024: Where We’ve Been & Where We’re Going (The Story of The Creative Little Church)

Episode 024: Where We’ve Been & Where We’re Going (The Story of The Creative Little Church)

Intro  0:01  
Hey, this is Laurie Graham. Welcome to The Small Church Ministry Podcast.

Laurie Graham  0:15
Hey, welcome to our almost-Anniversary Edition Podcast, episode 24, where I’ll be sharing where we’ve been and where we’re going: the story of The Creative Little Church. As with anybody who writes a short story or a book, depending on your vantage point, there’s a variety of titles that could be fitting for the same story. A few titles that could be used to tell the story of The Creative Little Church might be “How an Unexpected Job Loss Led to an Accidental Entrepreneur,” or how about, “The Story of a Runaway Train.” Like that definitely describes our journey so far. Or even the old Beatles song that was titled With a Little Help from My Friends. That one could totally work because this is not a solo mission, for sure. 

But here’s the thing: people asked me how I got this master vision for the ministry of The Creative Little Church. Or they’ll ask how long I thought about it before I did it, or some say how thankful they are that I was obedient to following the Lord’s calling. But I gotta say, that is not how it happened at all. I did not have a master vision, I had not been thinking about this and visioning this way before it happened, and I’m not sure I ever was focused or even clear on being obedient to a specific calling. So here’s where the story really began. 

It was Easter time, 2017, and I was sitting on my red couch with one of my closest friends, Becky Brown. She had come into town for a visit and she timed her visit around our Journey to the Cross, Good Friday event that we were having at our small church, and it was awesome. So we did this hands-on participative, like an individual walk, like a journey to the cross. And we transformed our worship center into creative, interactive stations, from Eden, to the Fall, to the garden, the betrayal, to the cross, forgiveness, and even letting go. And there were 12 stations in all. It was beautiful, meditative, worshipful, super impactful. 

And two days later, on Easter Sunday, Gene, our bass player, he walked up to me, and he just said how amazing it was that we pulled off such a great event. Like he mentioned, it was the kind of thing that big churches do. And here we were a little church of 60 people doing this amazing creative display and worship elements. Now, I’m just going to tell you, I really respect Gene. He’s like a real musician in real bands, and he is a professional videographer. He’s creative. He likes quality stuff. So his comment, it just kind of hung with me. 

Laurie Graham 2:44
So before Becky left town, we sat on that red couch together, and we are sharing our hearts and our struggles and our hopes. And at one point, we were talking about what we would do if we could. You know, one of those dreamy conversations. And as a passing thought, literally a passing thought, I mentioned maybe starting a blog called The Creative Little Church. And I thought it would be really great to share what we had just done at our small church. And give step-by-step plans so that other churches could do this “Journey to the Cross” event, too. So this is when the idea was born, The Creative Little Church back in 2017. And that idea, it just sat there, not even in cyberspace, it just sat there in space. Well, actually, Becky went ahead and reserved the domain name, plus accounts for Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. But in my mind, the idea was just, well, another idea. 

So fast forward a year and a half later, to the fall of 2018. I was feeling bored. I was working a day job that I was excellent at and I had done it for almost 10 years, but I didn’t really love it. I wasn’t super passionate, but I was good at it and I got paid well enough to keep doing it. Now my kids were getting older, and I was thinking “They’re gonna leave me soon. Is this really what I want to do for the rest of my life?” And I decided that I really could keep doing this day job that I’m not passionate about, but I’m good at and I got paid okay. But if I was going to keep doing it, I was definitely gonna need a creative outlet. While I was still worship leading at our small church, there was stuff going down at the church that was really stressful, a church merger that would be going bad very soon, and I knew it. I honestly was at a place where I just didn’t want to be around people anymore. So writing, writing sounded really good. I could picture myself with my computer and my creativity just writing away all by myself.

I started wondering how I could make a living as a writer or a little extra income because I did think it would be easy to make money writing. Like I had no aim of making it big or getting rich, but I did know people who made money writing, they were freelancing or copywriting, so I decided to explore it. And I started researching and I registered for a conference in North Carolina. Now the conference was for Christian women who wanted to speak right or develop a platform. I honestly didn’t really have the money to do this. I don’t do things like this. But I knew if I wanted to change, I needed to do something. So, here I found myself at this conference all by myself in North Carolina. I took the writing track, because again, I decided I didn’t want to be around people anymore, it was too stressful. I understand this may seem ironic and laughable, but it’s true, that’s where I was at. I just wanted to be a hermit with a computer. 

