Live Blog From 2014 Orange Conference – 48 Leadership Quotes From Carey Nieuwhof

Back for Day 2 of the Orange Conference!  Just a reminer, in an effort to grow in my skills to better add value to pastors and church leaders I am being dispatched by Injoy Stewardship Solutions (ISS) to attend this amazing event.

Today’s first breakout session was conducted by Carey Nieuwhof, Senior Pastor of Connexus Community Church, entitled How To Stop Your Church From Growing Old.  The following are 48 leadership quotes I captured during this sobering session:  

1. When you initiate change you immediately garner opposition.
2. All the changes I’ve made that I’m passionate about, if you don’t change you will become irrelevant.
3. Irrelevance is always subtle but inevitable.
4. If you’re a leader and you’re over 40 you’re going to have to work to stay relevant and you’re going to have to work to stay around young leaders.
5. I think you’re church should look like your community.  The problem is most of our churches don’t look like our community.
6. The generation you’re always going to lose is the younger generation.
7. Everyone wants your church to grow…just not change.
8. It’s not hard to change things when you’re brand new in your leadership.  You’re changing stuff other people created.
9. If you have been at a church over 10 years, you’re having to change the things I changed.
10. There’s a lot of churches who think they are contemporary.  They’re only contemporary to people who grew up in churches.
11. If you change you might not grow.  If you don’t change, you definitely won’t.
12. The greatest enemy of our future success is your current success.
13. 85% of Google’s revenue comes from advertising…The sun is setting on that window…They have moved from a search company to a company who helps people connect to data and connect to life.
14. What got us here is not going to get us there.
15. Match your model to your mission.  In most churches, the model doesn’t match the mission.
16. If you say, “I’m so post modern I don’t have a model.”  Well, that’s a model.
17. Because a lot of churches don’t carefully look at their model, you have a church where there is a lot of disagreement and you don’t know why.
18. If you are not explicit about your model you will never get agreement about your model.
19. Every church has a date on it.  What is the date of your church?
20. Become a student of models.  You might not understand your model well enough.
21. Recruit next generation leaders to help you do it.  The most effective strategies to reach the next generation will likely not come from the current generation.
22. You need teenagers advising you on where culture is going.
23. Adopt a strategy to intentionally reach families.
24. Design a main worship service that engages teenagers.
25. Europe is a society that has learned to live comfortably without God.
26. The birthplace of the Reformation now has 3% of people in church on a Sunday morning.
27. If you can’t engage or inspire a 17-year-old you will never engage an unchurched person.
28. Decide you are not going to try to please everyone.
29. You either put your focus on the people you want to reach or the people you want to keep.
30. The church is the only organization which exists for the benefit of its non-members.
31. There’s 10% of your church who are opposed at anytime to anything you’re during.
32. We get so locked in on the 10% we forget the 90%.  You can build your church on the 10% who are against everything anyway…Focus on your early adopters.
33. The critics will leave if you move in the direction you want to move in.  The early adopters will leave if you stall.  If you don’t lead them, somebody else will.
34. Develop an intentional strategy to reach families.
35. Sometimes you have to park your pride as a leader and say, “Somebody does this better than I do.”
36. Can you think about spending 35 hours a week on executing rather then spending 35 hours a week discussing execution?
37. Resource your family ministry team.  Spend money on families.
38. You can put the kids in the basement if you want.  I’ll put the adults in the basement.  Don’t give them leftover space and leftover staff.
39. Sometimes what your family ministry team is missing is money.
40. Synchronize your team around a master plan designed to reach families.
41. Refine your message…Kids are walking away at a record pace and it’s not because they haven’t been exposed to the Bible.
42. On Sunday, I take one truth and spend 40 minutes unpacking it.
43. The hard part of a message shouldn’t be understanding it on a Sunday.  It should be applying it on Wednesday.
44. By the time they’re five I want them to know three things – God made me.  God loves me.  Jesus wants to be my forever friend.
45. What does she need to know at 2 that she will need to know at 18?
46. Elevate community.  Relationships are sticky.
47. Most neighbors rarely have anyone over besides family.
48. Parents are the greatest influence in a child’s life but not the only influence they need.

As a gift to everyone reading this post, ISS would like to provide everyone a FREE copy of the Ebook 5 Mistakes That Will Kill Your Church Fund Raising.  Simply click here or on the image to the left to receive your complimentary resource.