Here’s another thing. We had George Barna come in one day and say analyze our services — what do we need to do better? One of the things he noticed, which really helped us, was he said we provide way too many distraction to people in worship. I said, “Well what do you mean?”

Well, we would hand out our worship folders that were filled with announcements, and some of the guys that we are trying to engage are 38 year-old business people — they were pretty much reading that during the worship service and they were distracted. So we were doing ourselves a disservice because when we were trying to promote ministries we were actually providing distractions. We now avoid the regular worship folder and we now have a hand out which has one half page for notes and one half page of “here’s what to do this week” to apply it, and then we do some bullet points of announcements so that on their way out they can get a flyer or if they need to sign up for something they don’t lose them. We communicate through e-news and email and handouts after the service but we really tried to minimize what they get inside so that we don’t distract them.

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Preaching: One of the things that you mentioned in the book is the use of creative teams. Of course, Ed Young, Jr., has helped tio popularize that concept as well. How have you used a planning team in your own congregation?

Nelson: We’ve used it the last two years and its fun. It takes awhile to get the right chemistry and the right chemistry means the right people.

We do it once a month. I planned a whole sermon series a year in advance last summer. First time I’d done it, and it’s a beautiful thing because I had all my notes and outlines down in a single bound volume and gave it to all my creative team and said, “Hey folks, we’re going to meet monthly and we’re going to think a month in advance of where we are headed metaphor wise, visual aides, dramas, music, etc. But now you’ve got a year to just read this through and think this through.” We had it so that we’re not just thinking a month in advance — we’re thinking nine months in advance. That was helpful for them and it gives them a document. It doesn’t mean we can’t change it but we’re not just shooting from week to week.

So we get together after church the second Sunday of the month and we have a couple of hours of lunch together and literally work through the next month’s series — big picture metaphor, how to promote it. We have a template that we go through for every service, and look for elements of visual aids, video clips drama, music — we just kind of knock it out and everybody brainstorms.

We’ve found that about six people is a good mix. There will be some people that you don’t want on the team because they’ll distract. You find that they’re very creative but none of their ideas are very practical. You kind of want to un-invite them or don’t invite them the next time. The other people — some people are really good at movies, some people are really good with music, some people won’t add much but they are technical people and they will need to take some of the ideas and turn them into reality or they will push back and say, “You know what, that’s not going to happen.” We don’t have the people or it’s too complicated or they can say, “Oh, that’s beautiful.” So maybe three or four of the people are creative types and two or three of the people are more of the technician/implementers.