Dan Gould

Category: Church Stuff

  • Not Just Another Sunday


    Well today was the day for Not Just Another Sunday. An idea that came up at a service planning meeting a couple of months ago, which would bring all the ministries together for one service 2 times on this day August 30th. I was pumped!!!!

    Our Student Band got to lead the adults in a worship song, others performed a skit highlighting Son City, and I get to play Sweet Child of Mine (in church) on Guitar Hero! By the way, I really did a poor job! 1. I don’t own Guitar Hero myself, 2. The calibration was off, meaning the video and the audio didn’t match. Regardless, Mike would have beat me anyways! However, did I mention I played Sweet Child of Mine in a church service? That’s still kinda weird to me!

    Anyhow it was an awesome service and fun to be a part of! Special thanks to all that helped make the service what it was today!

    Here is a pic of our students practicing for this Sunday! They rocked it and I think some of our adults were surprised by how good they are!

    If you attended the service, what did you think? What did you like the best? What could we have added or done differently?

  • Life In Transition 5 – Giving Away Ministry by Empowering Leaders

    One of the greatest ways to hit a glass ceiling in your ministry is to try to do it all yourself!  Trust me I know!  I struggle with this daily . . . but I am getting better!  Over the last year I have had the privilege of being involved in some intense leadership training.  One of the things I learned during this time was the difference between an Achiever and A leader.  I learned that I am more of an Achiever than I am a Leader.  That’s doesn’t sound too bad, right?  Well, let me define these two for you:

    An Achiever – Gets the Job Done.
    A Leader – Gets the Job Done Through Other People!

    Based on this definition, which one are you?  Well if you are shocked like I was and you find yourself more of an achiever than a leader . . . there is good news.  The good news is that all of us can learn to be leaders and even be better leaders.  The reality is this, as we become better leaders, more people are going to follow our leadership.  When more people follow our leadership, it produces more needs, thus, requiring us to give away ministry opportunities by Empowering other leaders to meet those needs.  I wish I could say I have this all down, but this is still real raw in me and something that I am learning as I go.  But here are some things that I would say are important to every leader if they want to see their ministry to go to the next level!  As a leader you must . . .

    Cast the Vision Often
    It is important for your team to know where the ministry is headed and why.  This will help answer questions about why you are doing certain things a certain way and not doing some things that may have been good in the past.  It also allows them to begin to tell others about what is going on in your specific ministry.  This keeps you from being the only voice speaking on behalf of your area of responsibly, in my case, students!

    Recruit/Hire the Right People
    This may sound harsh but it is crucial.  The health of your ministry is going to be dependant on the volunteers you recruit or inherit, and the people you hire.  Make sure you do your homework before turning someone loose.  Empowering the wrong leader can be very destructive and might take months even years to recover from.  Getting the right people on the team may take time.  Be patient and don’t rush it.

    Empower Leaders to Lead
    Once you recruit that new volunteer or hire that new staff member, empower them to lead a specific area of ministry.  If you have a job description for that specific ministry, communicate those expectations and r responsibilities.  However, if you don’t have a job description, don’t feel like you have to know how to do that specific ministry before you hand a ministry off to someone.  Maybe you have an idea, but someone else has the expertise, allow them to tell you how their talent or giftedness could be used to enhance, broaden, or deepen your ministry.  You will be better off letting them develop the “how” after you share the “what” with them!  Remember, the human body is made up of different parts for a reason.  The important thing is that all the parts work together to achieve the overall goal, your ministry needs to function in the same way, different parts working towards one goal.

    Create an Environment where Failure is OK
    Yes I said it.  Great successes, many times, comes from several failures.  Don’t let the fear of failure keep you from having the faith to try something new.  However, if failure happens, learn from it so you don’t repeat it.  Developing this type of environment will allow others the ability to be more creative, to try new things, and to take bigger risks!  However, navigate wisely, encourage and evaluate often!

    Celebrate Victories Together
    It’s easy to always talk about the things that need our attention, the areas that need fixed, the opportunities that need to be taken advantage of, and the list goes on.  But don’t forget to talk about the good things that are happening.  God is at work somewhere, so talk about it!  Maybe ask these questions, “Where is God working?  Who/What is God using? What has been happening?”  These victories, whether big or small, are easily overlooked but worthy to be talked about!  Why?  Because it validates our ministry, reminds us of why we do ministry, restores our passion for ministry, and creates momentum for future ministry!

