Tony Morgan is a pastor and the Chief Strategic Officer at NewSpring Church.  He says he doesn’t know what that title really means, but I’ll bet he came up with it. 

Anyway, Tony is one of my favorite bloggers and a great communicator in his own right.  He’s certainly not as flamboyant as Perry Noble, but Tony is colorful in his own unique way.

His breakout session was about blogging.  It’s sort of funny.  He talked about blogging and now I’m blogging about his talk.  Anyway, his talk was entitled, “Ten Steps to Becoming Blogging BFF’s” and here is some of what he shared.

1.       Determine your primary audience- know who your audience is and talk to them

2.       Post regularly- you can’t build a relationship with anyone without starting conversations with them

3.       Keep your posts short- people are busy…don’t write too much…think in terms of bullet points too

4.       Don’t sell yourself- don’t toot your own horn…make fun of yourself…share your struggles

5.       Use humor- all business and no play makes for boring blogs

6.       Stop attacking other people and ministries- blogs are not a platform for you to go off on someone else…avoid pointing fingers

7.       Remember that blogging isn’t private- if you put it out there, people will read it…all kinds of people will read it…if you’re not sure, don’t post it

8.       Be a thought leader- don’t always talk about what everyone else is thinking or doing…talk about what you’re thinking and doing

9.       Don’t listen to critics- be a selective listener

10.   Reveal the real you- write about what you know, not what you don’t know

Tony also accidentally said, “Women tend to hire guys like their father.”  He meant to say, “Women tend to marry guys like their father”, but he made a little slip-up.  Maybe you had to be here to fully appreciate, but I know I thought it was hilarious!

Perry opened Main Session #1 by inviting us to turn to Luke 15.  Instead of focusing on the story of the younger brother, the prodigal son, Perry looked at the last part of the story and spent all his time talking about the older brother. 

Here are some of the great thoughts he shared. 

“The one thing I’m praying for is that an alarm will go off in your life.”

“Sometimes I think God wants to say, ‘If you’re not going to use the church, I’m just going to take it back and give it someone else who will act with urgency and use it for my glory!’”

“If you’re going to reach this world for Christ, you’re going to have to spend some money.  You’re going to have to especially spend money on children and on youth.  You ask, ‘Why should we spend so much money on children?’  Because Nickelodeon does.” 

“It takes time and effort.”

What are the barriers that stand in our way?

1.       Refusal to Change- “Some churches never grow because they let their personal preferences get in the way.”

2.       Jealousy- “God is bigger than one church.  And if you can’t celebrate what God is doing in another church, then God can’t trust you.”

3.       A Lack of Understanding-  “I think some of the reasons churches hit a wall is they have no idea what they’ve gotten themselves into.”

What do we want to celebrate?

“We want to celebrate people meeting Jesus.” 

I’m in Anderson, South Carolina, this morning for a church leadership conference.  The name of the conference is Unleashed and it’s hosted by NewSpring Church.  It’s a one day conference, which makes it a quick trip, but we’re excited about what we’re going to learn today. 

I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard of NewSpring Church, but it is one of the fastest growing churches in America, and they have got it going on.  

Their pastor, Perry Noble, is an incredible communicator and a strong leader and he will be the one leading the main sessions today.

The whole Southside pastoral staff is together for this conference, and even though it can be a little insane when all these personalities get together, I wouldn’t trade trips like these for anything.    (However, I was a little annoyed that it took us almost an hour to find a church that was 10 miles away, but that’s another story!)

Anyway, I’m going to try and blog through each session so that those of you who are interested can learn along with us.  

I have been busy with life and other stuff, so I haven’t been blogging much lately.  Sorry.  I promise I’ll do better.  It probably wouldn’t hurt if Billy Andrews helped me out every once in a while either.  This is after all, our blog (or at least, that’s what it says at the top of this page!)

Anyway, I thought I’d pass along a couple of great links today.

1. Amy Bedwell is one of our amazing administrative assistants here at the church, and she recently left for a two month mission trip to the Czech Republic.  She decided she would blog about her trip and you can keep up with what’s happening in her life by clicking here.

2. Bruce Goddard (a member of Southside) recently wrote a post about his small group and I thought some of you would enjoy that, so you can read that here.

3. Finally, I read this post recently on tithing and I just had to share it with all of you.   Tim Stevens is one of my favorite bloggers and I think what he says is brilliant and right on the money (pun intended).

Easter is right around the corner and as you might imagine, we as a church want to be ready for the several thousand people who are going to be invading our campus that day.  Easter is the one Sunday each year that a lot of people who don’t usually attend church services, decide to go to church, and we want their experience at Southside to be so great, that they want to come back the next week too. 

This is where you come in. 

First of all, we want you to invite people to one of our three Easter services (8:00, 9:30, & 11:00).  People are looking for a church to go to on Easter, and if you invite them, chances are they’ll come.

Secondly, on Easter Sunday, we need a few more people than usual who can hold babies, love on preschool kids, welcome people to our services, and help direct the traffic in our parking lot. 

We already have these volunteer teams in place and ready to help, but it never hurts to have a few extra hands, so if you can help us in the 9:30 or 11:00 services specifically, we would really appreciate it. 

Let me review. 

1) Invite someone you know to come to Southside for Easter. 

2) Find a place to lend a hand so that everyone’s experience with our church is a great one. 

If you can serve, just leave me a comment or you can also shoot an e-mail to matt@ssbcfamily.com

Before you go to bed this Saturday night, don’t forget to set your clocks forward one hour. 

Maybe you’ve forgotten, but it’s that time of year again where we “lose” an hour of sleep, and I’m just trying to help all of my Southside brothers and sisters out. 

There’s nothing more awkward or embarrassing that showing up to church an hour later than everyone else and walking into a worship service that is almost over, and I just wanted to make sure that all of you out there who read this blog didn’t forget to set your clocks ahead.    

So, don’t forget to “spring forward” this weekend, unless of course, you enjoy large crowds of people staring at you and making fun of you under their breath.