by SimplyAubs on February 25, 2010

(Women’s Ministry Innovation Laboratory)
Engaging Women in Leadership
Has had over 200 interviews with women in leadership
What are your successes?
What are your failures?
How did you get to where you’re at?
What are their struggles?
Lack of confidence
Under-identified leadership gifts
Lack of female mentors/role models
Leadership loneliness (leading is lonely)
Who do you admire the most? And why?
-those who are making a difference
What’s the most fulfilling area of your life? And why?
-volunteering: at church, in the city, etc
What keeps you up at night?
-older women: their children
-younger women: finances, marriage
What are you reading?
-most women are reading magazines…beauty, marriage and sex
-how many times do women talk about sex in church? (God is the author of sex)
Conclusions:
We aren’t listening to what women are really thinking about
We aren’t listening to their desire to and need to make a difference
Younger women are done with big events just for connection
Women are great connectors
How can you engage women leaders?
Assess the current reality
How many women are leading?
Does our church leadership reflect our church population?
Where’s your biggest need?
Interview and empower
Cultivate
Look to the next generation
by SimplyAubs on February 25, 2010

(These are my quick notes…for a great post on this session, check out Nick Carnes’ post.)
Church attendance is in the decline
Outreach and indrag
The church should be a sent people
There is no such thing as an unsent christian
All Christians are missionaries
Cultural Distance – Dr. Ralph Winters
There are 12,000 churches over 2,000 in attendance
430,000 churches in this country (average attendance 80-100)
More of the same will not get better results
-Organizational Insanity
Digging Holes
–>if you want to dig a whole 10 feet away, it’s no good digging a hole deeper where you’re at, won’t help
If you’ve been given a message, that makes you a messenger.
If you cannot imagine it, you cannot do it.
by SimplyAubs on February 25, 2010

Planting a church was the hardest thing he’s ever done, but worth it. You MUST be called to do it.
-when you have money, sometimes you’re not as creative
-we need to close the gap between the crowd and the stage
-you’re end goal shouldn’t be to have a big church
-we need to close the gap between point A to point B with creative solutions
-God is the ultimate Creator and He’s placed creativity in each of His creations. So we’re all creative.
Innovation – doesn’t mean that you can’t do what someone else is doing, we’re one big church so we don’t have to well up with pride and try to do everything different
Examination – let’s examine our process
Disturb and Disrupt -it seems many people
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Each and every Sunday, as worshipers, we’re standing in front of dead bones and are to prophesy to life. (Ezekiel 37:1-14)
How can your obedience in worship (like Ezekiel) give life?
Creativity and our intimacy with the Creator go hand in hand.
Children have a relationship with God the Creator in a much bigger way then we do as adults.
What problems do you see with people trying to be innovative and creative?
Innovation does not mean cool lights…it’s having something new
-t-shirts, hoodies, jeans and tats are not innovative, it’s just the new “suit and tie”
-Are we trying to be hip? Or innovative?
*There is one absolute in church…Sunday’s coming!
*things can get stale if we don’t watch out
*What is something that you’ve always done one way, that you can do new (different) this week?
“Flickering Pixels” book to pick up
-do we have an evaluation time?
*during these times, don’t sit down – no chairs…it will help you not waste time
Was it fun?
Was is excellent?
Was it helpful?
Make sure that you are constantly “Exploring”
-this will help feed your creative bucket
– collect ideas (can put them in Evernote)
–stop and purposely observe what’s around you (put ideas in your “bucket”)
by SimplyAubs on February 17, 2010
The day started out with an frozen Jeep.

This is my favorite part of the morning drive.

It seems that Borders traded all their employees for crappy old computers. (What the junk?!)

I’m really excited about this book! Simplicity is revolutionary!

Who needs flowers and chocolates for Valentine’s day? I’ll take this!

My roomie decided we would try star fruit.

The verdict? Star fruit is actually good!