Laurie Graham 5:33
So this conference, I was hoping, would give me the step-by-step on how to write and earn enough money to pay my bills and the conference did not do this. It ended up being an emotional roller coaster ride that peaked in awesome hope and dipped into complete defeat. Literally, at least three times during this conference, I rode this ride super excited, puddle of depressed tears. Super excited, puddle of depressed tears. Mostly, I was miserable the entire weekend. I totally did not fit in with all these pretty Southern women with perfect makeup and sweet accents. I did, however, have a few really important unexpected casual conversations with a woman who was attending. And she worked for a publisher, a big-name publisher. Now we had this very real conversation about the publishing world, actually, a couple of them, about how small churches were actually a niche that her publisher was trying to break into. But then again, how difficult it was to actually get published as an individual author, how much the climate has changed for publishers how hard it is to make money in the publishing field itself. 

She shared that they don’t even talk to people without agents anymore. And even with an agent, it’s a long shot. She said, my best chance at getting published with an actual publisher was to develop my own following first. Like over 20,000 fans at a minimum and then maybe a publisher would take a look at something I wrote. She talked about the route of starting a blog of developing a following. Like once you prove that you can sell your own stuff, publishers see that you can be successful, and there’s more of a chance they’ll look at you. She also talked about the option of self-publishing, and again, if you can sell your own book, the real publishers might look at you eventually. 

So I just gotta tell you, clearly, I was out of my league. I had no idea what I was doing. My hopes were totally dashed. As I did on the first night, I went back to the hotel the second night and just cried and cried. Starting a blog? Really? Building my own following? Finding 25,000 people who loved me? Self-publishing? My hope turned to hopeless again. A few days later, I’m back at home recovering from this emotional roller coaster of a weekend and I regrouped and I started researching self-publishing. And what I found was that if you write a whole lot of books, the little bit you make on each book could add up. 

Laurie Graham 8:02
So now I’ve got my heart set on being a prolific writer. I’m just going to publish my own books for free on Amazon, I’m going to build a blog, and maybe after I write 10 books a year. Right? Maybe after I write 50 of them, I’ll have a little trickle of a stream of income. That was my thought process. This seemed like the perfect creative outlet I needed. It was a great distraction from the stress going on in church and my kids growing up and leaving me. So I did what I usually do when I’m stuck, and I called my friend Becky.

Becky, this is the Becky that sat with me on my red couch. And I’m not sure if I mentioned it before, but she actually has a successful online blog and business, actually a few of them. So I called her to ask, “How do I start this website that we talked about almost two years ago?” It’s so funny looking back, I didn’t know what WordPress was. I didn’t know what a website host was. I didn’t know the difference between a post and a page and what’s a plugin? So, here I was, step by step. Whatever Becky said, I just did. She gave me the passwords to all those social media handles that she had reserved for me for The Creative Little Church. Without me knowing she had ever done that. I have all these social media accounts, and I just started writing. 

So by day, picture this back then, by day, I am public speaking to hundreds of high school students each day, each day all day long. And on the weekend, I am leading worship in my small church and heavily involved in ministry. But by night, I’m a hermit with a computer. There’s no people, it’s quiet, just me with my computer typing away. And this was my little extra space where I didn’t have to interact with any people. And honestly, it was a pretty small space. 

So by 2019, I am creating a website that I’m terrified to tell anybody about literally no one knew. I’m learning to write blog, which is totally different from regular writing. I’m learning about so social media and what SEO means. I’m listening to a podcast by this Australian guy with a great accent and he’s teaching me about blogging. And just like I did with Becky, I just did everything he said to do. He talked about the need, not to just develop great content, but to build a community. So like a good student, I started a Facebook community. We’ve changed that name so many times. I think it might have been called Women in Small Churches. But I started this community because this Australian guy. with a great accent, told me to do that. So I did it. 

