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10 YEARS OF LIFE CHURCH

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““I will build my church — and the power of death will not be able to overpower it!”
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— Jesus in Matthew 16:18 (TPT)

Ten years ago today, my family took a deep breath and cannonballed into the unknown by launching weekly worship experiences... the birth of the church we love!

Just like childbirth it was messy, scary, and even a little bloody... yet what emerged is beautiful and bringing Life to the Great Lakes Bay Region.

We started by renting theater and classroom space at Saginaw Valley State University. 

It was a herculean task setting up and tearing down our portable church environments every week, but we got it done (even in Michigan winter!).

When you start something new completely from scratch, EVERYTHING is HARD... but it's worth it.

For the past ten years, we've lifted up Jesus, inspired our region, and seen lives transformed by God's amazing love.

To date, we've seen three hundred and fifteen people baptized at Life Church -- Holy Wow!

Every number has a name, every name has a story, and every story matters to God.

As I’ve said for years at Life Church, every person matters!

Healthy Things Grow

In November 2014, we opened the doors of a former Golf Mania as our main worship facility and suddenly became kites in God's Hurricane.  

By February 2015, in the middle of Michigan winter, we ran out of space and began adding additional worship times!

New Locations

In March of 2017 we stepped out in crazy faith by becoming One Church in Two Locations: Saginaw and Midland!  

We became the very first multi-site church in the Great Lakes Bay Region.

Our rapid growth continued with young adults and families from across the region discovering new life in Christ at Life Church.  

A Movement of Changed Lives

In 2018 we broke 1,200 in attendance and baptized 60 new Christ Followers.

Outreach Magazine & LifeWay Research recognized Life Church Michigan as one of the Top 15 Fastest-Growing Churches in America (September 2019).

Then 2020 hit, a year that closed our campuses and delivered a near-fatal blow to our labor of love. In late 2020 we reopened our doors in Saginaw and began rebuilding home.

Today we are a thriving, scrappy church for people who don’t always like going to church. Heading into our tenth year of ministry, we are focused on working like it depends on us and praying like it depends on God.

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Reflecting on 3 Years After COVID

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Three years ago today I sent our Life Church staff home due to this great unknown, COVID-19.

We had just celebrated Life Church’s Midland Comic-Con event success and I had just returned from a briefing at The White House.

Sending our team home that day, I could not have known all the change and tumult that awaited our church family in the coming months.

Online worship became the norm. We did five Drive-In Easter services that April. By September, everything I knew was sadly gone: friends abruptly disappeared and blocked my family online, the entire staff curiously quit one by one, and I was left holding the place I loved together by the skin of my teeth.

What’s remarkable to me is that none of this took God by surprise. You cannot surprise the Master. In John 13:19 Jesus says, “I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he.”

When life feels out of control, God remains firmly in control. Everything that happens to you in life has passed through the sovereign hands of God and is ultimately for your good.

That doesn’t mean that life can’t hurt sometimes. Trust me, Amber and I received deep educations in 2020 on betrayal and heartache.

The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 4, “At first there was no one I could count on to faithfully stand with me—they all ran off and abandoned me—but don’t hold this against them. For in spite of this, my Lord himself stood with me, empowering me to complete my ministry of preaching.”

When the earth shakes, the Lord stands firm. When life doesn’t make sense, I can choose to trust in a God who does and who is working behind the scenes for my good.

While our family’s life now looks radically different than it did three years ago, I am thankful for a God who remains faithful and just regardless of passing troubles.

I am thankful that our faith is grounded in the concepts of forgiveness and reconciliation, and that it is never too late to become who you might have been.

Whatever your life looks like today, choose to persevere. Choose to believe the best in people and allow love to cover over all sins (1 Peter 4:8).

Trust in the Carpenter-King and see what God can do through you.

Do You Have the 8 Values That Make a Leader?

1 YOU NEED COMMUNITY YOU CAN BE VULNERABLE AND AUTHENTIC WITH
​If you can start to get a place where you’re honest with yourself and others, you can grow and develop. 

