Maurilio Amorim

Author: Maurilio Amorim

  • Learning Organizations: Women Of Faith

    My most successful clients are a part of what I call “learning organizations.” These are growing, dynamic churches, businesses or ministries that are seldom satisfied with the status quo. They are always learning and searching for ways to make a good experience a great one, to reach even more people, and to improve on what most people would label as a “wow” product.

    This past weekend I had the privilege of joining another learning organization. The Women of Faith tour reaches out to hundreds of thousands of women every year in 30 cities around the country. They have world-class speakers, singers, entertainers and production that’s second to none. I believe every woman would benefit from being in a WFO event no matter where they are in their faith walk.

    This weekend, for example, over 12 thousand women came to Atlanta’s Philips Arena for this two-day event. On record, there were 861 women who publicly decided to give their lives over to God and found redemption in Christ’s sacrifice for them. Thousands did business with God in a very intimate way and thousands more were encouraged in their daily faith walk. Everyone walked away from that place changed, including me.

    Putting one of these events on takes a herculean effort on the part of hundreds of staff and volunteers. After 12 years of growing, tweaking and improving their craft, the gifted leaders at WOF have each of these events down to a well-oiled machine. Mary Graham leads the entire organization with a lot of heart and is one of the most gifted relational leaders I’ve ever met. She’s constantly taking care of her team, down to the purse filled with snacks for her guests–which I was the recipient of the delicious cashew nuts and gummy bears. Her right hand and general, Amy Chandy, is a multi-tasker extraordinaire. I’ve never seen anyone able to be pulled in so many different directions as this woman and I watch her maintain such composure and positive attitude through it all. I’m convinced that a man could never do Amy’s job. Really.

    But what makes this organization even more amazing to me is not just the lessons they have learned and systems they have created in the past 12 years of dealing with millions of people. What gets me excited about working with Mary and her team is their humility in realizing that they, too, must continue to learn. “What can we do better? What do you think we should do differently? How can we do that?” were the first questions to me as I briefly met with Mary and Amy before leaving the arena. I love that about them. Even after all these years, they are still hungry for the organization to grow and not to rest in yesterday’s successes.

    This weekend’s experience reconfirmed my commitment to being a life-long learner. If Mary and Amy can continue to ask “what” and “how,” so should all of us.

  • Proud of Nashvegas

    This week I had the opportunity to host a client’s first trip to Nashville. He grew up in Dallas, now lives in Colorado Springs and has traveled extensively through Europe. He is also is a foodie and has eaten in some of the best restaurants in the world. I wondered how Nashville would fare in his ranking of cities.


    Michael loved the green, rolling hills, the cool evenings and mornings. We had a phenomenal meal at Watermark in the trendy Gulch district, which rivals some of the best known restaurants in the country. Driving around downtown, I introduced my friend to our Capitol building, the Union Station Hotel, Second Avenue (he even commented on the Batman Building) and then we made our way to beautiful Williamson county, which I consider part of the greater Nashville experience.

    We never got to Edwin and Percy Warner Parks, the Natchez Trace or Old Hickory lake, historic downtown Franklin, but he was very impressed, nonetheless.

    Regardless of our recent gas fiasco, I’m always glad to come back home. I knew back in 1983 as a sophomore in college that Nashville was my home. I have yet to regret that decision.

  • C3 Church and the God Factor

    This week I got to spend some time with a great group of people at C3 Church in Clayton, NC. I always enjoy connecting with visionary leaders. I meet professional Christians almost on a daily basis, but it’s not often that I run into people who see what’s not there and who trust God to build something than can only be described as a “God thing.”


    Matt and Martha Fry took over a Bible study in the middle of nowhere, NC back in 1998. Today there’s an amazing church drawing close to 4 thousand people on the weekends, reaching out to an entire community and region with the good news of the Gospel. Driving up to the church one has to go through tobacco fields on a one-lane road and suddenly, there it is: a sprawling beautiful campus–a testament of vision, faith and leadership. It has that “field-of-dreams” vibe to it. It was not the if-we-build-it-they-will-come strategy that built this camp, but a better one instead: if we preach Him, they will come.


    As I walked through their new Starbucks Cafe and Bookstore I was blown away by the attention to detail and commitment to excellence. Theirs is the only place you can get a caramel macchiato within a 15-mile radius. It’ also the only place you can get Christian resources for many miles. I had the privilege of spending time with their leadership team, and all I can say is that these are people from my tribe. I’ll hang with them anytime.

    Meeting genuine people of faith who still trust God to do the improbably, if not impossible, is why I love my job.

  • The Latest Worship Trend

    I travel all over the country visiting some of the most innovative churches around. It’s rare when I run into an experience that touches me deeply, and I recognize it as the latest trend that will sweep the country. It looks like the Worship Team from Faith Community Church is on to something big.

