Thursday, July 8, 2010 @ 10:47 am by Josh Burcham

I always have a fair amount of projects that I’m juggling at a time with their own fair share of administration stuff. That is where Google steps in or more specifically Google Apps. Instead of installing a exchange server for my email, calendar, and syncing needs. I am able to get a better system for a cheaper price, in most cases FREE, with Google Apps. No headaches. No problems. Just simple. And I love the word simple.

Everything from emails to calendars to intranets and docs can be done in the Google system and I’ve only been happy with the system. Everything can be synced to my phone and my computers and my info is always up to date.

If you aren’t a Google Apps user and want to be. I can set you up. Email me at josh@originalboxstudio.com. Non-profits: Google Apps are FREE, yes free, to you. Shoot me an email.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010 @ 4:40 pm by Josh Burcham

I’ve had this post ‘on-deck’ for a couple of months now. It’s a philosophy that is found all round the business and ministry worlds, as well as at Ridgepoint. But a philosophy that isn’t always properly executed. In the ministry world we’ve seen core values for decades, but most churches stop using their core values once they are on paper. It is like they have some special power once they were written down. But the true power comes from their day to day decision use.

Mark Batterson talks about ‘Pre-Decision Makers’ in his book Primal. He talks about how pre-decision help us make the real decision when the time comes. If we take the time to decided our course of action ahead of time, read core value, when the time comes for a person representing your ministry to make a decision on a situation the decision is already made. Example, one of our core values is our communities needs are more important than our own. If we run across the need to decide wether we pay for our members to go on mission trips or for a family of four in our community to have a form of transportation. We have a pre-decision for the situation, we provide a car to the family because our community’s needs are more important than our own.

Core value case study: Zappos. If you haven’t heard of this company, check them out here. Zappos is known for their stand apart customer service.

“Our philosophy at Zappos is that we’re willing to make short-term sacrifices (including lost revenue or profits) if we believe that the long-term benefits are worth it. Protecting the company culture and sticking to core values is a long-term benefit.” - Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com

Zappos’ Core Values:

• 1. Deliver WOW Through Service
• 2. Embrace and Drive Change
• 3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
• 4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
• 5. Pursue Growth and Learning
• 6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
• 7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
• 8. Do More With Less
• 9. Be Passionate and Determined
• 10. Be Humble

Zappos’ team doesn’t need to take time out of their schedule to mull over each and every decision. They have the ability to entrust their employees with the culture because of their decisions (core values) have already been made.

Your church is the same way. You value something, every organization does. Whether you’re value the right or wrong things is up to you and how well you listen to God’s direction for your church. God gives you vision, I also believe that He gives you a certain culture as well.

By reading our core values at Ridgepoint, you should be able to have a good handle on our culture: who we are as a church and how we operate.

Ridgepoint’s Core Values:

• 1. Our community’s needs are more important than our own.
• 2. It takes risk and faith to do what we are called to do.
• 3. We must do life together.
• 4. We can’t be healthy as a church, if you’re not healthy in your home.
• 5. Being a Christ-Follower is about being not doing.
• 6. Money is never our focus, but giving gauges the heart.

Hopefully, you can see our culture as Ridgepoint: you can see that we understand that being a Christ-follower is about loving God and loving people and that we can’t truly do one without the other. We can’t do that without the support of our friends and family in community. And that the lack of faith and heart change can get in the way.

Vision defines who you are (culture), you help people understand your culture by pre-decision makers (core values) and you look to God for both.

At Ridgepoint our vision is for people to meet Jesus. We are successful when people are doing just that. We define that vision with our values and we gauge it by heart change. All of which come from Jesus.

Listen to God’s whisper for the reason you exist (vision) and how you exist (values).

Talk about your vision and values as one, seize opportunities that put feet to your values, and share vision success stories.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010 @ 10:21 am by Josh Burcham

Facebook rules a lot of people lives, good or bad, it is the truth. If you’re a Facebook user you might be interest in these statistics:

People are on Facebook…should your church or ministry be as well? I work with churches to figure out that exact question. Give me a shout and we’ll get on it.