2 GREAT LEADERS SEE MORE THAN OTHERS SEE & THEY SEE BEFORE OTHERS SEE
This doesn’t mean they’re smarter than other people, it just means they can see the bigger picture, quicker. 

3 A GOOD THOUGHT WORKS AT THE END JUST AS WELL AS THE BEGINNING
It’s not about being heard first, its about serving people. 

4 IF YOU’LL HELP PEOPLE GET WHAT THEY WANT, THEY’LL HELP YOU GET WHAT YOU WANT
It’s not about recruiting people to yourself, but leading them into their passion. Put people first! 

5 A GREAT LEADER HAS A FORCEFUL WILL AND A HUMBLE HEART
Leaders don’t get distracted with what’s around them but carry an appreciation for who’s around them. 

6 THERE’S A FINE LINE BETWEEN MOTIVATION AND MANIPULATION
Manipulation is leading for your advantage, motivation is leading for OTHER’S advantage. When you lack values with people, this gets backwards.

7 IT’S ABOUT THE COMPOUND OF CONSISTENCY & VALUING PEOPLE
Focus on getting better daily. The anticipation of helping people will keep you in the game!

8 YOU'RE NOT DOWN, YOU'RE EITHER UP OR GETTING UP
Don’t let failure define you. Failure is momentary, and a sign that you’re moving!

LAUGH YOUR MASS OFF

Inside the Oral Defense of Doctoral Process

This week I wrapped up a two year journey toward earning my Doctorate. The final phase was the Oral Defense, a time-honored rite of passage required before completing the doctoral candidacy.

For what it’s worth, I filmed a reaction video and shared a couple clips from my Oral Defense to help educate others on the process.

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Colin Mochrie Reflects on Over 30 Years of Whose Line Is It Anyway?

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Vulture has a great interview with Colin Mochrie, the improv phenom who has been making us all laugh for 30 years.

As you know, improvisational comedy has many “rules” that apply to business, leadership and life, as revealed in my book, Holy Shift.

Here are some highlights from the article:

On improv entering the mainstream:

“There are still times I think, How did they pitch the show to a network and have it get picked up? There’s four guys you have never seen before, and we don’t have a show until the end of the taping, and it’s 22 episodes of that. I’m proud that it got improv into the public mind-set.”

Anybody can improvise:

“Like any muscle, it has to be worked and exercised. Because, I mean, basically, we’re all improvisers. That’s what our lives are. We have sort of a rough framework; we know how it’s going to end. Everything in between now and then is just totally improvised.”

Why improvisers hate Hoedowns:

“Well, they’re horrible! First of all, is it even a song style? It’s like, “Oh, let’s hear the hoedown stylings of …” Who? No one. And there’s no good place to be in line. The first person: You get this suggestion right away, you have no time to think. And then the rest of the time, you’re just hoping no one will take your verse. There’s some topics we think, All I’ve got is one thing. If somebody does that verse … And when they do it right before you? I can’t even describe the feeling. It’s just loss and despair. And the fact that the Hoedown was invented? It’s horrible.”

Be More of a Blessing, Less of a Burden

The goal of a leader is to always be a blessing and never be a burden. There is nothing worse than a person that overstays their welcome at a home gathering. The same is true in leadership. We want to live our lives in such a way that adds greatness to people and circumstances around us instead of taking from them.

Here are three quick things to remember in order to be a blessing as a leader:

#1: NEVER BE OWNED BY ANYONE

  • To be owned by someone means that you owe them something. As leaders, our goal is not to be owned by our  relationships, finances, belongings etc. Rather it is the responsibility of a leader to steward their own lives so that we can be a blessing to others around us and not a burden. 

  • Money and people will try to own you so that you can serve them, but part of being a good steward means that we recognize that we are owned by God and serve Him only. 

#2: BE CAREFUL OF PEOPLE WHO COME INTO YOUR LIFE TOO FAST AND TOO LOUD

  • People who come into our lives too fast and too loud generally leave the same way they came in. In leadership, the tension is between divine appointments and people that we moved too quickly with. 

