If You're Gonna Fish Keep Your Line in the Water

I never cease to be amazed.

Why can't someone answer the phone at most churches? And why, when an answering machine answers, before I can leave a message, do I have to endure a litany of every service venue the church offers along with start times. Please folks, if all I want to know is the service times I'll look at the website...what? You don't have a website... Oh my.

Leadership and ministry brings a lot of victories and a lot of defeats but one thing I know for sure, If you don't keep your line in the water you can't catch fish.

Don Padgett is my #1 fishing buddy. Neither one of us gets to fish 1/10th as much as we used to when we were younger and had less responsibilities but we still enjoy getting a line in the water once or twice a year.

Don used to consistently catch more fish than me by about 4 to 1. If you know me you know that I think analytically...okay, I OVER analyze everything... so through the years I watched Don. At first I thought that he caught more fish than I did because he just knew more about fishing than I did. He regularly read Bassmasters Magazine and, while I know that he would not want to admit this, he even clipped and filed articles--probably never to look at them again.

After a couple of years I decided that Don was probably catching more fish than I was because he was operating the trolling motor and was always in the front of the boat. Actually that might have had something to do with it but I hate fishing and simultaneously running a trolling motor so I never complained. I figured it was better to catch less fish than to have to run the trolling motor half the time.

But the 4 to 1 discrepancy actually had little to do with his superior knowledge or his sitting in the front of the boat. After much thought and analysis I discovered why Don consistently caught more fish than I did. His line was in the water more than mine!

The gap has narrowed now that I've stopped changing lures as often, getting my line tangled, cleaning out "birds nests" (for you civilians that's a reel backlash), and just generally fooling around. Don and I both have good days and bad days but overall we do about the same (though I must admit that other than this past summer Don usually catches the biggest fish ...biggest fish for 2007 is to the right...if Don had a blog he could post the biggest fish from the last umpteen years--not that we keep track, you understand).

Your line has to be in the water to catch fish. On game day you have to show up. There are a few basics that, when missed, are like being on a boat without your line in the water.

First, for crying out loud, make sure someone answers the phone! That's as basic as it gets. Go ahead and make excuses. If you don't want to catch fish that's fine with me. An organization that doesn't answer the phone is not going to grow.

Click here to check out the Barna Group research on the percentage of churches that answer their phone. A human being cannot be reached at 55% of all churches in America. Its insane that somebody can't answer the phone with cell phones, call forwarding, and other technology. You can't catch a fish if you don't have your line in the water.

The second basic I will mention is a web site. Again, go ahead and make excuses about how you can't find a high school kid and $120 bucks a year to have a website hosted with basic ministry information. If you don't want to catch fish that's OK with me (well, really that's not OK with me but I can't take responsibility for your life).

Here's a few pointers from Tony Morgan on church websites.

We've discovered that at Lakeview Church about 60% of our first time visitors found the church online before they decided to visit. 57% of U.S. churches have a website and if yours doesn't chances are there is a church in your neighborhood that does. Our website isn't the greatest in the world because we do not have a dedicated staffer managing it but it does establish a presence for Lakeview so the person moving from Saskatoon, Mozambique (not a real place:) searching for a church on Indy's westside can find us.

Hey guys and gals...I know it's tough to balance all the demands of ministry but pay attention to a few basics and find a way to keep your line in the water.