Saturday, April 10, 2010 @ 7:21 pm by Josh Burcham

Came across these pictures on the infamous internet, completely fell in love with the style and simplicity of the design. I’m a huge fan on collaboration, not always the best at it, but I’m learning. I’m not a fan of individual offices, waste of money and resources. Everyone in one room works for me! Here is a design firm’s new office space:

That is an environment for creativity! See more pictures here.

Saturday, April 10, 2010 @ 10:33 am by Josh Burcham

Seth Godin is a man we ministry leaders can learn from. If you don’t follow his blog, you need to. The best part…his posts are short! Right to the point leadership and marketing principles. He recently posted some thoughts on the iPad launch that Apple recently had and I couldn’t pass up sharing them as a great ministry/church lesson. Here is an excerpt:

1. Don’t try to please everyone. There are countless people who don’t want one, haven’t heard of one or actively hate it. So what? (Please don’t gloss over this one just because it’s short. In fact, it’s the biggest challenge on this list).
2. Make a product worth talking about. Sounds obvious. If it’s so obvious, then why don’t the other big companies ship stuff like this? Most of them are paralyzed going to meetings where they sand off the rough edges.
3. Make it easy for people to talk about you. Steve doesn’t have a blog. He doesn’t tweet and you can’t friend him on Facebook. That’s okay. The tribe loves to talk, and the iPad gave them something to talk about.
4. Be willing to fail. Bold bets succeed–and sometimes they don’t. Is that okay with you? Launching the iPad had to be even more frightening than launching a book…
5. Don’t worry so much about conventional wisdom. The iPad is a closed system (not like the web) because so many Apple users like closed systems.

Read the rest of his points, Secrets to the Biggest Selling Launch Ever.

Friday, April 9, 2010 @ 9:14 am by Josh Burcham

What systems do you have in place? How do you move guest to fully engaged followers of Christ? What system do you have in place to gauge the the health of your church body? With Ridgepoint gearing up it seems to be all I’ve been thinking about lately.

Two system checks I wanted to pass on to you and one recommendation:

First one we call, Fill the GAP. A system to assimilate guest into fully devoted followers of Christ. Stands for Guest, Attender, Promotor. Of course the system has steps on how we fill the gaps, but that is for another post. We consider a promotor someone that Loves God and Loves People and embodies our core values. Now my recommendation: Fusion by Nelson Searcy. Practical book for for moving people from guests into your church body.

Second, we call them the 3G’s. No, it has nothing to do with the iPhone. This system check helps us get a heart beat of our church body. Giving us an insight in to what our congregation needs. Changing our sermon series, one to one and small groups to meet those needs. Think Homeland Security Warning Level. The three G’s are Good, Great and Generous. Building on themselves to check the health of our body.

Watch for more details the next couple of days of each of these system checks. And post your systems in the comments. I would love to learn from you!

See larger image Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests into Fully-Engaged Members of Your Church (Paperback) By (author) Nelson Searcy, Jennifer Henson List Price: $14.99 USD New From: $8.24 In Stock Used from: $6.00 In Stock

Wednesday, March 31, 2010 @ 6:19 pm by Josh Burcham

Content from Perry Noble’s blog over at www.perrynoble.com. The guy oozes leadership principles. His post, Ten Questions That Unchurched People ARE NOT Asking! is worth the time to read.

#1 – “What do you do to disciple people?”  (This question is usually asked by people who want to ‘microwave” spiritually, not understand that they themselves actually became mature in the “crock pot.”)

#2 – “Who is speaking this weekend?”  (They usually don’t care about the WHO…it’s the WHAT that matters to them.)

#3 – “Are you reformed in your theology?”  (Most of them have no idea what in the heck this means!)

#5 – “What version of the Bible do you use?”  (Many unchurched people don’t even really know there are different versions!)

#6 – “What denomination are you affiliated with?”

#7 – “How many different activities can I sign my family up for in order to add to the insane schedule that we already have?”

Read all ten questions here.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010 @ 1:01 pm by Josh Burcham

Just think I made it all the way through high school and most of college without ever having to read a full book (I think that probably has more today with the fact I’m not an institutional learner) and yet I’m looking forward to a couple new books coming our way.

View more from the reading list here.