Laurie Graham 10:31
So here I am now with a quiet little blog that almost nobody knows about, and a baby Facebook community, for women in small churches, because again, that’s where we started, it was just women. But it was good and it was quiet and I’m writing. And I’m writing posts to encourage people in small churches, it was sweet. Now, I hope that you’re seeing by now that I did not have a master plan. When I say this to people, they often think that I’m lying. Literally, they say, “What’s your business model?” “How did you develop this vision?” And again, I didn’t, I am not being humble or secretive or shy. This is the honest truth. I did not have a master plan. But, master plan or not, the vision kept unfolding. 

So fast forward a year to April 2020, and this is really where it began. So a year after I started my quiet little blog, which I still didn’t really talk about. Most people who knew me had no idea I had a blog. But April 2020, my college kid gets kicked off campus because of the pandemic. Her fiance, who also got kicked off campus takes up residence in our office because his job was here. And they were getting married in two months. So now I’ve got four young adults living at home, and we can only buy one dozen eggs at a time at the store because of COVID. Like that was crazy. I remember it well. But one sunny afternoon in April, we were in the driveway getting ready to jump into a car and leave our quarantine house for a rare trip out into the pandemic-stricken world. And a UPS driver stops at the bottom of the driveway. He walks up with his mask on and he hands me a cardboard envelope. It was from my workplace. And I’m like, huh. I open it. I read the letter, I turned to look at my husband and I said “Hey, my job was just eliminated, effective immediately.” And I remember saying, okay, then, and that was it. We got in the car and drove off.

Now, I will just say Arizona has terrible unemployment benefits or very low compared to most states. And since I was being paid a little bit as a worship leader at the church, I didn’t receive any unemployment benefits. The company restructuring was not COVID related. So I didn’t get all that awesome COVID unemployment, those checks that everybody else seemed to be enjoying. I was out of a job and out of a lot of money that we needed to pay our bills. I had one daughter getting married in two months and another graduating from high school and getting ready to start her college journey. So this was a big kick in the behind that I believe God used to say, “Okay, then, if you’re not going to go all in without it, here’s the push.” So I have no job. It’s COVID. No one’s hiring. But I do have this little blog that nobody knows about for small churches, and a tiny little Facebook community. My next call, again, was Becky, the only entrepreneurial friend I had at the time. Now once again, I just took every step she told me to take. 

Laurie Graham 13:33
I’m going to host my first paid online workshop in a few weeks. So in May of 2020, I hosted my first online workshop called How to Create a Small Church Ministry You Love. About 30 people attended. And at the end of the workshop, I invited them to join an ongoing membership at a deeply discounted founding member’s price. I think 24 of them joined. And that was the memberships program, that I would be beta testing and improving and perfecting. Back then it was called better together. And many who joined that very first workshop have become good friends. A few are on the advisory board for The Creative Little Church and super instrumental and even steering our direction. Now at the time, I also wrote a five-day challenge because Becky told me to and it’s a five-day challenge to do small church better. If you haven’t done it yet, I totally encourage you to get your hands on it. It is a free challenge you receive by email. There is an optional PDF workbook that makes it pretty for $9, and please grab the workbook. The link is in the show notes, but it gives you permission to copy it and share it with others in your church.

This challenge has been accessed by over 10,000 people as of this recording. Pastors have emailed to thank me. Pastors’ wives have broken down crying. Volunteers have been inspired to stay in small churches that they were going to leave. Ministry leaders have been renewed and this is where it really all began. And it’s not because I came up with a new church growth strategy, please hear this. It’s because I reminded people that God is with them. He never left and He’s at work. God shows up in the small, he always has. Jesus loved the one. You see, we’ve been sold a line in our modern church culture that kind of reminds me of a quote from a movie, that movie Field of Dreams, it kind of goes like this, if you build it, they will come. Like if we do it right, we will grow. But that quote is not in the Bible. It’s not biblical at all. And by the way, that’s not even what they said in the movie that is misquoted all the time. The real quote from the movie, get this, is “If you build it, He will come.” Not they will come, He will come. Now I’m going to tell you, that’s a quote, I can get behind. If the ‘He’ we’re talking about is God at least. So if you build it in your church, he will come. Yes, he will. He’s already there. God is in the small. He’s also in the big. In the medium. He’s in success. He’s also in trials, because He is. 