    Provide Additional Training
    Leaders are Learners and training can come in many styles. Provide opportunities to grow as a team as well as opportunities for them to grow personally and professionally.  Remember, the health of your ministry is dependant on the health of your leaders.  Don’t overlook this area, even if it’s small, do something.  Sometimes, the best training is just doing life together!

    These are just some thoughts that I hope can help or inspire you give away ministry.  I know I still have a lot to learn and would love to learn from you, so here is the question . . .

    When it comes to Giving Away Ministry by Empowering Leaders, what have you learned?  Please share so I, and others, can learn from you!

  • Leaders Summit @ Grace – Day 3

    Well today was the last day of Leaders Summit for the staff at Grace. We had a great discussion on these two topics this morning People Skills and Developing Leaders.  As a Leader, both of these areas, as are the other 10,  are crucial to the advancement of the Ministry or Organization. Here is what we talked about in each of these sessions:

    People Skills

    I took a people skills test and was surprised that what i thought would be my biggest weakness was my biggest strength.  I am sure i messed the test up somehow.  I think my wife would be a better gauge than the test I took today.  However, it did make me realize how important the skill of working with people is in ministry. DUH! Right? But seriously, it’s easy to over look some things and think you are good with people.  The little things add up.  One of the things that comes to a challenge for me is remembering peoples names.  I am not very good at it but need to improve in this area.

    Towards the end we had robust conversation about relationships on staff.  The essence of the question really centered around this thought “how do we become more than co-workers?” Meaning, how do we become friends who work together?  I thought it was a great question and am glad to see that others are thinking in this direction also!  Exciting things can happen when we get to know the people we work with on a personal level as well as a professional level!

    Developing Leader

    This was different this time around than last time.  If you want to grow you have to develop more leaders, but that’s not the question, the question is how do you develop leaders?  Chris shared this chart with us and we dialoged about it for quite a while.  Many times in leadership development, we gravitate to one or two approaches.  Chris challenged us to think in a broader term.  Here was the diagram we used to spark this conversation!

    This afternoon they will talk about Execution.  Wish I could be there for that I am sure it would have been good!

  • Leaders Summit @ Grace – Day 2

    Well day two of the Leaders Summit went much better than the first day.  It seemed that Chris (one of the speakers) was more relaxed and able to connect with the audience (our staff) a lot better today.  Again we covered some things that aren’t new when it comes to leadership and then other concepts that really challenge and stretch you.  For me, I am able to look at where I was four months ago compared to where I am now.  I am thankful that i see some consistency with my answers.  That tells me that I am not delusional or lack self awareness.   Here are the four areas of leadership that we covered today

    Change Agent
    Character
    Emotional Awareness

    I might be missing one?  I am sure that says something about my learning ability.  But anyhow, the three above had some great times of learning and discussion, even some quiet moments as we avoided awkward conversations or what some call pink elephants. However, I believe today was a healthy learning day for all of us and it will be interesting to see how we apply some of the principles that we learned today.  I also enjoyed getting to know some of the staff that I don’t know to well during our table discussions.

    I still have a lot to learn and process!  I will post more of my learning about each skill at a later time!

  • Volunteer Staff / Small Group Training

    Tonight, we had our first training meeting with our new team of Volunteers serving in Small Groups for the year!  What a great team.  Tonight we met at The Zone in McKinney!  If you are in the area this is one place that you should use for events.  They are so great and work so well with us.  We were there for three hours.  Ate pizza, had our meeting in a private room and then played laser tag.  It was a great way to kick off a great school year.  I have been excited about small groups before, but this year has get me really excited!!!  I believe we are on the verge of God doing something huge!!!

    If you are looking for a great opportunity, come join us at Fusion.  We would love to have you on our team!!!

  • Crazy Good

    This week has been crazy busy, but as I write this I can’t help but think how good the week was.  Here is a brief shakedown of my week:

    Monday – All day leadership training at Grace click here to read more!

    Tuesday – Student Staff Meeting, Interview and audition/practice with perspective Student Worship Candidate.

    Wednesday – Jackson had a doctor appointment in the AM, this always make for an exciting PM and it did.  At about 6:00 pm as we were getting ready to leave for a ball game with students, Jackson starts crying and throwing his head back as if he is in pain.  He would calm down for a little while, like a minute, and then start again.  Each time he would wear himself out causing him to have to try to catch his breath because he was crying so hard.  After about thirty minutes I got him to calm down by talking loudly to him saying, “Daddy’s here, you are going to be ok, Jackson Daddy’s here, you are going to be ok!”  It amazes me how a comforting voice can can change how others feel.  He started to calm down after that.  However, it was really scary.

