We had a great time at the Christian Camp Leaders Conference in Lexington, KY this week! We even made it home before the big storm hit. We met so many great camp staffers as well as camp board members and volunteers. We participated in the vendor expo and then Tricia led a workshop on Volunteerism (some best practices of ITEFERR) and Krista led a workshop on Innovation (and why you should use RBC facilitators). It is amazing to us how these workshops are valuable for churches, non profits and now CAMPS!

Here are the resources we promised the people from our workshops. Download these power points and train your other staff members how to be equippers of volunteers and innovative leaders!

Thanks for inviting us Steve, Mark & Kelly!

Tricia's Volunteerism Workshop ITAFERR

Krista's Innovation Workshop - RBC

Today is our last in a series of free webinars with our GoodCities Partner, EPPC Global Management. Watch for the recording to be linked here in a few days. Until then, download a copy of the power point for review. Thanks for participating! Email us and let us know what topics you would be interested in learning more about in the future!

files/backyardimpact/BackyardimpactRBCwebinar.ppt

Thank you for joining our webinar. Our final webinar is Nov. 12, 2009. For more details and registration see our Calendar of Leading & Learning.

Plug the Leak PDF of Power Point files, by Krista Petty & Tricia Richardson, Backyard Impact, presented on 10/29/09

Team Covenant sample from Krista Petty & Concord Christian Church Community Connection Team
 

Skills & Capacity Survey sample from Tricia Richardson, Backyard Impact

Volunteer Program Retention Assessment

To host a Backyard Impact strategy session on volutneerism with your staff, email us at info@backyardimpact.com

What a great time in Gastonia! Krista spoke about Collaboration to a number of leaders at a luncheon there today. It was an honor to share the podium with Dr. Susan Weinberger, world reknowned mentoring expert. Click on the following link to down load a copy of Krista's Exploring Collaborative Relationships power point from today. files/backyardimpact/Exploring%20Collaborative%20Relationships.ppt

We just returned from the first LifeServe Conference in Loveland, CO. It was a great time of learning and leading for us. We met so many wonderful kingdom-minded leaders! We taught workshops and lead affinity groups of externally focused people. We also met a number of new friends and had a lot of laughs with old ones. It was a nice oasis in the middle of our busy seasons at North Trenholm Baptist Church and Concord Christian Church, where we both volunteer.

As promised, here are copies of our power points and a number of other resources. Use all of it and equip others! Just remember where it came from and source who we source in our presentations, please. These are only up here for a limited time! Please download in 7 days. If you have any questions, contact us at info@backyardimpact.com

Krista Petty- Exploring Collaborative Relationships Power Point LifeServe 2009

Tricia Richardson- Organizing for Usefulness Power Point LifeServe 2009

Backyard Impact Resource Pack: includes samples of position descriptions, team covenants, congregational surveys and more. Word document

You Are Here: By popular demand, here is Tricia's worksheet from LifeServce 2009.

NTBC Congregational Survey and EDGE Team follow up 

Externally Focused Leadership: Latest paper by Krista Petty and Leadership Network. This is includes job descriptions for externally focused leaders as well as interviews.

Charity Tracker profile : This paper looks at the exciting world of shared case management between churches and community agencies in Florence, AL. They are helping more people with less money! Check it out and let us know if you would be interested in taking a readiness survey for collaborating online in your community.

That was fun! Tricia and Krista entered the world of webinars last week with the help of our friends at EPPC Global Management. The Webinar was about Effective Service Event Days- what they do and what they don't do. For those of you that missed it, or are just dying to see a repeat performance (haha) Here is the link.

Special, big, HUGE thanks to Daniel at EPPC for being our host and teaching us about webinars. Also thanks to the whole team at EPPC for partnering with us and the rest of the GOODCITIES Partners to build capacity for those who do good in our world! EPPC Global Management conducts in-depth nationwide research on the role and efficacy of social service programs for both the secular and faith based communities.   Our principal activities with the coalition are consultation for research, development, dissemination, service, instruction, and national and international leadership in evaluation. Advocacy is meaningless in the absence of credible data. You can check them out at www.eppcmanagement.com.

