“WHEN THE THRILL IS GONE” Oxnard, CA

The Drama “When the Thrill is Gone” has been one of the best outreach production I have ever seen live on stage. I must admit that from beginning to end the production was eccentric! From the leading role (Joey Alanis) to the extras (local church) was outstanding!

This production attracted and captivated all ages and all walks of life.  Thousands gathered in attendance that night and hundreds were saved!

 

 

The story line is as relevant as society could be today; from homosexuality to broken households, from gang affiliation to crystal meth. A brother and sister is raised in a family where the father would beat their mother. The brother is forced to run away from home after nearly murdering his father. He is compelled to take his younger sister with him and falls deeper and deeper in the club scene and the life of crystal meth. They have no option but to survive by living on the streets from house to house until finally they have no place to go. The brother finds out his best friend rapes his younger sister and attempts to kill him, however, the plan goes bad and …. (You got to book this drama to find out the rest).

The week of the drama we had over 245 return to our church services as a result of “When the Thrill is Gone” production.  The cast were very disciplined and professional as well as the production crew.

Today, we still have much fruit that has remained in the congregation from Ex-gang members, fashion models, and an OBGYN doctor. I highly recommend “When The Thrill Is Gone” to every leader who is trying to make a difference in their community!

THE SECRET TO BREAKING THE 300 BARRIER

As a pastor the 300 mark seems to be a frustrating place to be, It seems to take a long time to break. Let me share with you just ONE of the secrets to break out of this number.  

I must say that if any ministry ever wants to see GROWTH numerically and financially it ALWAYS begins with the LEADER. If their in ONE possession the leader must posses it must be CHANGE. It seems to be that the MORE your church grows the more change their needs to be. the more you are RAISED, the more CHANGE their needs to be.

1. When Jesus was on the Mountain of transfiguration. (The name says it all) the bible says that “As he was praying the countenance of his face began to alter”.
2. When Jesus was on an exceedingly high mountain (Matt.4:8) the attacks from Satan changed.
3. When Jesus took his disciples with him to the Mount of Olives where he was taken to heaven before their eyes (Acts 1:10). The angel told them… “Why do you stand there looking up into an empty sky…”

• In essence, what the Angel was saying was…“Don’t just stand there, DO SOMETHING!”
• “The greatest proof of desire is pursuit!”

1.  Changing things is CENTRAL to leadership.

 

2.  If you want to make enemies, try to change something.

 

3.  All change doesn’t represent PROGRESS but without change, there can be NO PROGRESS.

 

 In church growth there is something that we will always run into. It’s called…

TRANSITIONS AND TENSIONS IN CHURCH GROWTH

I have attached a graph that I pray can help you understand the changing role of the Senior Pastor and his team in order to break through the 300 number.

SIZE OF CHURCH	Small Church	Medium Church	Large Church
PASTORS’ RELATION TO THE MINISTRY	1.    Do the ministry   2.   Hands on	1.    Over the ministry   2.   Hands in	1.    Advise the ministry   2.   Hands off
WHO DOES THE MINISTRY	1.    The Senior Pastor.   2.    The Laymen (During this time/age of our church the laymen back then are our team pastors today.)	1.The pastors are over the ministry.   2. People in the church/ team leaders do the ministry. (Pastors organize and lead groups of people to perform the ministry. Such as the team leaders)	1.The team leaders are over the ministry.   2.The people in the church do the ministry. (The pastors are ELEVATED and now serve like a board of directors. They may not even be aware of what is going on ministry-wise. Pastors deal only with the big matters)
DECISION-MAKING	1. The Senior Pastor make all decisions.	1. The Senior Pastor makes ministry decisions.	1. The senior pastor makes policy decisions.

Important! – WHAT DOES NOT CHANGE = In all three stages, one thing never changes. The role of the Senior Pastor. The Senior Pastor is always responsible for the “WHAT”. Both the Senior Pastor and the assisting pastors work together to formulate the “when” and “how”.

YOU MIGHT BE A PREACHER IF… (Part II)

Months ago I posted a blog “You might be a preacher if…” Today, I would like to post part II to make you laugh again!

You might be a preacher if…

1. You’ve ever dreamed you were preaching only to awaken and discover that you were.
2. (You may be a mega church preacher if..) You’ve ever considered a drive-thru counseling center.
3. You’ve ever asked for a clergy discount at a golf course.
4. People leave while you’re talking.
5. People sleep while you’re talking.
6. You’d rather negotiate with a terrorist than pick up the offering.
7. You’ve ever spoken for free and were worth every penny of it.
8. You’ve ever been asked to lead the prayer at a High School football game.
9. Taking a nap on Sunday afternoon is a spiritual experience.
10. It’s Sunday, but MONDAY is coming.

