Summary of College Ministry | Gentrified

Posted by Todd Engstrom in austin stone, college ministry on September 9, 2009

Ever wondered what we’re up to with college this time of the year?

Check out my friend Logan Gentry’s post on what’s happening, starting with Austin Stone on Campus.

Below is the twitter chatter from ASOC…good stuff!

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Realtime results for “austin stone”

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Launching a Church Adoption Fund Webinar | ABBA Fund Blog

Posted by Todd Engstrom in adoption on September 8, 2009

My friend Jason Kovacs from The Abba Fund is doing a webinar on setting up an adoption fund at your church (something we have done recently at The Austin Stone).  ThE webinar will provide an overview of how to establish a simple yet effective church adoption assistance fund.

The webinar is happening September 15th, 2009, 1pm EST.

To register please email info@abbafund.org.

(from Launching a Church Adoption Fund Webinar).

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Labor Day Links

Posted by Todd Engstrom in links on September 7, 2009

I’ve been slacking on this blog lately for two reasons:

  1. I’m struggling with my next set of posts, and can’t seem to nail them down.
  2. We’re right in the heart of Fall insanity, and I’ve been working some long hours.

Excuses, exschmuses.

For Labor Day, I figured I’d provide you with a few links to whet your appetite and hopefully kick myself into blogging gear, so without further adieu, here’s some good stuff I’ve been reading lately:

Hope you enjoy these, and I’ll be back in action later this week!

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People Work and Task Work

Posted by Todd Engstrom in pastoring on September 2, 2009

I’m learning a lot this week about the similarities and differences of people work and task work.  My role has been shifting into a managerial and oversight role over a significant number of people, and this has required much more personal interaction and meeting than I have had in the past.

Here’s a few things I’ve learned in no particular order:

  • I can say without a shadow of a doubt that people work is equally as exhausting, if not more so, than task work
  • People work requires as much planning, and more care, than task work
  • It’s much easier to feel a sense of accomplishment in task work
  • Great ideas come from dialogue, but action requires tasks
  • Delegating tasks works better when you’ve done effective people work
  • It’s much easier to manage tasks than people
  • Task work gives me time to process people

Sorry for the stream of consciousness post, but I’m fairly brain-dead…forgot to mention that people work is incredibly mentally taxing.

Anything I missed?

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Multisite Church | Christian Standard Interview

Posted by Todd Engstrom in assimilation, church, megachurch, missional on August 31, 2009

If you have been interested in the multisite discussion as a missional church, then I’d recommend reading the article below.  Todd Wilson does a great job of highlighting the upside of multisite planting, and a holistic perspective on how it fits with church planting strategy.

Christian Standard Interview – Todd Wilson on Multisite

I think the theory of the article is spot on, but there is one key phrase in the article that a church must wrestle with:

If you take anything less than a very healthy process, whether it’s your children’s process, newcomer assimilation process, worship process—any process you have—when you copy it, if it’s unhealthy, it may become even more unhealthy than the original. On the one hand, your church might be growing rapidly beyond the current capacity of your leadership and systems. On top of that, you may be copying less than vibrant and healthy processes and systems. The result can be sideways energy that further slows you down.

The key to a successful multisite launch will be the health of your existing organization, which is a good motivation to do some deep assessment prior to launching.

Great thoughts to consider!

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