In the Spring of 2009, Krista finished another Leadership Network paper "Missional Households." This one was about the power of families serving together. The paper is full of compelling research from Dr. Diana Garland (Baylor) about the role that serving others alongside adults plays in the faith development of children and teens. According to their surveys, serving is a "stickier" faith-builder than worship or even youth group activities. The paper also illustrates how several churches are encouraging and even designing community service projects to meet this desire in families to serve together.

Last week, I got to put the research to the test, as our church participated in good old VBS. But this was not your typical Vacation Bible School. We did a family, service-focused VBS. Our Concord Christian Church families built playhouses and playsets for families living in transitional housing (the place between the homeless shelter and self sufficiency). It was a great week. Families worshipped, learned and served together. 50 families and about 240 people for 5 nights! They also raised nearly $1000 for the Teaching Housing program in our community. Kids were using drills, hammers, paintbrushes alongside their parents. Families were constantly sharing how their conversations at home were so rich because of their service experiences together. not only did we build up families, but we saw unity in our church build as well. Thinking about service projects with kids and families? DO IT! Well worth all of the coordination it takes for such a large task. Photos coming soon!

If you'd like a copy of the Missional Households paper, email me at krista@backyardimpact.com There's no charge. It is a free Leadership Network resource.

WOW! Tricia and I facilitated a great session with some great leaders in Cleveland TN recently. It was truly a meeting of the minds and hearts of other servants. We facilitated and participated in a day-long session with the purpose of this gathering exploring partnership. Each person and organization represented desired people of faith to engage in community transformation. We didn't want to just talk about partnership: we want to live it ourselves. Church and community work is complex. Just as no one organization or church can solve an entire community issue; it takes many to build the capacity of an entire city or community. That’s why Backyard Impact is working with this talented and diverse crew of people to form the GoodCities Partnership, a collection of practitioners and experts in both church and community good works. As a collection of corporations and nonprofits experienced at working with communities, this partnership wants to help those who do good to do even better. Our partnership draws from a wealth of experience and expertise in a variety of areas including:

More to come about this gathering and this work together! Here are some photos of our time in Cleveland!

Effective Brainstorming
I’m a detail person and find that it is a gift and a curse. Someone presents an idea, and I can go from 0 to 60 thinking of the details surrounding how to get there—or how we won’t get there. Critical thinkers are vital to teams and organizations. Every visionary needs to partner with people who can imagine the obstacles and measure the risks associated with achieving the goal. However, a friend in ministry once admitted to me that it’s what he loved and hated about working with me. He would come up with some pretty wild ideas, and I would detail them out—sometimes to the point of killing the plan altogether. Ironing out the details is needed often, but timing in doing so is key. I wrote about how to pitch and build on ideas instead of pitching problems in my Group Church Volunteer Central column. To read the article, click here.http://www.churchvolunteercentral.com/inside_track/2009_01/External.asp

CVC offers GREAT resources for an economical annual subscription. You should check them out!

Five church teams gathered in Columbia, SC for a day of learning and action with Backyard Impact and Dr. Eric Swanson. Eric shared some of the foundational principles and practices of Externally Focused Churches. From biblical foundations and insights to inspirational stories of churches engaging their community, Eric challenged us to go deeper in service with the community. Backyard Impact facilitated the entire meeting, providing further knowledge, scenerios and then action planning. Through scenarios, we imagined how we could serve orphans, widows, the poor, aged and prisoners. The catch? Some had an unlimited budget! Other groups had to double their impact without any additional resources while other groups had to form community partnerships for success. This exercise really stretched out thinking and gave participants a chance to connect with leaders from other churches. Our seven hours of work culminated in the chance to create an individual model of what participants thought externally focused community could look like in their congregation. Then, teams consolidated their models and began forming action plans for getting started in their congregation and community!. Thanks, North Trenholm Baptist Church, for hosting this event with Backyard Impact!

 

 

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