“DON’T TAP OUT!”

 

 

 

 

 

TEXT: I CORINTHIANS 16:13 “Be on guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be courageous. Be strong”.

For those of you who have ever been in a boxing match you know it always begins with something that is called an adrenalin rush! The adrenalin usually last for a few seconds in the first round. If not careful, adrenalin can take all the stamina away from you. Often, this is the problem with a lot of BABY CHRISTIANS. – They talk real big in the beginning, then later on they are nowhere to be found!

 Often this is true for NEW LEADERS. The beginning is a honeymoon. They are just glad to be recognized in the ring, but have a difficult time lasting in the ring. Sooner than later, they are TAPPING OUT and don’t want to pay the price of getting knocked un conscious for a victory.

 This is what I know about Quitters!!! Everybody knows one, almost everyone has been hurt by one, but nobody wants to be one.

MEGA CHURCH LEADERS MUST RECOGNIZE IN THE OCTAGON OF CHURCH GROWTH

I.            Demand for vigilance. (To keep watch)

 

A. “Watch” – be awake, alert, constantly on guard, never sleepy or sluggish, never to let down one’s guard.

 

B. 1 Peter 5:8 “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour:”

 In the octogan a fighters worst nightmare is to fight sluggish.

 

C. When an army is on a campaign, the soldiers have to “bivouac.” This is, they spend the night in the open-air, and every one remains on guard.

 This is how the LEADER’S OF THE CHURCH ought to be. The night is setting in. Let the church BIVOUAC– Let every one become a watchman.

 

 II. Demand for steadfastness.

 

A. “Stand fast in the faith” – stand your ground, stand true.

2 Thessalonians 2:15

“Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.”

 Quote – “Men who show themselves men are men who stand when everyone else has sat down”.

 1 Corinthians 15:58

“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”

 Quote – “If I falter, push me on. If I stumble, pick me up. If I retreat, shoot me”.

 

III. Demand for manliness.

 I Corinthians 16:13b

“…Be men of courage”

 A. Be courageous as real men, quit living like immature men.

 Ezekiel 22:30

“And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.”

 B. God is searching for men who will stand up as men – men of God!

 C. Leaders with the right prioroties.

 

1. God is first in their lives.

a. Matthew 6:33 “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

b. Malachi 1:6 “A son honors his father and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honor? And if I be a master, where is my fear?” saith the LORD of hosts…

2. Family is next to God 

a. Your wife should be the most important thing in your life next to God.

b. Love your children

3. The Church is in third place

Hebrews 10:25

“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”

4. Occupation

1 Timothy 5:8

“But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”

 Your career is the means that God has given you to meet your needs.

 Your career should never run your lives.

 

(Illustration)

When Billy Crystal’s daughter turned 11, Billy was in New York filming a movie. He called her apologizing for his work schedule and said a package would be delivered soon. He then flew from NY to LA. Later that day when Lindsay opened the front door, a six-foot high carton greeted her and she began ripping it open on the spot. Dad was inside the carton. Billy said, “She hugged me for five minutes. It was unbelievable.” He went on to say, “I missed 25 birthdays with my dad. I’m not going to let that happen with my girls.”

5. Recreation

 Someone has said that one way to tell the difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.

 I’ve found personally that YOU NEED TO HAVE SOME SORT of recreation to balance out your life.

 Having recreation is the oxygen to living life to the fullest.

 

 

 

WHY DO LEADERS TAP OUT?

 

1.  They distant themselves from men stronger than them.

2.  They have an un-happy marriage.

3.  They give up on their dreams.

4.  They fall into temptation.

5.  They don’t realize if they lose one round it doesn’t mean they have lost the fight.

MOMENTUM

The following is an article I would like to introduce to my readers concerning what I have learned about MOMENTUM. What I am about to share with you is from personal experience over the years of my priviledge of being in leadership. Please note that this is all personal experience nothing is taken from any other material.

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED ABOUT MOMENTUM:

 

1. MOMENTUM IS NOT BY ACCIDENT; IT IS SOUGHT OUT ON PURPOSE. 

Many people can look at a growing church or ministry and say “If I had what they had I would be able to do what they do”. The truth of that comment is; that leader didn’t start with what he has. Often, he started like everyone else – “With Nothing”. Even in my case of inheriting a church. I did start with people but there was no momentum. I needed to “look” on how I could CREATE momentum in my church! I just mentioned a key word called “Create”. This is where momentum begins. We as growing leaders always need to be on the lookout for creating. This is one of the first things GOD did in the beginning. In the beginning God “created” the heavens and the earth. A growing leader is always creating movements in his ministry. When things are not moving, they are dying. A lack of movement results in lots of moss. The creator in momentum are always the lead pastor or the main leader’s responsibility. It isn’t anybody elses job to create momentum in my church other than mine! As we will learn later on in this article that MOMENTUM IS CONTAGIOUS! But, it is YOUR job to be the one that initially creates the momentum. We must always remember that “Momentum is not by accident it is sought out on purpose”. So go ahead! get going, start creating. I can’t wait till you find it!