    From this, we went to the ball park.  It may sound bad but our thought was if we were going to have to take him to the hospital, the ball park is closer to the hospital than our house is.

    The Rough Riders Stadium is nice.  For 15.00 dollars, we saw a game, ate all you could eat hot dogs, burgers, chicken sandwiches, and BBQ pork, chips, and drink, AND got a Rough Riders hat.  Pretty sweet deal.  the home team won, the weather was perfect, and everyone had a good time!

    Thursday – Plowed through small group curriculum for the year for each age group. Made training books for Small Group Leader/Coaches and our B2S Retreat curriculum and held band practice with potential Student Worship Coordinator.

    Friday – NOTHING – Blogging and then hanging out with the family! Well my wife just asked if we could go shopping for the Cafe’, so . . . I guess its not nothing!

    Here are some pic of our Fusion Family Night at the Rough Riders Game!

  • Leaders Summit @ Grace – Day 1

    Today, the team from Leaders Summit met with the staff at Grace Community Church for what will be a three day leadership conference.  This will actually be the second time I have gone through the material.  This is really good stuff, some of it basic, while other very thought provoking and even convicting.  It is interesting to see how our team responds to this.

    To be honest, I don’t know if I agree with all of the things that are said.  Like the example of not watching live TV in order to maximize time.  Please don’t get me wrong, I am all about maximizing time, but this sounds a little rigid and very scheduled.  Almost driven to the point of not having fun unless it’s scheduled.  That scares me!

    However, it’s easy to get caught up on the things that we don’t necessarily agree with, or get caught up on the way things are said, that we miss the point.  The principles we are learning are very good, the method however, may be different for different situations.  Example, if you don’t want to write in a journal because you have an on-line journal called a blog that fine.  The principle is capturing the thoughts that come, so you don’t lose them later.

    It was interesting to see what I wrote a couple of months ago and what I wrote today.  I do like the fact that we are meeting on Mondays from 9am to 3pm over the next three weeks instead of 2 days in a row starting at 8am and ending at 5pm.  I feel like I will actually get more out of it especially where my brain shut down during the last sessions toward the end of the conference last time.  We will see what happens.

    Today we talked about why it’s important to study leadership.  Based on our self assessment, click here to take one for yourself, we were able to see possibly our strength and weaknesses as it pertains to the hard and soft skills of leadership.  Here are the three Leadership Principles we talked about today.

    1. Vision
    2. L3 – Life-Long-Learning
    3. Team Work

    I am excited to learn and begin/continue to apply these leadership principles to our student ministry.

  • Secret Sin Video

    Well the file is toooooo big to post to this blog, but if you missed last Sunday, July 6, 2008, you can still watch the talk which includes the last song by clinking RIGHT HERE! Or you can watch it from our Student Web Site by clicking RIGHT HERE!

    Thanks for all the comments and notes of encouragement! Personally, it would have been much easier to talk about something else than “Secret Sins.”  But that is not the direction the Lord took me.

    Yes, the words were strong!  Very Strong, but the reality is, good people, even Godly people are falling victim to these sinful habits everyday.  The church can’t afford to be scared to talk about these things.  Yes, Jesus died for SIN, all sin, including every word that was said Sunday.  My heart was not to offend anyone but to see people get set free from the power of Secret Sin.

    These are the things that we don’t like to talk about.  However, people are now talking about some of these things.  I have heard very positive comments, thank you’s and even had a question about masturbation asking, “What does the Bible say about it?”  Great question!  I always point people to Ephesians 5:3 which says,

    “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.”

    What is a hint?  I don’t think we can justify it after looking at this verse, do you?

  • Hawaiian Falls

    Today we are taking Students to Hawaiian Falls water park in The Colony.  Should be a fun filled day in the sun.  I am excited, the park looks pretty cool from the highway.  The family is going also so I will post pictures later!  If your a teenager and want to join us it’s only $15.00 and includes lunch.  Meet us at Hawaiian Falls at 10:30am.

  • Secret Sin

    I just got done speaking in “the Big House”  AKA Church for adults.  Spoke twice.  Personally felt like the message went smoother in the second service.  Hard Talk, glad its over, but praying that God used it to draw people to Himself! Here is the main verse we focused on.

    “My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous.” 1 John 2:1 (NLT)