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  • The Father I Never Knew

    I miss my dad today. Monday I left him in Florida at my sister’s house while my family and I drove back to Tennessee. He stood at the front porch fighting the inevitable tears. Being close to my father, Senhor Maurilio, as he is known in Brazil, is something very new to me.

    Growing up I respected my father, but I mostly feared his occasional outbursts of violence. Even though there were not often, these incidents left very powerful and negative impressions on me. I also remember my father always nursing headaches that prevented him from any meaningful exchange with me or my siblings.


    But God and time have a way to heal wounds and change people. In the last 25 years that I’ve lived in the US my father has changed into a kind, low-maintenance and fun man. Three weeks ago he came from Brazil by himself without knowing how to speak any English. My mother did not want to come, and she “released” him to come alone. He called her bluff and came anyway.

    The first conversation we had as he arrived at the airport was about his to-do list around my house. Senhor Maurilio is a fixer, and he has to have a series of projects to keep him busy: painting, electrical work, cleaning, whatever. So, during the last three weeks I have made more trips to Home Depot–aka Nirvana, heaven, paradise–than all of last year. As we reconnected, I found out that the man only required two things to be completely happy: a hamburger and a trip to Home Depot. After his recent discover of Arby’s, he commented that “every place is better than the other. Wow, Americans know how to cook hamburgers.” “Yes, dad, but wait until we get to the beach and you see what happens when people eat too many of them,” I said trying to shatter his new-found American dream.

    The time I spent with him in the past 20 days has been the most valuable of my entire life. There was no cathartic moment when I confronted him with all my young, unsettled angst and he responded by repenting and weeping openly. I think that only happens in bad Christian movies anyway. But I got to spend time with him, hear about the faith he developed since I left home as a teenager, and just hang out with my father. Fortunate for both of us, this was the first time we didn’t have to manage my mother’s emotions and try to relate to each other around her constant commentary (mom deserves her own blog post–well posts, many, many posts.)

    There was no cathartic moment when I confronted him with all my young, unsettled angst and he responded by repenting and weeping openly.

    Last week I came home to find the 71-year-old Senhor Maurilio 10 feet above ground on the porch railing trying to paint the ceiling. When I asked him to get down and not do it again, he was quick to report that he “was still able to climb trees.” “Great dad, you’re in America now. Here that’s called a liability. We pay illegal immigrants to climb for us,” I informed him.

    I took him with me on a golf outing while on vacation. I was fortunate not to play with a group–just the two of us went out. Thinking about it, the other guys who were supposed to be in our group were the fortunate ones. Dad and I spoke fast and loud Portuguese and laughed the whole time I played as he tried to “coach” me on my every move. “No dad, 6 points on a par 3 is not good.”

    In the past 20 days I ate enough cheeseburgers to shorten my life by at least 15 years, but I gain something I never thought I would find: a relationship with Senhor Maurilio. I didn’t know how much I craved it and how much I needed it until I started to drive away and saw him standing alone on that front porch. My eyes filled up, my throat tightened and for the first time I can remember, I knew I was going to miss my dad.

  • Low Tech, High Touch Marketing

    I’m often in meetings with CEO’s and business leaders looking for cutting edge ways to reach their customers. I must confess that I love technology–almost as Kip in the movie “Napoleon Dynamite” for those of you who saw it–but technology can be a trap. Today I was reminded that it’s not technology that sells, but creative, self-motivated people behind technology that make the sale.

    Yesterday I got an email from Courtney Ivey. Courtney works for a men’s store, John Craig, in Orlando, Florida. Earlier this year, I bought a shirt from her during one of my speaking engagements at the Shingle Creek Rosen Resort where her store is located. Yesterday, I got an email from Courtney with 5 pictures she took of her new shipment of Robert Graham shirts. I have gotten more compliments on my Robert Graham shirt than anything else I’ve bought lately and have wanted to buy another one for quite some time; however, I have been too busy to loook for it. The email was just the reminder I needed. I just got off the phone with her after buying my new shirt.

    What Courtney did was simple, but it was the most effective marketing tool possible. She found the most direct way to reach out to an audience she knew was predisposed to buy her product. She didn’t need a powerful email marketing tool or a fancy html editor to create a dazzling eblast. That’s corporate’s job. And frankly, most of the time they will screw it up anyway. She knows that Orlando is a tourist town and that her customers might never come back to her store, so she takes their email address at every purchase. With each new shipment, Courtney takes pictures of the merchandise and sends them to those on her list who, based on their previous purchases, might be interested.

    So simple and yet so effective. She got me, and I’m sure others who are either too busy or who cannot buy these shirts locally. She probably did it all in a couple of hours of effort and at no extra cost. Like most retail managers, Courtney could be on the phone complaining of a recession. Today, however, she is on the phone taking orders.