2. MOMENTUM IS TO BE TREASURED.

Once you’ve created momentum then you have found it. The next thing I am learning is how to keep momentum. Momentum has always been my best friend in building my church! Therefore, I had to learn to treat it as a best friend. If I want my friend to always be my friend I need to treasure it. When I am not treasuring the momentum, then that is when I start to lose it! Once I’ve lost it, it is always harder to start again. Imagine with me for a moment; “Do you remember when you were a child; trying to get going on the park’s swing by yourself?” It took a while to get moving quicker and quicker, higher and higher. But once you got the momentum going it wasn’t so hard to keep it going. All it took was to “keep feeding” the swing. When you stopped feeding the swing, you slowly lost the momentum. Then, you had to start the work all over again! Sometimes, when you lose the momentum on a frequent basis a leader gets discouraged with the hard work to start it again and will never get the momentum back. Remember, treasure the momentum. Momentum grows a ministry. “Keep feeding the swing!”

3. MOMENTUM IS CONTAGIOUS.

This is one of my favorite things about momentum! It is very contagious. The people closest to me will catch it and the people closest to them catch it, and you know the rest. “The beat goes on!” People are attracted to winners. Everyone wants to win and nobody wants to lose. Momentum always makes leaders look better than they really are. And no momentum makes a leader look worse than he really is. If the main leader can keep momentum going in his personal life 90% of the time, he will have a ministry full of ministries that operate on a full tank of momentum. When momentum has died in the church, it means it has died in the leader of that church.

In closing, those of you that have read this complete article have been attracted with the desire to get momentum or have been awakened not to let it slip from your leadership hands.

Pastor Fernie 

V.E.T.I. INTERVIEW

 Last month, a few growing churches in Victory Outreach (Domestic) were invited by V.E.T.I. for a video interview. The topic; CHURCH GROWTH. Some of the pastors that were invited to this video interview were..

Pastor Al Valdez (Victory Outreach San Diego), Pastor Joe Cotinola (Victory Outreach Whittier), Pastor Robert Maes , and others. I would like to share the QUESTIONS that were asked to all of us. I pray that this can be helpful to many of you pastors and leaders. Here are the questions that were asked and the answers I gave for my church personally. Please note that we were given an alloted time during the interview so the following answers are in greater detail than the ones given in the interview.

#1 QUESTION: V.E.T.I. “In your opinion, what would you say was the single most important contributing aspect for the growth of your church?”

ANSWER: Pastor Fernie “I must admit. I inherited a congregation that I was able to mobilize. I didn’t start with nothing! Although some members left the church during the transition I still had people to work with. I must say that the most single important contributing factor would be more than just one but if I could have permission let me sum it up with three…  

1. ”The sharing of influence”. On a professional sports team when a team wins a championship it is important to take notice that everyone gets a ring. Not only does the starting line up receive a championship ring, but the entire team gets one. Something I started immediately in the transition was something that I called “VICTORY SUNDAY’S”. I got this idea from a book I read entitled “The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership”. One of the leadership laws was “The Law of Victory”. In other words, celebrate victories with your followers. The more I brought the victories to the attention of the church, the more people wanted to be on my team. The bigger the team, the more positions you got to create! The more positions you create-the more influence is shared with the church.

2. Relevant preaching and atmosphere. In the book of Acts, one of the secrets to the mega growth of the church was that those who were visiting heard them speaking in their own language. This could be a good way of looking to the word relevance. It is important to understand that the  un-churched can view church as history. We have a job to stay relevant and current with the times when communicating the message of Jesus Christ! 
 

3. My wife. Last but not least, behind every growing pastor there is his wife! I learned immediately that my wife has a set of eyes that God gave her for the church too. It seems to be that the Pastor’s wife is very instrumental in Children’s Ministry and Women’s ministry. My wife is good at both of those but is more POWERFUL in budgeting and fundraising. Veronica is very creative and innovative and has brought tremendous growth to our church.

#2 QUESTION V.E.T.I. What resources (books, seminars, sermons, etc.) do you find helpful in developing an attitude for church growth?

ANSWER: Pastor Fernie I must say that this is a great question! When I inherited the church, one of  the first things I needed to become was a SELF LEARNER. The book that transformed my perspective on leadership would be: The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership. (The Law of Influence) is a chapter in the book that really helped me grow as a leader. We must remember that passionate leadership is contagious. I found out that you attract who you are. Leadership attracts leaders!