Laurie Graham 16:08
So many people in small churches think they’re failing because the church is small. That is so incredibly messed up. God never said if we do ministry, right, that our churches will grow. No. In fact, what God says is the road is narrow, and few will follow. That is what is true. Look at the life of Jesus. If Jesus was around today, I truly believe he would be seen as a failed ministry leader, and few would follow him. Because that’s what happened to him. A lot of people came to the hillside when He was giving out free food. Remember that, 1000s. But those people did not join His church on Sunday. Does that sound familiar? In fact, Jesus died, persecuted and spit on, and abandoned by the people in His church. They left. But God was with Him, through it all. He never left. And God was at work.

Now, I love all-sized churches. I started my ministry career in a church of over 3000. If you’re in a big church, great God is there. Medium-sized churches, God’s there too. Small churches, yes, God is there and He’s at work. Do you know how many people in small churches miss what God is actually doing, because they’re focused on getting bigger? Feeling like failures when God is active, and it works right in front of them in their midst? How silly is that? He’s literally in your midst, the God of the universe, working within your reach, and you’re looking for more? Or you’re focused on what you think you’re doing wrong. What if there was actually nothing wrong? What if what you are experiencing right now is God at work in the small? It’s really so like Him, don’t you think? Showing up for the one, or the 20, or the 50. 

The thing is this. Small church ministry isn’t less ministry, but it is a different kind of ministry. Church ministry is not at all like baking cookies, where you just do big church ministry on a smaller scale. It’s actually different ingredients. Small churches have different challenges, like mixed-age classes. We can’t break kids into smaller groups, they already are a small group. We also don’t have a big paid staff with volunteer coordinators. We’ve got a pastor who’s trying to do way too much themself. And also, along with the unique challenges, are unique gifts. We’ve got things to offer that big churches don’t. And if we keep trying to look like big churches, we are not sharing the gifts that God actually gave us to give.

Laurie Graham 18:46
We are in small churches, where everyone knows your name, and it’s beautiful. We are in small churches, where intergenerational isn’t the goal, it’s who we are. We are in small churches practicing leadership development, not just for the cream of the crop, but for everyone. And that’s my message. Join God where He has you planted. Small churches have so much to offer that large churches can’t duplicate. It’s unique, and it’s beautiful. So let’s celebrate it and start using tools and strategies that actually work in small churches. And up until now, no one’s been talking much about how to do small church ministry well.

There’s a lot of people talking about how to grow small churches bigger, and actually are not very successful at it by the way, but doing small church ministry well, it’s not really marketed because publishers need to stay in business, and publishing business is hard. And big churches buy more stuff because they have bigger budgets. So here comes The Creative Little Church, speaking exclusively to the millions of small churches out there, and not just to the pastors, but to the volunteers, to people who keep the church running. We’re developing resources and sharing tools specifically successful in small churches. We are connecting amazing small church ministry leaders and volunteers together from all over the world, not just for encouragement, although there is a lot of that, but to share what’s working, and we are raising up amazing voices in small churches. 

People who are speaking at our conferences, writing on our website, they are changing lives as they do. These are small church people speaking to small churches. And it has been an incredibly beautiful two years. I have to be honest though, I’ve also cried so incredibly much. Because in the midst of the beauty of the story of The Creative Little Church, I have been on the craziest learning curve becoming an entrepreneur. Cledra Gross told me, not too long ago, that being an entrepreneur is the most intense personal growth development plan ever. And she is so right. It exposes every insecurity. It pushes you to your limits, it tests your character and your faith.

It forces you to examine and solidify your own values. It literally is one risk after another and you either step into each risk or you don’t. Along the way, I did self-published a couple books. One is a women’s devotional book called My Soul Cries Out. And an amazing book that everybody in youth ministry in small churches, you should get your hands on this, the youth ministry book is called The Little Book of Youth Ministry. And both these books are available on Amazon. The link is in the show notes. I do plan to write a whole series of ministry-specific books for small churches to go along with that youth ministry one. Those are coming down the road.

Laurie Graham 21:40
Okay, so back to the big story. Many people ask about how we decided to host online conferences like how did that come about? Now, an atheist would probably call the online conference track a total fluke. Like most parts of my story, the online conferences just kind of happened. I mean, producing them is a whole lot of work. But the idea, the idea of hosting conferences, it did just kind of happen. During the summer of 2020, just a few weeks after my first paid online workshop, I got a message from Jen Klein. Now Jen was an online friend that I connected with as I started my blog. She reached out to me, you know, in 2019 I believe, with a message that was basically this. “Hey, you’ve been pinning my stuff on Pinterest. Thanks. Who are you?” So anyway, Jen messages me in the summer of 2020 and says, “Hey, I think you should do an online conference. I think it would be really great for small churches.” And I’m like, why would I do that? I don’t even like online stuff. But I followed the trail. Like God, is this a thing? Jen recommended I listened to a podcast called Summit Host Hangout by Krista Miller. And I did. So here I am, totally binging on the Summit Host Hangout Podcast. I’m hooked on Krista Miller’s Summit in a Box Program, and my pattern of being a very good student continues. Krista says it and I do it. Step by step I followed. 

My first online conference was now on the calendar for just a few months away. And again, I’m doing the work. I’m also, again, on the floor crying, like sobbing like a baby at least three times in this preparing for the first online conference. I have no idea what a webhook is. I don’t know what ‘affiliate’ means. I have no idea how to connect a course platform to a CRM. What is that anyway? What’s an automation? At the same time, I’m sending out email pitches to people I have never met, as I’m hunting for speakers who know and love small church ministry. I’m writing swipe copy. And by the way, I had to Google what swipe copy even meant. And once again, I call my poor friend Becky in tears. And again, she talks me down and I go back to the list from Summit In a Box one step at a time. 

Our first conference was called Women in Small Churches in October 2020. It was an amazing response. Volunteers in small churches connecting and sharing and finding hope. It was so good. And that’s how the conferences were born. Our eighth conference is coming up this July. We held a conference every three months since that first one. We focused on women’s ministry, children’s ministry, pastors’ wives. We had a conference just about volunteers, recruiting and training them. We added youth ministry to the last kid-min conference. 

Laurie Graham 24:25
A question that soon came up after the first conference was, “Would we keep the conferences online after the pandemic?” Well, of course we will, because we didn’t host conferences online because of the pandemic. We hosted them online because most small churches can’t attend in-person conferences. And that’s really okay, because they’re not designed for small churches anyway. They’re designed for big churches with big budgets. You see a small church, you’re not run by a paid staff who can use their paid work time to attend conferences, and the church budget to pay for conference fees and Travel expenses.

And by the way, the occasional times when small churches do save up their money, and they get to go to an in-person conference, honestly, it usually backfires. Because I’ve heard from lots of them, and what they’ve told me is most of the time, they leave more deflated than they came, feeling like failures. Not fitting in. Because by and large, most of the workshops, ideas and resources aren’t even usable in small churches. Remember the baking cookies illustration? Small church ministry isn’t doing the same things of a big church on a smaller scale. Small church ministry is different, we need different ingredients. So in answer to the question, yep, we’re gonna stay online and yay, God, like that was another great idea and answer to a question I never even thought to ask. 

So another question we got is “Will the conferences always be free?” We are planning on this. The live conferences are 100% free to watch live, because we want every small church on the planet to be able to access these conferences, no matter their budget or their size. Now, we do sell replays and bundles at amazing discounts for those who have the funds to purchase, because that’s actually what helps keep the live conferences free for everyone. A third question that came up is “What about men?” We started hearing things like my husband wants to be in the Facebook community, can he join? Or can my male volunteers come to the children’s ministry conference? So after starting this shindig, with a focus on women in small churches, we broadened our mission to include both men and women, any volunteers in small churches, and those who lead them. So what do you think about the story of The Creative Little Church? So far? Is it what you imagined? 

Laurie Graham 26:46
I’ve been asked what my business model is. And since I don’t even know what the term business model means, or what those options would be, the best picture of my business model actually looks a lot like the children’s book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, like do you know that book? It was one of my favorites. If you give a mouse a cookie, he might want some milk to go with it. And my business story, honestly, it looks a lot like that book. If you give small churches a blog, they might want a community to go with it. And once they have a community, they might want a workshop so they can learn more. And after learning so much of the workshop, they might want a membership to go with it. And once they have the membership, they may want some conferences, so they can spread the goodness and invite their friends. And once they experienced the conferences, they might want a podcast to go with it too.

So they can take it home, and so on and so on and so on. Occasionally, I’ve used the term accidental entrepreneur to describe myself, because I think it’s fun and happy and a friendly way to put it. But honestly, when I look back, there was nothing accidental about any of this. Looking over my life, I truly see that what I’m doing now is a combination of my experience, my heart, my strengths, my challenges, and even, well maybe especially, my failures. While I’m most certainly an example of learning on the job as an entrepreneur, my intention to serve people in small churches has really led the way. I am a lover and I am a learner. And I’ve been willing to take risks to fall flat on my face, to take criticism, to look incredibly ridiculous on video, to start with what I had and just keep getting off the floor after I’ve collapsed into a sobbing ball of tears. 

So over the past two years, I’ve had less and less time to write, although I hope to return to it. We’ve expanded the website for guest bloggers and we’re even training up our own content creators, voices from small churches, sharing their genius ideas and wisdom. Small churches, again, speaking to small churches. That’s the core of everything we do. You will not find people in big churches here telling small churches how to grow. Not here, not at our conferences, not on the website, not in the membership. We leave the growth part, or not, to God, and we focus on being faithful with what He’s given us. 

Laurie Graham 29:08
In October 2021, a year after our first conference, we did a whole overhaul of the Better Together membership that we had been piloting, and we launched the Small Church Academy. It is epic. I have to tell you, I spent a year and a half really strategizing and looking at what would make the biggest impact on a small church. What we wanted to keep out of our old Better Together membership and what we wanted to change and really nailing down what specifically would propel small churches forward, with the most impact and also the most integrity, in our walk with Jesus. 

So here’s the thing about the Small Church Academy. One trained person in a small church will totally change your church’s ministry. If the pastor has just one trained person, one person to help train others, to be grounded in Jesus, committed to relational ministry, equipped with ministry skills specific to small churches, literally growing themselves as an expert in working with volunteers, recruiting, partnering, setting them up to succeed. Just one person who knows how to cast a vision, plan successful events, deal with conflict, speak well. Someone who’s confident in their gifts, who manages time well. Who knows exactly what to say yes to and when it’s better to say no. One person who can take these skills and strategies and experience and help that pastor spread it through their small church. That’s the Small Church Academy. It’s how we can best support small churches by training one person in small church ministry skills, not just with knowledge, but with hands-on application. We have pastors joining the Small Church Academy too, because they see what we’re doing. And you know what, it’s not stuff they learned in seminary, but it is stuff that is vital to healthy small church ministry.

The Small Church Academy is the most intentional mix of ministry skills, along with a little spiritual direction, life coaching, lots of encouragement, and even more so, application. The Academy actually has three main components. There’s a community, there’s consultation, and there’s this amazing course. And each of these three aspects is so beautiful, and you won’t find it duplicated anywhere on the planet. We literally are the only ministry exclusively committed to supporting volunteers, not just pastors or ministry leaders, but all volunteers in small churches, as well as those who lead them. 

Laurie Graham 31:44
Now, we can’t end this chapter of the story of The Creative Little Church without adding this very podcast, which went live in January 2022. Thanks for listening, by the way, this podcast actually comes to you thanks to Maggie Dupree. She is one of my amazing daughters who said “Mom, you just need to do it”. After spending about six months talking about a podcast the year before, she figured it out. Got me what I needed, got me all set up, so I just have to hit record. I honestly don’t even know the process of how this message gets from my microphone to your ears. That’s all my daughter. So my desire to hold up in a little den and become a prolific writer, remember, so I could avoid being around people, has become instead a full-fledged, entrepreneurial journey into the unknown, with more unknown on the horizon. And I am grateful for every piece along the way, including the times when I crashed and burned and even ended up hysterically sobbing on my floor.

I’ve only gotten by with a little help from my friends. The support of my friend Becky Brown from Faithful Finish Lines, So Very Blessed, and The Prayer Pocket. It has just been priceless. And the kindness of strangers I’ve met on the internet who have become my friends is so overwhelming. Pam Yates from Indiana, was my first fan who wasn’t a relative and Reno Anderson from Canada hopped on board soon after that. My earliest advisory board, in addition to Reno, included Amy Satterfield and Alexis Brown, Tanisha Sims, but there are so many others in the mix. I have an advisory board now who prays for me and offers so much wisdom. We have volunteers who help in the Facebook community, moderating at our conference, and so much more. Plus over 100 different speakers who’ve given their time to pour into small churches at our conferences. Many of whom I consider friends and stay connected with and really hope to meet in person someday. Now, this list goes on and on. The encouragement I’ve received from this community, I can’t even put it into words. So I hope you’re a little surprised by God with the story of the Creative Little Church because I sure have been.

Laurie Graham 33:53
I could not do it alone. I hired my daughter a year ago to take over social media, mostly because she kept telling me she could do it better, and she was so right. She won’t even let me delete old graphics and branding I used to use because she considers it a little piece of history, but truly I am mortified every time I see it. My original branding colors on the website were purple and orange. Maggie has also become a project manager and a developer of all good things. My sister Cheri Kulhawick does more than any human should do, from outreach to resource creation, developing our content creator teams, so much more. And Becky Sargent, well, if you’ve read the website, or you’re in the Facebook community, I know you’ve seen her at work. 

There are so many people involved in The Creative Little Church giving their time, energy, and sharing their wisdom, and there’s a place for you if you want to be part of this mission. Like get involved in our free Facebook community, join the Small Church Academy, write a guest post for the blog, watch for open calls for speakers and opportunities to be trained as a conference moderator.

So yes, we’ve done so much and what’s next? First, I fully expect that “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” business model to continue, because you know what? There are a few million small churches out there who haven’t heard of us yet. So I think we still have lots of work to do. We have two exciting conferences still on the horizon for this year in 2020. One for pastors’ wives and small churches, plus our first-ever small church worship ministry conference. If you’re a pastor’s wife, or you know one, July 16^th is not your typical pastors’ wives conference. We’ll be sharing the hard stuff as well as the joys, working toward healing from hurts and betrayals, and also embracing the women we are beyond the role of a pastor’s wife. 

We have fabulous speakers in the lineup, including Christy Galtier, PhD psychologist, founder of Soul Shepherding and Soul Talks podcast along with her husband Bill. Also joining us again is Cledra Gross, life coach, business coach, mentor of pastor’s wives, and a friend. Sungshim Park Loppnow, new to our conferences, is a therapist, spiritual director, and co-author of Joyful Journey and Emanuel Journaling. Sarah Borgested is also joining us, a pastor’s wife, entrepreneur, owner of The Holy Mess, and co-founder of Faithful Finish Lines, but there’s so many others. I am honored to serve with each and every one of them. So if you’re not the pastor’s wife, would you please let her know, she may not hear about this conference unless you tell her.

Laurie Graham 36:24
And then in October our first ever worship and tech, a ministry conference for small churches, we will be covering tech solutions for small churches from sound systems to streaming, plus talking about how to raise up and train new musicians or vocalists, working with a team choosing songs and so much more. No matter what your worship style is, or your denomination, or your church size, it’s going to be a great fit. Now, as far as I know, a worship ministry conference specifically for small churches has not been done yet. Which seems pretty fitting for us since we make it a habit to go where no one has gone before. So just think, when I started this whole thing, my dream was to get away from people. To hole up like a hermit and self-published on Amazon.

Can you imagine if I had? I’m really glad God changed my plans. Maybe we all need to be a little more like that mouse from that book, when he got that cookie. Like have our dreams, but hold them loosely enough so we can use our other hand to grab on to new gifts that God brings along with it. The ones that we didn’t dare imagine or ask for. Can you imagine if we were like that in our small churches, just ready to pivot? Like God, what do you have for me today, what’s next? And to take whatever gift He brings, and watch what He does with it.

So that’s the story of The Creative Little Church. Next week, please join us in our Facebook community for our anniversary celebration, starting Sunday night on June 19^th, if you’re listening live in 2022, I’ll be popping in live each evening into our free Facebook community at 8pm, Eastern, for some fun interviews. All week long, we’ll be giving prizes away, along with some limited-time offers and special discounts too. If you’re not in the Facebook community yet the link to join is in the show notes. So please leave a review of this episode and share with me your biggest ministry win since you’ve been hanging out with The Creative Little Church. Whether it’s your own heart change or a program, or just encouraging people in your church, building a team. We would love to celebrate with you in what God is doing in your space. So tell me about it. I’m looking forward to hearing from you. Until next week. Be a light!