It may not be grand but it will be the final post on accesselevationchurch.com for this season. This blog has been fun for our staff to share our thoughts but has served its purpose.

We will keep the blog live and all old posts will be archived and searchable. But all future insights into the how and why we do things the way we do at Elevation will be done through guest blogs on our Pastor’s blog:

stevenfurtick.com

You can also check out one of the many Elevation staffers who update their blogs regularly. Here are the links:

Larry Hubatka

John Bishop

Wade Joye

Ryan Hollingsworth

Chris Brown

Mack Brock

Signing off.

Chunks Corbett, Executive Pastor

Filed under: Leadership |

Elevation Church is a church with several locations. In fact we will be adding a 3rd in the fall and I’m hopeful to add a 4th by Easter 09.

But having multiple locations (especially if they are portable) is not glamorous. Here are a few questions that I would think through before adding campuses:

Are we at capacity at our current location?

1. Would adding another location open seats up at our current location? (Would it cannibalize our current site?)
2. Is God leading our church toward a strategy of having multiple locations?
3. Will we use video or live preaching?
4. Not all Pastors are right for video, is ours?
5. What is the density of our current campus related to where we want to add another campus?
6. Can we add another service where we are and get the same effect?
7. Do we have the leadership to pull off another campus?
8. Will another site be a step of faith or foolishness?
9. What would you define as success for another campus? Define this by using metrics for attendance, salvations, giving, etc.
10. Will another site make us more effective at reaching people for Christ?

Those are just a few. Multiple locations is very effective but also trendy. Asking the right questions beforehand may keep you from making a mistake or confirm the direction God is leading his church.

Chunks Corbett, Executive Pastor

Filed under: Being Portable, Growth |

Everyone has people they need to “keep in the loop”.  For some of us, it’s our spouses who are constantly wondering what we did all day.  For others, it’s our staff, or bosses who need to know about the information that comes across our desk.

I’ve found myself, on occasion, wishing that there was a one-size-fits-all method for communicating that I could employ to keep everyone in the loop at the same time.  But for now, it is a struggle to stay on top of everything I need to say to everyone I need to say it to.

So here’s where I currently fall on this communication learning curve:

If there are multiple ways to say the same thing to the same person or group I take advantage of as many ways as possible.  (Call them, email them, write a blog about it, send them a card, set up a meeting, carve it in a block of wood and leave it in their car etc…)

• I am learning that I need to 1) tell them the information, 2) ask them if they need clarity and 3) follow-up again down the road to make sure they got it.
• There are a lot of things that people are going to get frustrated about, but being “kept in the loop” is generally not on the top of their list.  And, most people aren’t going to fault you for trying either.
• Information is power!  So, as a leader whose sole purposes are to 1) empower the people I lead and 2) stay in step with the leaders I follow, I need to hand out information as often and as fast as possible.
• When I say the same thing in the same way every time I say it, it gets lost in the monotony so I try to change it up and make it interesting when I can.

Whatever information you currently have that could be remotely helpful to someone else, go ahead and give it away.  If you’re worried that by giving it away you may loose your edge or fall behind, get over yourself, you’re not that important and neither am I.

John Bishop, Ministries Pastor

Filed under: Leadership |

Since the dubious crash of the original accesselevation.com and its hostile takeover by some weak purple blog our readership has narrowed to the hard core. It’s mostly church planters looking to learn from mistakes we’ve made in an effort to avoid them for themselves.

In honor of the loyal readers, I want to open up the blog to questions. Ask away. Anything you want to know about who, what, where, when, and why we do what we do at Elevation. Please send all questions to syates@elevationchurch.org. No promises we’ll answer it on the blog. It may be easier to just email you back. We are just looking for some topics to blog about that is relevant to the readers. Thanks.

Chunks Corbett, Executive Pastor  

Filed under: Church Planting, Leadership |