If you read this blog I probably do not have to tell you how important great design is.  Great design work can make the difference in effective marketing pieces, overall experience during the weekend and quite honestly can be the divide between someone making their next step towards Christ.

Does your church or ministry area need professional quality custom graphic design?  Are you a little afraid to try out a new designer or maybe you are a designer and slightly hesitant to outsource because of the risk and budget.

Well that risk has never been more affordable.  Curtis, owner and designer over at The Tree House Group, a new partner here at ShawnWoodWrites is offering some crazy give-aways because he is that confident that he will impress you!

So here is how it works.  Be the first of 20 folks to contact The Tree House Group and mention you came from ShawnWoodWrites and you could receive absolutely FREE (no value limit) expert design services for your first project.

The first group of five will receive FREE design service on their first project.

The second group of five will receive 75% off design service on their first project.

The Third group of five will receive 50% off design services on their first project.

The fourth group of five will receive 25% off design services on their first project.

Hurry and get your projects in.  You don’t want to miss this opportunity!  Applies to new clients only.

I have talked before about the awesomeness of having a transcript of your sermons here.  In this digital age I honestly believe that every pastor should have a volunteer do this or pay someone (Ginger is awesome if you want it done right)

One of my blog partner, Digital Sermon Transcription is doing a giveaway to peak your interest.  Here is what you need to do to win a FREE transcript to test their services:

1.  Click on the ad to the left of this post.  You should always know what you are winning.

2.  Comment in this post with:
Name
Church
Title
email address or twitter name (so we can contact you if you win)
Your biggest sermon blooper.

The winner of the best blooper (we will have a poll to decide after I pck the best three) will win a free transcript and everyone who participates will recieve 10% off their first transcript.

So, comment away!

I had the honor to meet Pastors Paul and John from St. Thomas Philidelphia in Sheffield UK a couple of weeks ago and hear their story.

They are reaching people in Sheffield in an amazing and unique way that is worth of an entire blog series, but that is not what this post is about.  This post is about one statement that they made that has rocked me for two weeks now and God continues to roll over in my soul.

Low control. High accountability.

Paul said it like this.  With our leaders we have a value of Low control and high accountability.  In other words we do not tell you what God wants you to do with your life and we don’t dictate what your passion and calling is.  That is for God to work out with you.  But what we do is as our leaders what that calling is and then we say, “look out cause I am going to hold you accountable to what you just said”.

This was a Wasabi moment for me.  A seemingly small statement that has major firepower implications.

If I am honest with myselef, I don’t (or at least have not) really believed this.   I have seen my role as a leader to control people. (I would have called it management) but I have not done a very good job at keeping them accountable for what God has called THEM to do.

This was a game changer for me.  It is affecting me greatly.

So how about you?  Do you have high control and low accountability for those you lead? Do you know what God has called those you lead to do?  What are you doing to make sure they do it?

So, I have taken a 7 day break so far from twitter and facebook and I think I am learning some cool stuff.

Breaks are healthy.

I think that I needed a break.  I am not sure there was anything “spiritual” about it (I never claimed it was a word from God) but I was just over it.  Ever been there? 

Sometimes there is a principle that goes like this, “how can I miss you unless you go away”.  In order to know if something is really important sometimes a break can help give us perspective. I also think that maybe the world needed a break from me.

I had begun to wonder if I was addicted to the technology or maybe even the pride of thinking people really care what I think.   I have realized I don’t think I am.  That is a good thing.  Less addiction is always good.

So, I will probably be back soon. I don’t know when, but one thing I have learned is that no one is holding their breath and the world did not even miss one click with me not being on twitter or facebook.

Here are a few questions that you can ask your teams to make Christmas services in 2010 even more effective:

1.  What were the ideas that you thought of too late? (now you are 270 days early!)

2.  What was one idea that really worked this year?  Should it be done again?

3.  What was one idea that just did not work?  Should it be canned or made better?

4.  Could we do a random survey of attenders to see what helped connect them to God?

5.  Find out all the little extra details that were put into lighting, website, cleaning building, serving guests…should we do those things every weekend?

We had a great Christmas meeting today. We accomplished so much that I thought there were a few principles that jumped out at me that I would share:

1. It was a Pizza meeting. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos says that a key to creativity and execution is not to have more people in the meeting than one pizza can feed.

2. Everyone pre-explored. My friend loswhit taught us a few weeks ago that the time to explore (i.e. “brainstorm”) is prior to the meeting not during.  Every person is our creative meeting today brought a sustainable idea to the table. Some were used, some were tabled and some were not a fit, but we did not waste time brainstormimg from scratch.

3.  We made a execution list and communicated about the meeting as soon as the meeting was over.  This is the key.

Good meetings make me very happy.

I would like to ask all my blog and twitter readers to come together in 10 minute blocks to spend 12 hours praying for Pastor Matt Chandler today.

Pastor Matt is one of my Podcast Pastors and has touched my life in a major way. He serves as Lead Pastor of The Village Church in Highland Village, TX will be undergoing surgery this afternoon to remove a tumor located in the frontal lobe of his brain.

Please spread the word and lets pray for Matt, Lauren andtheir children.

Sign up for a time here:

or by visiting www.bookwhen.com/shawnwoodwrites

This weekend we gave out several thousand shirts to get the conversation started about “Hope Epidemic”.  More to come about the epidemic soon, but here is the video we used to get the word out about the t-shirts.

Hope Epidemic – T-Shirt promo from Seacoast Church on Vimeo.

Special thanks to the guys at www.ourshirtsdontsuck.com for getting is a sharp looking, affordable shirt to 12 campuses on-time!

I am reading  Clever: Leading your smartest most creative people by Goffee and Jones.

The book identifies 9 common characteristics of “clever” people and I thought these were especially interesting:

1.  Their cleverness is central to their identity.
For clever people what they “do” is rooted deep in their being and not just a job.

6.  They are not impressed by nor do they want to be led by corporate hierarchy.
I can see this as a characteristic, but I am not sure it’s a “good” one or one we should accept. Authority is biblical.

9.  They wont thank leaders.
I think that this is a symptom of #6.  The writers basically say that clever people are so clever that they would not know leadership if it slapped them in the face.  So they wont think that they owe leaders a thanks because they see leaders as a part of taht hierchy.

Interesting book so far.  May blog some more later on it.

want to get the word out about your Christmas service times?
get rid of all of the clutter on your current website by going to a micro site for christmas.

Check out cloversites for a great place to build one and tell em’ ShawnWoodWrites sent you…