RivChurch Leadership Structure
Feb 9, 2011 1 Timothy, The Team
With all the talk about Elders and Deacons this past weekend at Riv, many people have asked about our leadership structure. Here is a quick 7 minute video from our LEAD event last year where I explained it in more detail.
If you would like to watch the entire teaching and see this in context, you can do so here.
Mentor Week: The Thinkers
Mar 18, 2010 The Team
This week, I am blogging about different people who have mentored me in one way or another this past year or so. Today, I want to talk about The Thinkers. Now, in many ways all of the people I have blogged about this week are thinkers or they wouldn’t have made the list. But these people are the ones that kept make me say “aha” this year. None of them are pastors, and some are not affiliated with Christianity but I read and learn from them constantly.
Seth Godin
Seriously one of the best blogs out there, period. His posts are short so my comments on him will be too.
Brad Vermurlen
Brad is a grad student working toward his PhD in Sociology at Notre Dame. In his spare time, he works as a Research Team Captain at Docent Research Group and he volunteers as my Research Assistant. The dude is wicked smart and has a great heart for the Gospel and for the church. He is so valuable to me, not just in the research help but by what he posts for all the world to see on his blog. Brad is a great thinker and even when he just slaps a link up there, it’s worth checking out.
Todd Rhoades
Todd runs a great blog with too much pink in the design (just saying). Every day, I give it a quick look because he spends time surfing the web so I don’t have to. He links to a lot of stuff related to the church and it’s always worth the time to see what he has found.
Gary Vaynerchuk
A few years ago someone turned me onto Gary because of his energy, passion, and drive. Since then I have been reading and watching his stuff continually. This guy has a wicked work ethic and most pastors could learn a lot from him. Oh, and he is a wine guy so that’s a bonus.
Brett McKay
Speaking of wicked work ethic, check out ArtofManliness.com, run by Brett McKay. This guy is a serious workhorse and has a brilliant website encouraging men to be men. His thoughts are constantly challenging me to walk a different road than most men in our culture. Sweet mustache, too.
Mentor Week: The Pastors
Mar 17, 2010 The Team
This week, I am dedicating my blog posts to people who have mentored me in one way or another over the last year or so. Today, I’ll chat about The Pastors. These are pastors across the country who have influenced me a ton and some of them have no idea who I even am.
Larry Osborne, North Coast Church
I really can’t talk about mentors without talking about Larry. He pastors the pioneer church when it comes to the video multi-site model. For two years, I was part of a group of youngish pastors put together by Leadership Network. Larry served as one of our mentor pastors. Every six months, we would get together and learn from him for a few days. Ever since I met him, Larry has always been available when I need help. He has advised me on operational issues, marriage issues, staff issues, book-writing issues, and on and on and on. He has helped Riv in more ways than anyone can possibly know.
Francis Chan, Cornerstone Church
I subscribe to a lot of teaching podcasts…I often have them on in my car or when I am working out. Many of the podcasts I download, I never listen to. Some, I listen to on a semi-regular basis. But I listen to nearly all of Francis Chan’s. His humility, his humor, his honesty…they are all super refreshing. He challenges me greatly as a pastor more than anything.
John Piper, Bethlehem Baptist Church
Oddly, I don’t listen to many of John Piper’s messages. Not sure why that is, really. However, I have probably read more of John Piper’s stuff this last year than anyone else. Many of his books are available for free online and he blogs continually over at Desiring God.
Dave Gibbons, New Song Church
Dave Gibbons pastors a worldwide multi-site church. Yes, you read that right. My first reaction to this was, “what?” But I have grown to love his vision. While we definitely come from different theological camps, I have learned a ton from him about the world around us. This past year, I have been reading and listening to Dave a lot when it comes to the idea of “Third Culture.” I don’t have time to get into that here, but it’s significant stuff for the church to be paying attention to.
Bob Deffinbaugh, Community Bible Chapel
Bob pastors a small church in the Dallas Texas area. I stumbled onto his writings on Bible.org while doing message prep quite awhile ago and I love the way he handles Scripture. Often, when someone asks me a question about some theological point or another I just send them a link to one of Bob’s papers. I learned a ton from him as I worked on my recent series on the Psalms. Do yourself a favor and check out his writings.
Mentor Week: The Locals
Mar 16, 2010 The Team
This week, I am dedicating my blog posts to people who have mentored me in one way or another over the last year or so. Today, I start with The Locals.
Dan Price and Steve Sommerlot
At Riv, we have a team of pastors leading together instead of a Lead Pastor. Currently there are six of us and we don’t all spend a ton of time together because we are all out there doing our thing. However, I work very closely with two of the guys and they have been great mentors for me this year. Steve is the oldest pastor at Riv and Dan is the youngest. Maybe that’s part of what makes them significant for me.