  • It can be easy to jump toward what’s flashy, but over time we see that the faithful and steady people around us usually end up being the ones that we need in our life. 

#3: GOD IS OUR SOURCE!

  • God is the ultimate source! We don’t ever have to worry about our needs or the needs of the church because God is committed to taking care of us.  

  • When we worry about our “lack” we are saying that God isn’t enough. Kingdom-minded people don’t see “lack” – they see what God is doing through the people placed in their lives. 

Let’s always remember that as leaders, it is our goal to be a blessing and not a burden. 

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Current Stats on the Post-Pandemic Church

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While there is much yet not understood about the effects of the post-pandemic/post-Christian climate we are now experiencing, some data and research is beginning to emerge to paint a picture of today’s spiritual environment.

What follows are three important articles that church leaders should take under serious consideration when planning ahead for the future.

Losing Their Religion: Why U.S. Churches are in Decline

Churches are closing at rapid numbers in the US, researchers say, as congregations dwindle across the country and a younger generation of Americans abandon Christianity altogether – even as faith continues to dominate American politics.

As the US adjusts to an increasingly non-religious population, thousands of churches are closing each year in the country – a figure that experts believe may have accelerated since the Covid-19 pandemic.

The situation means some hard decisions for pastors, who have to decide when a dwindling congregation is no longer sustainable. But it has also created a boom market for those wanting to buy churches, with former houses of worship now finding new life.

About 4,500 Protestant churches closed in 2019, the last year data is available, with about 3,000 new churches opening, according to Lifeway Research. It was the first time the number of churches in the US hadn’t grown since the evangelical firm started studying the topic. With the pandemic speeding up a broader trend of Americans turning away from Christianity, researchers say the closures will only have accelerated.

READ FULL ARTICLE

The New Very Large Church

It’s time to rethink church size. For the purpose of this article, I define church size as average weekly worship attendance, including children and youth who may not be in the primary worship service. In other words, we count every person attending a worship weekend (or other days for a few churches).

Let’s look at the breakdown of churches by average worship attendance:

  • Under 50 in attendance: 31% of all churches

  • 51 – 99: 37%

  • 100 – 249: 24%

  • 250 and above: 8%

All of the numbers are fascinating, but the largest category should cause us to pause. Only 8 percent of churches have an attendance of 250 or more. These churches now define the category, “very large churches.”

READ FULL ARTICLE

In Church Planting, More Money Means More People

A church plant’s attendance is directly proportional to the money spent at launch and in the congregation’s first year, the research found. At churches with average attendance over 200 in the first five years, average startup costs were $100,000 and first-year costs $225,000—a total launch cost of $325,000.

Smaller churches tend to spend far less. Church plants more than two years old with less than 100 in attendance averaged $10,000 in startup costs and $60,000 in first-year costs. For churches more than two years old with between 100 and 200 in attendance, average startup costs were $84,500.

The correlation between spending and growth held over time. Growing churches continued to spend more as they continued to grow, while nongrowing spent less.

READ FULL ARTICLE

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Comedian Kevin Farley on LeaderShift

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Comedian Kevin Farley joins me on a new episode of LeaderShift! Farley has been bringing his signature brand of upbeat entertainment to fans around the world for over three decades.  Kevin got his start at the famous Second City in Chicago.  Soon after he starred in films such as Black Sheep (with his older brother Chris) and The Waterboy (with Adam Sandler), as well as roles on Curb Your Enthusiasm, Comedy Central's Drunk History, and Netflix's F is for Family.

In this episode of LeaderShift, Farley shares shifts and insights from a stand-up comic’s perspective that apply to your leadership including:

  • Trust your instincts — Don’t second-guess yourself.

  • Don’t judge yourself.

  • The one thing every audience really responds to.

  • How to deal with rejection in your business.

  • The gold of authenticity in communication.

Connect with Kevin Farley on his official website, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Listen to LeaderShift now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music.

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