The Necessary Things

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Brian Barela's posts on movement building, ministry starting, leading change, and social media and ministry.

Is LinkedIn a Mystery to You? Advice from an Expert on How to Get Started

If you are in college ministry you are aware of Facebook's importance but chances are you do not have much of an interest or knowledge of LinkedIn.

Adding graduating seniors as connections on LinkedIn provides an additional layer beyond Facebook to stay passively connected. If you are in a large ministry it's a great way to meet and connect with others in a more professional manner. I've benefited significantly from making connections with other staff outside of my region, but similar in career interests.

@chrisbrogan a lot of people i know don't know how to determine someone's worth on linkedin--what makes someone valuable & worth following?less than a minute ago via Seesmicbrianbarela
brianbarela

 

@brianbarela - I'd say the people one might choose to follow on LinkedIn would be business prospects, colleagues, or networking hubs.less than a minute ago via SeesmicChris Brogan
chrisbrogan

Chris Brogan has written a great series of posts to help you understand it better:

• Keep LinkedIn Clean
• Use LinkedIn Effectively
• What LinkedIn Was and How it Turned Out to Be
  

Are you on LinkedIn? If you are not what is the biggest friction point in joining?

You can read more of my posts on using social media for ministry on my new blog.

Innovating With New Tools? This Guy Is!

Even though I'm an early adopter I often use new tools the same way I use old tools.

Check out this short video of a San Francisco artist using an iPad to sketch. Hope this inspires you to branch out and be creative this week!

 

Can't see the video? Click here to watch it on YouTube.

One related post from my blog is 6 Reasons Why You Should Think Through Your Video Presence.

An Important Tweet from A CCC Outsider

thanks @destinoeric for discovering and sharing this with me:

Going to the Campus Crusade for Christ Club (CCfCC for not short) meeting today. Their perfection scares me a little, but I will persevere.less than a minute ago via txtJulia Q
QQKachoo

It's impossible to prevent new student's from feeling this way but as leaders we can definitely create an environment that engages and welcomes them once they arrive.

For me it's a sober reminder of how much energy it takes for a new person to come to any Campus Crusade event.

Have you ever used Twitter or any other social media tool to listen in on the conversation going about your ministry outside of the walls? Chris Brogan shares five tools that he uses to listen here.

A related post is Mobile Phone Usage and Trends Info-Graphic Via Chris Brogan

What Prevents Breakthroughs?

"I think the Mozilla Organization has gradually reverted back to its old ways of being too timid, passive and consensus-driven to release breakthrough products quickly."--Blake Ross, co-founder of Firefox the web browser, quoted from this Techcrunch blog post

Have to strongly agree on consensus driven decision making--have yet to experience any fruit from that process that results in significant forward movement. 

Have you led a breakthrough recently? Would love to hear about it!

photo courtesy of gilderic

Viral Ministry Growth--Let the People Translate

Are you or a select few in your ministry doing the translating? By translating I mean communicating both in word and deed the mission, vision, and values to new people and non-leaders?

Wycliffe's website states that it can take from ten to twenty years to translate the New Testament--your new people and non-leaders do not have that long to "get it."

I love this short video from Socialnomics guru Erik Qualman on the power of social media. Facebook let its users translate their site from English to Spanish--instead of taking a few years and costing hundreds of thousands of dollars they translated the site in TWO WEEKS!

The fear in sharing the role of translator with others is that they will mess up the translation--but I've noticed that those who respond to the challenge of translating are people with leadership ability and desire inside that actually long to get it right.

 

If the video sparks any ideas from you please share them in the comments!

You migh want to check out my post on The Secret to Engaging on Facebook.

Short Video: Creativity + Organization = Impact

Creativity x Organization = Impact

I enjoy the points the presenter makes about harnessing organization to drive creativity into useful and effective strategies, products, etc.

It surprised me to learn that Apple is in the top three of the world's best supply chain management companies. Not only are they creative but highly organized and effective.

I'm taking a couple things under consideration after watching:

1. Where am I most creative/innovative? What sort of organizational tools, tips, or strategies can I grow in to grow my impact?

2. Where is my organization most organized? How can I bring/facilitate/share creative ideas and people to that place? 

can't see the video? click here to watch it on vimeo.

3 L's to Consider When Designing a Ministry Structure

New leaders tend to rely on old things when designing a ministry structure. It's natural and wise to look backwards at the outset but a failure to adapt to the present and engage the future will lead to a mediocre or average ministry long-term.

Looking back at my five years at Chico State I wished I had considered these three L's more intentionally as I helped design our ministry structure:

Locals:

Understanding the idiosyncrasies of those you lead to me is the most important factor in designing a ministry structure. We switched from single-sex to co-ed bible studies after my first year because our team noticed that Chico State students are EXTREMELY social and the freshmen do not identify themselves by the dorm in which they live.

My previous ministry experience was the exact opposite. Had I projected the realities from my past context I would have missed out on leading one of the most crucial pieces of change (it resulted in a 400% increase in freshmen retention).

Locality:

What is true of the campus/church/neighborhood/city that is unique from every previous place you have been? That's a great place to start in understanding the reality of your location. Every element of your ministry structure should represent the personality of your locality in some form or fashion. At UCLA we had a study hall set up at our Fall Retreat--perfect for UCLA and resulted in more students attending.

Leader:

I placed the leader third because only after understanding the locals and locality can you effectively integrate your strengths, weaknesses, gifts, and passions into the ministry structure. The leader that listens and diagnoses before they make decisions will set a better course for the future.

 

Click here to see a post on the ministry funnel illustrated.

Or to view the diagram of the Ministry Funnel click here.

Google Calendar Tip: Copy and Paste Feedback Into Repeating Events

Have you spent hours evaluating an event only to have all that valuable data stored on a Word document that never gets opened again? Me too. Lots of times.

Google calendar provides a description box in every event that you can use to place this kind of information on repeating events (which I'm assuming your spending the most time evaluating anyway). 

If you have information in Word you can copy and paste the data, but if you are using Google docs then you can copy and paste the url in the description, raising your effectiveness to the next level :)

Can't see the screencast? Click here to view it.

I write weekly about technology and productivity on Staffhacker. Read why here.

Want to know more about me? Click here to read my about page.

Starting a Ministry Tip: Launch Early and Iterate Often

I shot this video at SXSWI during a seminar on social games. I've learned a lot about how to make day to day ministry more engaging by listening to and reading about game mechanics.

"Typically we launch at the 10% mark"--My favorite quote:

"You'd rather know early if this is not the right direction"--Second favorite quote

The sooner you launch the sooner you can figure out the intersection between your vision and the local reality. I've seen ministries get off the ground quickly because they were able to shed their initial plans and dreams and start to work with reality instead of against it.

What reservations do you have about launching something at 10%?

You can see why I'm so passionate about starting and launching ministries here.

More posts on starting a ministry can be found here.