Steve brings years (decades) of pastoral experience and doctrinal study to our conversations. He is quick to point out theological inconsistencies and to pull out “we tried that once and it bombed” anecdotes. In many ways, Steve is the kind of guy I want to be when I am really really old. I want to pour my life into younger leaders and get out of their way so they can do much more than I am able to even dream of doing.
I used to be “the young guy” at Riv, but not anymore. For the time being, that title belongs to Dan. He is an intuitive leader and discipler of not just individuals, but groups of people. He has lots of fresh ideas and is never afraid to tell me when one of my ideas is dumb. He also loves bacon and has helped me to grow in that area of my life.
Grace Heikkinen
Here’s the thing about my amazing wife: she knows me better than anyone else…she sees me for who I am and she doesn’t believe the hype. She is not impressed by me, my role at Riv, my speaking, my writing, or any of that sort of thing. She is my most honest advisor and critic (in a very good way). We talk every day about everything I’m dealing with and she gives me advice from a perspective that is so different than my own. She is a pessimist and I am an optimist. Because of this, her insight is very valuable.
The bottom line is if you tell me something, I am going to tell her and get her thoughts. If you don’t want her to know something, don’t tell me.
Shelley Hrapkiewicz
Shelley is our Operations Director at Riv and she starts most of our conversations with the words, “Couldn’t we…” She has got a great global view of the church and lots of great ideas about how to make things run more smoothly. Now granted, I shoot down most of her ideas but she doesn’t get bugged by that. Instead, she keeps coming at me with more ideas.
Oh, and she is trying to make my teeth fall out from decay because she keeps stocking up on Atomic Fire Balls.
Mentor Week
Mar 15, 2010 The Team
A few years ago, I blogged about people who had mentored me that year (with or without realizing it). It was a good exercise for me for two reasons.
1. It helped me be thankful for people God has placed in my life each season.
People come in and out of our lives. When we meet someone new, we are often excited about the new friendship, influence, etc. It’s a cool season. But then sometimes they leave our lives. We tend to think of this as a bad thing, but it really can be a good thing. We all have a limited amount of bandwidth. Time to invest in relationships, time to read and study, time to interact with others is limited. When a person (for whatever reason…be it intentional or not) leaves our lives, it creates space.
That space can be filled with others.
Often that void can be filled with new voices that are significant for the new season of life we are in. In that sense, our mentors change constantly and that is a good thing.
2. It reminded me to pour my life into others.
Sometimes I delude myself into thinking I’m too busy to invest my life in other people.
When I think about the people who have poured into my life, it reminds me of the importance of doing the same thing. And when I think of those who have influenced me, it reminds me that each type of mentorship is different. I can mentor tons of people simply by blogging and offering resources online. I can invest in a fair amount of people with quick phone calls / email conversations and I can invest in a select few with regular personal time.
I need to make sure mentoring stays a part of my life.
So I’ve decided to do it again and this time, I’m going to dedicate a week worth of posts to these mentors.
Before I get started, quick question for you: who are your mentors?
Tags: mentorship
The Team: Brad Vermurlen
Sep 14, 2009 The Team
I thought I’d bring back my old Monday tradition (at least for this week) of highlighting a Riv team member. Today’s victim is Brad Vermurlen.
Brad started coming around Riv when he was a high school student. He since defected to the University of Michigan where he graduated with high honors. Now he is a Grad Student working toward his PhD in Sociology at Notre Dame. In his spare time, he works as a Research Team Captain at Docent Research Group. The bottom line is Brad is an uber talented, wicked smart, incredibly busy dude.
And yet he finds time to volunteer as my Research Assistant. I bounce my message ideas off of him, often sending him my first drafts and then he goes to work like a rabid research monkey. After a day or so (sometimes literally within hours), I open my inbox to find a research paper that contains all kinds of sources, statistics, analysis, and other assorted goodies to enhance my message. He also challenges my direction or take on different topics if he feels like I am in error or am misstating the facts.
I can’t begin to tell you how valuable Brad is to the team. Actually, I think I just began to do so. Sorry…I felt like I needed to clear that up otherwise Brad would rebuke me for misstating the facts. It’s just how he rolls.
The Team: Shelley Hrapkiewicz
Jun 22, 2009 The Team
It’s been a few weeks since I have heaped praise on a Riv team member, so I thought I’d do so again today.
This week’s victim is Shelley Hrapkiewicz. Go ahead…try to pronounce her last name. Want some help? “Rap-KEV-Ech” Try saying that ten times fast. Or even worse, try spelling it one time slowly. I’m just delighted there is someone at Riv with a harder to work with last name than me!
