom” board has content from pastors/speakers/theologians.
  3. Youtube video boards
  4. Connect with your pinners – Follow back
  5. Use strong key words – Be sure to use good searchable keywords
  6. Pin and Repin (aka share)– “Become a curator of great content”

Snapchat is an app that allows you to view videos and pictures for up to 60 seconds at a time before they go away.

  1. Usually the pictures are something you share with a friend throughout your day that is fun/silly/random.
  2. Not for churches or organizations, it is more for individuals.
  3. It is important to note that Snapchat keeps all pictures, and people can screenshot, although you are given a notification when they do.

How do you manage it all? After all, because it is social, you say things, then people respond, and then you have to respond again! Sometimes it can get overwhelming.

Be sure to:

  1. Monitor your time. (Not just with Social media, anything that takes time should be monitored.) Be sure to carve out specific time. – Many spend too much time on Social Media wasting the time that should be spent elsewhere.
  2. Set goals and develop systems for how best to approach social media.
  3. Empower people – It’s suppose to be social and interactive, but you don’t have to do it alone. You will be more successful if you do it together as a team.

Personally I have struggled with absent-mindedly going to my social media sites… So, how do you prevent absent-mindedly going to Social Media? I recommend installing the SelfControl app to help.

FaithSocial is also listed as a resource able to help churches. (They also were a main sponsor of the summit) @mick_twomey 

“It’s important to embrace both your current and future people where they are at.. Online.”

“Too many people are targeting outreach with people who have never engaged with the church before.” – You must switch how your church communicates.

Where are the churches really struggling with social media? – The ones who are struggling tend to because of resource issues. Social Media can be a pretty daunting experience because it takes time and effort to put it together and pull it off.

“Engagement and Effective Growth are tied together.”

Physical presence is critically important, but you have to be more than physical in order to be successful right now.

@djchuang shared some of the churches that are succeeding with Social/digital media:

  1. LifeChurch.TV is the most known church for social media and innovation. – They have a team set aside specifically to develop the missional use of technology. – They are also the ones that created and launched the Bible App Youversion.
  2. Mars Hill Church – Seattle
  3. Crosspoint Church – Nashville
  4. Gateway Church – TX – They also have the Table project, and it is free software for churches!
  5. Community Bible Church – TX

He DJ said that Domain extensions are going to become more popular, and the internet will no longer be just .coms.

I can think of a few other churches that I would add to this list as well, but for now I won’t add to his list.

“It’s all about storytelling – How do I get the message across on this platform?” – @garyvee – If you cannot be the best storyteller, then you need to find someone who does and can be the best storyteller on social media.

His theory and approach to social media is: Delegate a lot of the ‘not as important’ things to other people. And, we spend at least 2 hours a day on things that truly don’t matter as much because we are used to doing them, leisure, habit, laziness etc..

“Your customers are living on these platforms.” – So why would you not engage them here? – My personal perspective is that if you are in ministry (and in business) you do not get a personal view of social media, you are to suck it up and engage at the ‘modern day’ watering holes of the people who need you. Social Media is not about you when you are in ministry, it is about others… Just my personal perspective.

Outreach through In-reach.

Regardless of your personal view of social media, reaching out socially IS real, and IS personal. The more personal and relational you can be with others, the more you will connect and help them also to outreach and more effective.

The sponsors for the summit were:
FaithVillage.com
ARC Association of Related Churches
Media Fusion
Group.com
VanderBloemen Search Group

I hope that this was helpful.
If you have any questions or would like some more personalized help with your social media, feel free to contact me. Be sure to follow me on Twitter @kpbback or my Facebook page: BackIn Consulting

Go to Twitter and type in #SocialChurchSummit in the search bar and you will be able to see thoughts, comments, questions, and people engaging in the summit as well to broaden your understanding and connect with others.

Prayer Summer 2013…

My church is doing a summer prayer series, and one of the recommended readings is The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson. While I have already read this book, I am actually really excited to read it again and gain fresh perspective on it.

Yesterday was the start of a summer small group I am leading. I am excited about the group, and I am really looking forward to seeing where God leads each of us. One of the things we are doing is, today we are kicking off a 21 day prayer challenge. I am looking forward to it, but, I am even more excited to see how He chooses to reveal Himself, and all the ways He is going to answer prayers this summer. I am fully anticipating looking back on this summer and realizing how many amazing and crazy things started this summer. I am fully expecting to be blown away, even though I have no idea in what way or what area of my life. I just know I am excited.

My biggest goal this summer is to gain a larger understanding of who God is, and for who He is to be immensely expanded in my life.

I am not looking to do things ahead of God, instead I am praying and expecting Him to show up immeasurably more than I can even possibly anticipate. I figure, my imagination is pretty large and pretty extravagant… And yet, God is bigger than that, which means I think He is going to show up in some pretty intense ways in the next 21 days, 40 days, and over the course of the entire 2013 summer…. (And likely beyond.)

While I certainly have a list of specific things I am praying for and through, mostly I am just focusing on starting new habits. I am purposefully spending more time with God, but also being sure to intentionally pay attention to and create space for Him to speak to my open and listening heart.

If you would like to join the 21 day prayer challenge or the 40 day prayer challenge with me, give me your address and I will be sure to add you!

In case you have not figured it out, July’s blog theme is prayer. Should be interesting!

Share your stories with me!

What are you praying for this summer?