KevMcCord

NoMi Campus Pastor Email

Below is the email I sent today to the folks who participate at Oasis Church North Miami.  I write the email to encourage, to create a bridge for conversation back to me, to drive traffic to articles on the website, and to make myself accountable for putting articles on the website.  I consider this email personal communication between me and the people I am priviledged to serve and worship with.  I include my cell phone number making myself accessible to everyone regardless of whether they might abuse my time.  No one has. 

Dear NoMites, 

This week I need an Easy Button.  Everything just seems to be taking a little longer and getting a little more complicated.  To make matters worse I'll be alone since Suzie and Mason have gone to Texas without me.  The fast food industry is about to get a Kevin McCord stimulus.

No matter what else is happening, I enjoy writing you this email.  Sharing with you what God is doing at Oasis Church NoMi is a very important part of my week.  I'm very thankful to those of you who read it.  Those who take the time to respond brighten my day!

We had a great service last weekend.  There were at least 12 guests from many walks of life.  We saw three believer's follow Jesus in baptism.  There are a couple of fresh articles on the website this week.  Don't miss them!

• Oatmeal Alarm
• Doug, David, and Samantha
• Meet the Johnsons
• Chalk It Up!

Don't miss Gary Means.  He's a professional Chalk Artist who will share his gift with us as he creates from scratch a work of God-glorifying-art while we worship THIS Sunday, March 1!

I hope you realize how important you are to God.  Remind yourself and someone you know that you were fearfully and wonderfully made.  Start your day by affirming that the God of the universe sacrificed Himself in the person of His only begotten Son so that you and I could be reconciled to him.

May you recognize that the God who saved you from death and destruction is present in your life each and every moment.

In Him,

Kevin McCord
Oasis Church
North Miami Campus Pastor

VisitOasis.Org Improves Significantly

Comparing last January to this January.

TwitterFeed Links Church Website To Twitter

Oasis Church has a website www.VisitOasis.org. The website in turn has an RSS feed for all articles.  This allows people who use RSS readers to read the articles without visiting the website.

Oasis Church has a Twitter account.  This account is new, no one knows about it and there's no plan to announce or explain it.  I'm not sure if there are half-a-dozen twitter users in our church of 2,000 in weely attendance. Still, I put up a Twitter link on our website for those who are "in the know" to follow Oasis Church.

Today I linked our website RSS feed to our Twitter account through www.TwitterFeed.com.  Each time someone on the church staff publishes an article, TwitterFeed will make sure the new article is posted as a status update on the http://twitter.com/oasischurchsfl Twitter stream.

Who knows if Twitter will catch on at our church like Facebook is starting to.  I think it is going to remain a fairly niche audience.  All I know is that this only took a few minutes to setup today.   It cost nothing.  I definitely have a better way to keep up with new articles published on the church website.  I also have a way to discover some church folks using Twitter.

Story Driven Catching On

Does every article on your website have a "freshness" date?

1.5 years ago Oasis Church launched a website with a "Story Driven" approach.

We decided that stories were what we would feature on our site and that those stories should focus on what was happening in people's lives as they ministered together and to one another.  This meant stories about what had happened were just as important as stories about what was going to happen.  Church sites generally focus only on the brochure content, transactions, and announcements.  We wanted to talk about things.

The approach affected many decisions we made about the site.

• We put limits on the site.  There are only 12 "landing" pages on the site beyond the home page.

• We relied heavily on text at a time when church sites were getting more and more flash-driven.

• We put a time stamp on every article to create accountability for the freshness of the content.

The site has lots of usability problems, but the over-all goals were accomplished.

In the past 2 weeks we began to approach the volume of content I felt would be necessary for the site to gain any sort of momentum.  If you click through the site you'll see what I mean.  Each page features articles that are less than 2 weeks old.  This kind of accountability was critical and it has taken us 1.5 years to develop both the intention and the habits of keeping such a site updated.

Frankly, we've only been partially successful.  There hasn't been near as much interaction as I had hoped.  People still thought of the stories as needing to have some imaginary threshold of significance to get on the site.  They missed the beauty of just talking about the things that impressed us and sharing them quickly, concisely, and consistently.