Shelley has other redeeming qualities besides her last name. Namely, that she is our Operations Genius around these parts. She is an accountant by trade and that’s what we initially hired her to do. To our benefit, she quickly outgrew that position and she now helps keep all of Riv’s expanding Operations aimed in the right direction. Here are some interesting facts about Shelley:
- She once had to fight to keep from giggling while telling our staff we were cutting the budget.
- Her idea of leisure reading is the “2009 Clergy Tax and Compensation Guide”
- If you want candy, just wander into her office sometime.
- Kids wander into her office all the time.
- She is really really really into good food. Did I mention “really?”
- She makes me cowboy coffee.
- She once turned a two-page food policy document into a better 3 two-sentence food policy document.
- She is always down for a good practical joke, usually done from a human-resources angle.
- She laughs a lot.
- She’s like the mom around here.
The Team: Gary Darling
May 11, 2009 The Team
It’s Monday and that means it’s time for me to brag on our of our team at Riv.
Today’s target? Gary Darling.
Gary is a great example of someone from one generation pouring into other generations. Gary is a retiree (and I don’t even know what he did for a career…shame on me) who volunteers tons of time around here.
He and his wife faithfully teaching in our RivKids program. But it doesn’t stop there, they watch little kids for our MOPS program as well, which is a blast to watch. He is on the floor with the kids, playing and eating crazy kid snacks, and generally loving on the kids.
He also “babysits” our website. He keeps it updated each week, uploading the messages and constantly searching for the elusive broken link. Gary is even overseeing our team that is working on our bi-annual website overhaul. On top of all this, he runs his own site called Project405.
If there is one word I would use to describe Gary it would be “faithful.” He epitomizes Jesus’ admonition:
Matthew 5:37 Just say a simple, ‘Yes, I will,’ or ‘No, I won’t.’ Anything beyond this is from the evil one.
When Gary says he will do it, then he will, period. We need more Garys.
The Team: Nate Klan
Apr 13, 2009 The Team
It’s Monday, and that means it’s time to highlight another Riv team member. Today, I want to introduce you to Nate Klan.
I have literally known Nate his entire life. His big brother was my best friend and Nate arrived on the scene when we were in High School. You can ask him about ways we tortured him, but suffice it to say we were cruel.
Years later, when Nate was in High School, I ended up serving as his Youth Pastor. He became instrumental in putting together sets and staging on a none existent budget for us. But oh man, was it a mess. We’d have extension cords mazed all over the place, work lights hooked up to dimmers (bad idea) which Nate himself had wired (even worse idea).
Fast forward a decade and now Nate is doing the very same things for Riv, but at a much higher level. He does all the set design and lighting schemes for our weekend services. He actually has a budget now and while it’s not a lot of money, he can always create something cool with it.
I’m honestly not sure how Nate holds down a full-time job, takes care of his wife and kid, and volunteers so much time to the church, but he does it. And he doesn’t complain…his attitude is consistently spectacular, even when I throw him a last minute curve ball (which is often).
Check out Nate’s blog to see what he’s up to and see a behind the scenes look at the set design at Riv. You can also find him on Flickr.
The Team: Gary and Kim Rudnicki
Apr 6, 2009 The Team
It’s been a few weeks since I highlighted a Riv team member, so I thought I’d take some time today to highlight another couple that kicks butt around here: Gary and Kim Rudnicki. And since they are vacationing in Italy right now (jerks) they won’t see this. Bwa ha.
I remember the first time I met Gary and Kim. We bumped into each other in Detroit Metro as I was flying out to a conference and they were flying out to vacation (they love their vacations). It was a quick, “Hi, we go to Riverview, nice to meet you” kind of moment that I have a lot. A few weeks later, Gary heard I was installing hardwood floors at my house and volunteered to help me out. My first reaction was, “I hope this guy’s not a nutjob stalker type.”
He was quite the opposite. Gary is one of those guys who loves to serve in any way he can and since he knew how to do hardwood floors, he wanted to help. He worked his tail off and told me his story about how he and his fam ended up at Riv while we measured and cut and hammered away.
Long story short, again and again Gary showed himself to be an amazing leader with the greatest servant’s heart. Eventually, he ended up taking over our Welcome Team and has taken that ministry through the roof! They now have over 120 volunteers serving every single week at both of our locations.
And Gary always seems to get time on my calendar whenever he wants it. That’s probably because his wife Kim is now my assistant.
For the last year, she has worked with Dan and I to keep our lives in order. She manages my schedule, sorts through my email (which is a monumental project), and generally keeps me on task. I have heard it said that a good assistant can actually double your effectiveness and it is absolutely true. Even as a part-timer (with two bosses), she works tirelessly to make sure I am spending my time in the areas I need to me spending it.
Of course this week, all bets are off. She’s out of town and I am already feeling the pressure. Her taking vacation is actually a form of job security: I realize how valuable she is when she’s gone.