Other books and seminars that have helped me would be 1. Courages leadership, 2. Futuring, 3. Who’s holding your ladder,       4.  Thinking for a change 5. Quitting Church are just a few to name. I and my staff have been to numerous church growth seminars such as “Outreach Marketing” Seminar, ”The Engaging Church” Seminar, ”Connection Power Seminar”, ”Church Growth Institute” just to name a few and personal one on one interviews with mega churches and their pastors.

#3 QUESTION: V.E.T.I. Has the use of technology (internet, media, social networks, etc.) contributed to your growth?

ANSWER: Pastor Fernie Yes! Yes! Yes! Today we live in what is called the EPIC generation. 

Expiriental
Participants
Image driven
Connected

You can see the word IMAGE DRIVEN in this EPIC generation. This generation are MEDIA fanatics! People seem to adapt to your church if you provide images, technology, etc. People stay connected to your church through the means of internet. Webcasting your church services seem to be popular with many growing churches today. This is one way for people in your congregation who are ill or possibly handicap to stay current with the flow of the church. People find your church through the means of internet (I suggest investing in ADWORDS by GOOGLE). People no longer are looking through the phone book for a church, they are using technology. People even pay their tithes through the internet. 

As far as social networking; I have involved myself with the Chief of Police Clergy Council and Networking with other pastors.

#4 QUESTION V.E.T.I. Can you comment on how VOI’s core ministries contribute to church growth?

ANSWER: Pastor Fernie Our church would have not grown an inch if we didn’t apply the core ministries of V.O.I. Investing in theses core ministries are the success to our church.  They are NON NEGOTIABLE. They are proven ministries that work. If you don’t know where to start your churches growth plan, I recommend that you focus, invest and strengthen every one of our core ministries in your local church for a start. You will be surprised!

#5 QUESTION V.E.T.I. In what ways do you engage the community surrounding your church?

ANSWER: Pastor Fernie We have many ways but probably one of the most effective ways would be the 10 evangelistic centers in 10 gang infested neighborhoods in our city and county. Therefore, we are ALWAYS in the gang members territory at all times. These centers consist of their own church buildings or recreation centers and conduct a gang outreach church service once a week and consistently evangelizing them on a weekly basis. This is one way our city knows that Victory Outreach is an Evangelistic Ministry!

#6 QUESTION  If you could state the single most influential church growth principle in a sentence what would it be?

ANSWER: Pastor Fernie Again, It’s hard to answer with just one answer. I’m going to have to put it this way. 

1. Plan ahead  2. work hard 3. celebrate victories and 4. NEVER GIVE UP on your vision! (Of course, PRAY!)

#7 QUESTION V.E.T.I.. If you had the chance to start all over again, what would you do different?

ANSWER: Pastor Fernie Lol! Wow… good question! I guess I would have been a little more patient with God, the people and with my vision. We still have a loooooonng way to go so I guess I still could have the same attitude.

I would like to thank Pastor Kevin Young and the V.E.T.I. team for considering Victory Outreach Oxnard as a church for this interview. It has been an honor and we are deeply humbled for the invitation for this interview.

WHAT I LEARNED IN 1 DAY WITH PASTOR SONNY ARGUINZONI

He was here! The person who began Victory Outreach in 1967 and still going strong today. Founder/Pastor Sonny Arguinzoni was at Victory Outreach Church of Oxnard. This was a priceless day for our congregation. After Pastor Sonny preached I had the opportunity have him and Sister Julie over my home for lunch and fellowship. A few of the leadership were present with us.

WHAT I LEARNED IN 1 DAY WITH PASTOR SONNY & JULIE ARGUINZONI

1. Punctuality – Pastor Sonny & Julie arrived one hour early to my city and 30 minutes early to our church service.

2. Approachable – The first word that preceeded his mouth was warm. All my nerves calmed as soon as I heard the first word from him.

3. Commitment – He arrived from New York City the night before but held on to his engagement with our church in spite of his time difference and 3,000 mile difference.

4. Observant – From the moment we pulled into our church parking lot he noticed things.

5. Passionate Conviction - His sermon was so convincing and passionate. Anyone would believe what he had to say because of his conviction and passion.

6. Love for People – You can always tell when a preacher has a love for people by the way he spends time at the altar praying for them. Pastor Sonny loves people.

7. Time Giving – He was in no hurry to leave. He spent time with me, my wife and leaders.

8. Interested – He is interested in the current lives of people around him. He never fails to ask “How are you?”.

9. Visionary – In spite of a great crowd and lots of energy in the service. He could still find points to better your leadership and church atmosphere.

10. Fun – He knows how to have fun around the table! He speaks vision, growth and strategy, but there is always a laugh with it all!