Monthly Archive for February, 2009

Worship Planning Tools

ministry

Of late, I’ve been working on trying to build applications for my those around me, be it, a marketing strategy for the Statewide Youth For Christ Conference, or a management and organization plan for the giving at The Park. But, most of all, I’ve been looking more at the ideas of productivity and time management and how they play together. In this sense, I’ve begun working on my own set of items I use in everyday life. Some are rather complex, while others are very basic in nature. Either way, I began looking at how the systems could work for me when planning out the worship service.

The first items i’ve decided to create are very simple in nature; a song service planner, and a minister sermon log. Both represent very critical process that can be broken down into rather simple task-planning.

The Song Service Planner is a 2-up document that can be printed and sliced in half. I wanted something that I could use for both morning and evening service, and so 2 just worked well. I’m currently working on a variation of the form that will allow for greater variety in planning the song service and will also allow for options during the service [think: 3 options for communion, etc.]. I wanted something that I could slip into the song book or my bible and I included the date for archiving purposes [you may like to revisit the same set 3 months from now].

The Sermon Log is pretty self explanatory. I just think it would be a good thing for a minister to know exactly what he preached, and when he preached it. Nothing special here, a bare-bones document for tracking subjects.

Published 3 years ago in Worship Tools. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Congregation Info

I am back to working on the Marketing guide for ministries. Now, in my previous post, Congregation Metrics, I listed a few interesting facts about Predominately black churches of Christ in the Northeast and Southern portions of the United States.

Just a few thoughts:

  1. Of the 13,700 total congregations of the Church of Christ located stateside, there are only 91 predominately black congregations with 300 members or more.
  2. There are 103,358 members attending 998 congregations in the southern and northeastern regions of the United States.
  3. In the southern and Northeastern regions of the US, there are four states which have no predominately black congregations of the Church of Christ (Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont).
  4. There are 3 states with at least 100 congregations in the 2 regions studied – Alabama (118), Tennessee (141), & Texas (231).
  5. There are 7 states which have fewer than 10 congregations statewide – Connecticut (2), Massachusetts (3), New Jersey (9), Pennsylvania (6), Delaware (2), Virginia (7), and West Virginia (1).

And finally, the numerical data collected during research for the Marketing Guide.

[TABLE=2]

Published 3 years ago in Marketing. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Groundhog Day Reboot

I don’t know – I’ve always sort of had an affinity for Groundhog Day. It dates back to when I was a kid, waking up, watching Punxsutawney Phil, wondering whether he would see his shadow or not, never quite understanding the ramification of the vision either way. That, or it could be that my birthday happens to be February 2nd. Yeah, I think it’s the latter.

Anyway, I’ve given a lot of thought recently about what direction I’d like to take this site in year 28 of my life. For most of last year I spent every free moment working on the Christian Acappella Music Awards which gave me a lot of time to think about the state of Christian Acappella Music, and more specifically the idea of ministry marketing. To this effect, my goal for 2009 had initially been to, of course, find better ways to do things in my life. A mantra of sorts, basically encompassing the idea that I would spend a lot more time visualizing the various situations that arise and strategically developing systems of management for their solution.

I would like to work on building solutions that aid Christians, or perhaps, allows them to pursue productivity more completely. I’ve given a lot of thought to projects I would like to begin working on and see them through their completion perhaps in the first quarter of the year.

Oh, that brings me back to the whole Idea of Groundhog Day. I generally wait until February 2nd every year to begin my resolutions work for the new year, because:

  1. February 2nd, like I have previously stated, is my birthday, thus allowing me to always take the month of January and primarily use that as a continuation, in my mind, of the previous year. And,
  2. Well, there really is no number 2. I just really like to begin on the 2nd of February every year.

So, the reboot has a lot to do with the idea of me actually having a focus for this year, a manner in which will hopefully allow for me to be more progressive in the solutions I present. We’ll see.

Good Times//

Published 3 years ago in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , .