“Everything rises and falls on leadership.” said John Maxwell. This is still true today. This is a great blog on what Elevation church is doing and a great challenge for us at New Vintage Church to start creating systems for leadership development.

Moving Day

It’s moving day here at my blog.
Update your bookmarks to andyvomsteeg.com.

4 Things — Give

For many of us, one of our greatest stressors in life is our finances. Somehow, regardless of how much money we make, we have a difficult time “getting ahead”, or at best feeling peace about our finances. Yet, while this is true of a large majority of people, very few people actually talk about this stressor! Luckily for us, God addresses money management over and over in the Bible. It actually seems that He has a plan to eliminate our stress, and increase our trust in Him in regards to our finances. Perhaps it is time for us to discover and follow Gods principles for our money.

I’m curious about your view of money and spending growing up?  How does your past affect your view of money today?  I’m also curious to know about your financial lifestyle and how well do you think you manage these three ares of giving, saving, and spending?  Are you aware of what percentage you spend in each area?

This last weekend we looked at Malachi 3:8-12.  The passage seems to state that as we give our money to God, He in return takes care of us and blesses.   As we move toward God in the area of our finances, God will move toward us.  If we have closed the door on God in the area of our finances, then God does not break boundaries and He closes the door on us.  Does anything about this principle make you nervous? Do you believe that this principle is true?  Have you ever seen this principle occur in your life?  Let me know — I want to hear your story

I put out the challenge to Give, Save, and Spend.  Would you be willing to put God first and watch God work in your life?  I also was wondering what would happend if you simply gave 1% more than your regular giving?  Imagine what would happen in you and in the life of the church.

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it” Malachi 3:10

Who Is Misti?

The number one questions I get asked is: “Who is Misti?” This is so funny to me because when I say: “she is my new virtual personal assistant” most people don’t know what that means. Hopefully this will help you understand who Misti is and what does she do.

It all started last year when I took a trip to NorthPoint Church when the NVC staff and I went to the Drive Conference. I met a guy by the name of Bryan Miles of Miles Advisory Group (MAG) from the two founders –Shannon and Bryan Miles and he introduced me to his company and the idea of a virtual assistant. This was a totally wild idea for me but I was interested. In the last year I have been very purposeful and intentional at aligning my schedule with my goals. I had no idea how hard this would be. With all the details of running the day to day operations of a church (and details are not my strengh) I knew I needed someone around me who could help in my weakness so that I could work out of my strengths.

Bryan and I agree to try it for three months. He assured me that it would take that much time to get used to it and to build trust with a virtual assistant. Bryan assigned me Misti. Misti lives in North Carolina but has a local SoCo number, a NVC email, and responds as if she is in a cubicle at NVC offices. She even joined one of our staff meeting via Skype–we put her on a chair (the lap top) and she interacted with us as if she were actually there. Misti has become a part of the team and I don’t even think of her a “virtual” because she’s not — she is a real person.

Here’s what she does:

• She screens my email. She checks my main email accounts, handles what she can, and “redirects” the messages that require my personal attention to my private account. She has reduced my email load by 90 percent.
• She books my travel. She handles all the details, including airline reservations, hotels, car rental, etc. She sets up a trip in TripIt, so I have everything I need in one place.
• She makes calls on my behalf. She makes appointments (both personal and professional), confirms my appointments, checks my voice mail, and follows up as needed.
• She manages my calendar. Almost nothing gets on my calendar unless it passes through her first. We have agreed together that I will only accept appointments on two afternoons a week, and she works to stay within those boundaries.
• She handles other projects as needed. I continue to turn over more and more to her. She is currently accumulating a list of names of professional counselors so that we have a solid data base to refer people to that we trust and can meet specific needs

Stop & Start 2012: Jeff Henderson

This blog is from Tony Morgan who is interviewing leaders and asking the question what are they planning on stopping and starting in 2012.  I thought this was a great insight and principle we all need to take and apply.

Jeff Henderson As part of my series on things leaders should stop and start doing, I connected with Jeff Henderson,  the Lead Pastor ofGwinnett Church which is a campus of North Point Ministries. What are some of the shifts leaders need to make going forward? Here are Jeff’s thoughts: Stop comparing. There’s far too much time and energy wasted on studying the competition. We will never find our true potential by comparing ourselves to others. Only by comparing ourselves and our organizations to our own potential will we find unchartered territories and possibilities. The people and organizations you respect the most do just that. You can too. Stop comparing yourself to others. Start comparing yourself to your own God-given potential. This is where true uniqueness and creativity is found. Start thinking more. Leaders do. That’s what we do. But the pace of doing can prevent the necessity of thinking. This year, carve out more “think time” in advance. Examples: 10 minutes a day. One hour a week. One day per quarter. If you commit to this, you’ll discover a powerful principle: Great thinking leads to better doing. You can follow more of Jeff’s thoughts on the Gwinnett Church blog.

Connect

Many of us believe that church is something we “oughta do”. Some of us believe it’s something that we should do “every so often”. As a result, church has/can become something that we just “show up to occasionally”. However, as we look at scripture (Acts 2) we quickly see that God designed the Church to play an entirely different role in our lives. Church is not intended to be a place we go, but rather a movement we join. We must decide what we believe to be true about church. Are we going to be content to sit in a row, or are we going to choose to sit in a circle ?

I’m curious about your experience in church.  Would you be willing to respond to these questions below?  Your insights would be really helpful to us at NVC to create steps for people to move from rows to circles.

1. How has your “church” background shaped your current perspective/view of what church is?
2. Do “circles” or “rows” best describe your background with church?
3. Why do you think people have difficulty choosing to participate in community?
4. Read Acts 2:42-47. What do you believe God’s purpose was in establishing the church?
5. What do you observe about the relationships of these Christians?
6. Are their areas of your life that are prohibiting you from becoming a “lifer”” in community groups?
7. How has your life/relationship with God changed/grown from choosing to be in a community group?

It is crucial that we believe that community (based on what we see in Acts) is God’s best plan for us to courageously apply what we already know about following Him. We must believe that this is our best chance at living the life God has for us! Thus, it is equally as important that we determine to be a “lifer” in regards to participating in community groups. We must adjust and prepare our life for the opportunity for community. Therefore, there may be things in our lives that we need to “stop doing” to ensure we have this capacity.

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” Acts 2:42

TOP 11 THINGS THAT HAPPENED IN 2011

1. We moved our church back to a facility that we own and renovated the entire campus with more than 100 volunteers!
2. We relaunched KidStuf, a way to partner with parents, in December with a bang and look forward to making that a once-a-month event in the Fall of 2012.
3. We blessed several families and individuals with our #nvcwish Christmas campaign from gifts, to beds, to hear-aids and more.
4. We had over 1,173 people came to three Christmas Eve services to end the year.
5. Volunteers gave more than 72,800 collective hours of service in our church and in our community.
6. Lori Connor came to New Vintage for the first time after sitting in the parking lot for two weeks. In her words, “It was either walk in those doors or drive off a cliff.”  She is not a Christian and was baptized. Hundreds of other people visited New Vintage Church for the first time.
7. When we held an emergency budget meeting, the people of New Vintage stepped up and raised $30,000 to keep the mission moving forward in Sonoma County.
8. We held our first ever, GroupLink event, where we launched three new community groups and began a season of offering Men’s and Women’s groups.
9. Twenty-five people went public with their faith through water baptism at three different Night of Worship events and at least 8 more are ready.
10. Seven people signed up and raised funds for a Philippines mission trip this February.
11. You were a part of all this because you made a financial contribution.

Next Step?

Starting Point orientations are this weekend after each of the services in the Warehouse.  At the orientation, you will hear all about Starting Point, be able to ask questions, and find out how your story fits into God’s story.  There is no commitment when you come to the orientation; just show up to find out more! Orientations typically last about 20 minutes, and your children may attend orientation with you.

 

 

 

Stop & Start 2012: Perry Noble

Perry Noble What should leaders and/or organizations consider stop and start doing in 2012? Here are some thoughts from Perry Noble, Senior Pastor at NewSpring Church: We should stop our self-identification through our “buzz words” (i.e. missional, attractional…) and start desiring to be identified by the work we are doing. We should stop trying to figure out how to compete with each other and start trying to figure out how we, as the church, can actually complete one another. We should stop trying to figure out how to drive people towards a goal and start learning how to actually lead them there. We should stop trying to figure out why people aren’t coming to church and start just asking them…and then NOT getting angry and defensive when they respond honestly. We should stop assuming that everyone in our church knows everything about our church and start stating the vision more often and more clearly. We should stop our scientific approach to leading people and start approaching leadership as an art form, understanding what the Bible says about people being unique is true. We should stop trying to compare ourselves to other churches/ministries and start actually doing what God has called us to do, knowing that He will hold us (as leaders) accountable to what He has called us to…not what He’s called everyone else to do.

Christmas Offering–How did we do?

The one thing I love about New Vintage Church is how generous you are.

On Christmas Eve we took a special Christmas offering to cover the expenses for that weekend and New Years’ weekend (we canceled church to rest and spend time with our families).  I asked you to give above and beyond so that we could do some extras to launch the church into the new year.

Do you know what you did?  You gave $65,000 toward Christmas offering!!!  This amount covered our expenses for the two Sunday weekends AND provided $33,000 extra for other ministries.

What does this mean? We will be able to do the upgrades in Waumba Land, UpStreet, and the Warehouse.  It means we can continue to be generous to those in need in our community.  We will be able to fix a leaky roof.  Yea!!

I love the fact that you have a heart to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ by creating environments that unchurched people love to attend.  I love that about you NVC!!!

Thank you so much for helping others through church.    It’s such an awesome privilege to be part of such a generous community.

Andy