I personally maintain one page.  I try to add 3 things each week.  I send 125 people an email each week and I always link them back to my page.  My audience is fairly small, but my page gets more traffic than all but 2 other pages (excluding the home page).

Bishop Guy Alan II

Pastor Guy linked to my blog again.  As is my custom, when he links here I like to stir up some controversy at his expense.

Therefore I'm breaking some news early that was only going to become public in 2009.  Below you'll find the language I lifted from internal documents not yet released from Oasis Church.

Whereas it is now the case that we have campuses of Oasis Church in 2 counties and 3 cities.

Whereas it is now the case that we have lay pastors, host pastors, campus pastors, and teaching pastors.

Whereas it is necessary and good to distinguish the leader of all our pastors in a manner fitting his calling to guide and shepherd the shepherds.

Whereas Pastor Guy has declared at times he doesn't really like the term "senior" pastor

Whereas it is the case that Guy is fairly old.

Whereas other churches and denominations have liberalized the use of the term Bishop in evangelical circles.

Now, therefore let us refer to Pastor Guy as Bishop Guy Alan II from now until the Lord returns, or if the Lord tarries, until such time as Bishop Guy, of his own volition, exchanges his robe and his bishop's hat for his dream retirement post of year-round Christmas shopper.

Be It So Decreed This Second Day of December In The Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Eight.

Note:  There was already a Bishop Guy so that is why our fearless leader shall be known as Bishop Guy Alan II.  Folks, this is official church stuff so we need to comply.  Please designate all future email and mail correspondence with the appropriate formalities.  A ring and a staff worthy of this new office have been ordered to go with the hat (pictured above) that we secured through a land deal with a local church of a more heirarchical nature.

Entrepreneurial Christians

Recently I took on the duties of Campus Pastor at our North Miami Campus.  We number about 100 people meeting weekly in a historic church building that belonged to the First Baptist Church of North Miami.  They voted to merge with Oasis Church last year and we've been ministering together ever since.

One thing I find exciting about North Miami is the number entrepreneurial christians that have found their way to our church.

• I'm used to hard working Christians who will jump in when asked.
• I'm used to generous Christians who will give of their resources to bless others.
• I'm used to self-sacrificing Christians who will invest their time and talent in someone else's life.

I'm going to have to learn to lead these entrepreneurial christians.  Almost every week someone gives me an idea they are working through, invites us to particpiate in a project they are part of, or tells me a story about how God is using them.

This past week I learned a lady in our church is doing a Bible study class for 15 kids in her building.  Over the past month, another lady organized the remodeling of our Fellowsip Hall.  One of our men organized laying in pavers at our church.  Another couple just asked if they could host a dinner for some of the servant-leaders in our church.  Yet another lady informed me her friend at Publix would donate food to our church if we provided some documentation.  She was planning a food closet.

This is just one month of stuff I found out about.  I'm so glad I've learned to let people take risks.  I'm glad I've learned to tell people that we'll always celebrate what God does through them.  Sometimes we can promote it, and occasionally we can even come along side and organize it with them.  I've gotten beyond my knee-jerk reaction to find the problemsn their plan related to what "the church" can or can't do.

As a campus pastor my role as a catalyst and standard bearer is going to challenge the administrator in me.  I'm up for the challenge.

Learn in the Downturn

Oasis Church like so many other churches is going through tough financial times.  We are staying positive though because we have a great God and a great church and we live in a great country!

Here are some things an economic downturn can teach a church like Oasis and an Administrator like me.

We can learn what we can live without.  We can live without premium coffee, full color printing, a lawn service, traditional advertising, police presence on campus and so much more.

We can learn who we can live without. We can, for a season, avoid replacing people who depart on their own by shifting work.

We can learn who can live without us.  We can challenge staff to conserve, live without a raise, live without reimbursements, avoid any elective expenses, put off discretionary projects, work fewer shifts, and more.  Some staff won't stick with us through the tough time.  This kind of "shaking loose" is not always bad. 

We are motivated to ask tough questions and act on the answers.

1. What responsibility can be spread around?
2. Who do we pay who can easily pick up other work?
3. Who do we pay who isn't fully committed to our mission/vision?

