Guest Blogger: · — · ·     · —     · — ·     · — ·     — — · ·, Creative Pastor

We have an incredible design team at Elevation Church. They work hard. They play hard. And they produce amazing work.

As you can see, I have no problem bragging on them. I’d take them in a fight over any team in the country…as long as the fight wasn’t too physical, mostly just some light pushing and a little sarcasm.

They spend a lot of time creating just the right elements so our worship experiences speak to anyone who walks through our doors.  A series can easily be 200-300 total design hours when it’s all said and done.

The good news for you? We want to give you everything we’ve designed. We want to help you do what you do. And if it means taking a series graphics package and making it work for you, it’s our pleasure to hand it over free-of-charge.

Visit resources.elevationchurch.org and you’ll be able to log in and grab anything we currently have available. We’re working through all our assets and posting them as frequently as we can. Anything you don’t see, be patient, it’ll probably show up soon.

Few quick FAQs…
What’s up with no audio on videos? Most audio tracks require clearance. You’ll need to handle that on your end or use someone like these guys to help you out.
Is there a limit on what I can download? Maybe someday, but not yet.
Can I link the resources page? I’m expecting you to. Thanks.

Register. Log in. Download. We’re giving it all away. Well, everything we can. As fast as we can. Enjoy.

Disappointment can wipe you out.  Or it can move you forward.  The choice is yours.

Leaders have a choice to make every time they face a new disappointment: will I use this?  Or will I waste it?  Will I get something out of this?  Or will I let this get the best of me?

A few weeks ago I had an expectation that wasn’t met.  Of course, this happens to all of us daily.  But this one was a pretty big deal, involving lots of money and affecting lots of people.  I couldn’t just let it slide.

So I turned to a clean sheet of paper in my Moleskine, took a deep breath and broke down the elements of my disappointment into four different categories.  Putting my frustration in an organized format helped me get it out of my system.  And it gave me some handles on how to handle my disappointment.

Over the next couple days I’ll let you in on my process for dealing with disappointment.  I’m learning that disappointments never make or break a person.  It’s what we do with them that makes the difference.

Everything in me used to scream for relief every time I found myself in the middle of a long meeting.  Even some of the meetings I was responsible for leading.

“I don’t have time for this meeting.  Let’s get back to work!  The real work!”

Until one day, 2 hours into an important strategy meeting, the reality hit me:
This is my work.  Leading meetings isn’t something I do to get to the actual work.  It’s a substantial part of the work itself.  Since my job deals largely in the realm of ideas, concepts, and vision, my labor often seems abstract.  We have discussions that seem to go around and around.  And around.

Some of this can be/should be remedied by more effective moderation and clear prep-work.  So I don’t want to run long pointless meetings then blame it on God.

But the most impactful decisions and directions in the history of our church were born or defined in meetings.  And often, it seemed like the conversation was going nowhere.  Until…

BAM.  BREAKTHROUGH.

Stop resenting the hard work of substantial meetings.  Shorter meetings aren’t better.  Longer meetings aren’t better.  Better meetings are better.

Now, get back to work.

The topic of marketing came up at our recent staff advance.  I presented a paradigm to our entire team that I’ve embraced since pre-day-one of our ministry:

There is no marketing department at Elevation Church.  We are all the marketing department.  We are all marketing.  All the time.  We are marketing the greatest message in the history of mankind.  Everywhere. To everyone.

The whole team was nodding, and I felt like I was preaching pretty good, so I continued:

A lot of times, we think it’s the job of the creative department to make everything cool and attractive.  Like they have some sort of magical process where they can make everything shiny, slick, and exciting with the touch of a button.  In reality…

All of us are responsible for both the content and presentation of every message we send.  Every initiative we initiate.  Every communicative process we instigate.

Then came my favorite line.  I thought of it on the spot:

There is no phone booth where we put in crappy and it comes out cool.
(Please tell me you got the Superman reference.  It’s the best part!)

The way I stated this seemed to bring a lot of clarity to our staff.  I’d suggest you get in front of your team, read Matthew 5:13-16 and Acts 1:8 for foundation, and have this discussion:

In what areas are we putting in crappy ideas and expecting them to come out cool?  How can we be more strategic about the presentation of every message we send?  Especially considering that it’s the only message that will matter for eternity…

(My acknowledgments to the venerable Seth Godin for ingraining this idea into my mindset)