We can think longer and harder about bills we used to just pay.  Do we need this much medical insurance?  Can we live with a higher deductible on flood insurance?  Should we renew that maintenance contract?

We can stop doing things that were on the margins of our mission more easily.  There are always any number of things at a large church that exist in the nebulous world of ministries.  Some were big ideas that never took off.  Others are on the downward cycle of their useful life.  Some are even ahead of their time.  In our case, we tabled a few this year.  If they have merit and dedicated leaders, they will surface again in time!  Some will live on without the operational support of the church.

We can step up our creativity.  Good ideas get ignored in times of plenty.  Just today I talked to a person in our church with a fantastic idea on a way to use MeetUp.com to attract people to Oasis.  As a pastoral team we're going back to church-planter basics.  It's an opportunity to take ministry outward instead of planning ministry onsite!

We can focus on relationships.  When we aren't putting on expensive events or engaged in big costly projects you have time!  You can call through the families in your church!  You can begin to spend time with those who are running with you and learning from you.

We can leverage free and nearly free services we only glanced at before.  I'm currently looking at Facebook.com and MeetUp.com with very valuable ideas I think will meet needs we've ignored and delayed in times of plenty!

This Is NOT Holy Water

We need a sign that says: 

NOT HOLY WATER, MAY CONTAIN COOTIES

You see, we've had a decorative fountain in the lobby of our Pines Campus for almost 8 years.  Every little kid that comes through our doors wants to put their fingers in the water.  Some, like my kid when he was little, don't stop at fingers.  They'll jump in if their parents aren't watching.

So I got a chuckle the other day when a lady was filling a water bottle from the fountain.  Clearly she was thinking it was holy water.  There is a drinking fountain just around the corner. She was probably on her way to Mass in our auditorium. 

Thing is we are a Baptist church.  We will dunk you in water, but that water need not be blessed by a priest. 

This illustrates that South Floridians make their own sort of religious experience at our church every week.  It is funny when one tries to impose that on everyone else like the guy who insisted our pastors should wear robes.  I told him some of us do at home at night before bed.

So, if you come to my church you'll enter through the lobby walk past a decorative fountain and go into the auditorium for worship.  If you encounter one of our parishioners though, they may tell you to go through the narthex, past the holy water font, and on in for Mass! It is all good.

iPhone Active Sync

Thanks to the help of our network support company http://www.pstcg.com we now have ActiveSync working on our Exchange 2007 server. 

Why did this just now happen?  Because no one on our church staff of 50 has asked me to make it happen.  As far as I know, the iPhones my wife and I use might be the only devices in use by our staff that support ActiveSync.  There have been a few PDA's and smart phones in the past, but none since we did the Exchange 2007 upgrade.

Anyhow, ActiveSync means I am officially done with Outlook 2003 client for Windows.  It will not be missed.

I don't know if I will EVER go to the Outlook 2007 client since Outlook Web Access (OWA) on Exchange 2007 meets all my needs.  I'm leaning towards avoiding the Office 2007 cost entirely and taking our church to Google Docs or Open Office or both.  We aren't ready for Gmail yet, but I think it is inevitable that we will go towards that kind of service so that we can fully engage our lay leadership and give them the same support (sans hardware) that we give our staff.

For my fellow staff members reading this email, this means you can ask me to setup your device so that changes made on the phone go to exchange instantly and vice versa.  This applies to contacts and calendars.  Furthermore, iPhone users can get their email "crackberry" style.  That means the email will find your phone as opposed to your phone having to go find your email.  Guy, this means it is time to go buy the iPhone!

Oi Fay

TS Fay can't keep us down.  What a team we have at Oasis.  We'll get all the critical work done by 1:00 pm today that we normally do by end of business Tuesday.  Our office team is cross trained to handle Monday holiday weeks getting two days of work done on Tuesday.  We can switch gears easily.  What is even more impressive is that this is a payroll week.  That takes one of our key players out of the loop.  Marci has to do her job in half the time.  It won't be easy, but we have the team and the plan to get it done.  The goal is to have very little to worry about on Tuesday so we can hang out with our families.  This isn't even a board-em-up storm.  It is looking more like a practice run.