    Way to go Courtney.

  • The Art of Traveling Well Part I: Planning

    I travel a lot, more than I’d like. People are often puzzled by my busy travel schedule and seemingly calm demeanor about it. Interestingly, I book all my trips and have done it for decades. But traveling well is something you learn with time and experience. I’ve decide to write a few posts on the art of traveling well to help some of you who are fortunate enough not to live out of suit case catching flights, and worst–connecting flights–all over the place. This one will focus on the trip planning. Subsequent posts will deal with how to choose your travel wear, things to know about airport security (you never want to hear “cavity search”), and productivity tools while on the road.

    Book Your Trip ASAP
    If you’re going to fly to your destination, then you must book your ticket as soon as possible. With rising costs of fuel, airline tickets cost more today than ever before. Most people know to book at least 14 days before the departure date. But here’s a rule of thumb, flight direct whenever possible. That sounds obvious to most of us, but I’ve know people to want to build airline miles by flying through hubs and risking missing their meetings or adding an extra 2-4 hours to their trips because of the elusive airline mileage. Trust me, life will be a lot better if you can fly out of your home airport and arrive at your destination on the same plane.

    Use a website like Orbitz and Expedia to check multiple airline schedule as well as Southwest.com or other discount airline that doesn’t list with the travel sites. However, purchase your ticket directly from the airline website if you’re flying both legs of the trip with the same carrier. Pricing is usually the same, if not better, and if you have to make changes in seat assignments, times or dates it’s a lot easier that way.

    Sign Up for Everything
    I’m a member of every hotel, rental car, airline, restaurant, and rickshaw loyalty club there is. Most of them don’t cost anything and you always get perks along the way. In my last trip I got free upgrade to a suite and free breakfast at the Courtyard Marriott. The most useful are rental car programs where you don’t have to wait in line, then sign 10 pieces of paper to get your car. You’ll appreciate not having to deal with a long line after getting to your destination late at night or late for a meeting. If you’re traveling a lot, you might talk your employer into upgrading your company card to the Platinum American Express card. It will not cost them much in fees but will give you entrance into hospitality lounges of American, Delta, United, Northwest airlines for free. That’s a welcome respite on busy airports such as Atlanta, and Dallas.

    William Shatner is Your Friend
    You’ve seen the cheesy commercials, but Priceline can be a great resource to save money on car rental and hotel reservations. Lately I’ve saved over 50% in hotel and rental car fees by booking them on Priceline right before my trip. Here’s how I do it. First I make sure I have booked hotel and cars directly after comparing prices on Expedia. I do it because I never know when a city will sell out of hotels and cars. Once I got caught with no car or hotel in Wichita, KS because of the annual “Women Bowler Convention.” The whole thing was a nightmare for so many different reasons it might have its own blog post later.

    Then a couple of days before my trip I log on to Priceline and choose the “name my own price” option. I make sure the hotel choices are near my destination and usually bid half of the suggested price. I’ve tried lowering that amount with varying degrees of success, but I’m usually accepted with my half-price option. You can save a lot of money on rental car fees on a multi-day trip. If works out with Priceline, I cancel my earlier reservations.

    24 Hour Check In
    I usually try to check in 24 hours in advance. Some airlines will release their exit row seats within 24 hours of departure. Besides first class, exit row seats give you the most leg room option. United and USAirways are now charging an extra fee for “preferred” seating which includes the exit row seats, which I think is bogus. However an extra $15 is worth not having cramped legs for a long flight. If you fly more than 32 segments with Southwest during a calendar year, you’ll automatically get an “A” boarding pass between the number 16 and 40. That’s made my life a lot easier these days. In the past, however, I would set a reminder on my phone with my check in information for 24 hours prior to my departure. Most airlines have a mobile service that makes checking in from your cell phone very simple. That’s the way to go with Southwest.

    Ok. That gets us booked. Next in the art of traveling well will be choosing what to wear and how to pack for up to a 5-day business trip without checking luggage. Can you look fashionable, bring all your product, workout clothing and not wear the same thing everyday? Yes. Just stay tuned.

  • Top 10 Ways to Get in Trouble with Twitter

    I’ve been Twittering for over 90 days now, and I must say it has been a great tool to build community instantly. While I’ve loved the positive aspect of Twitter, I must, in all fairness to those of you who are new to this social network or are contemplating signing on, share my experience with Twitter’s dark side. In case you’re wondering about my list, not all of it happened to me. Ok, most of the list is “loosely based” on my personal experience. Well, maybe all of it is. Ok, enough already. Here’s my top 10 ways you can get in trouble with Twitter:

    10. Post fun tweets about your Vegas vacation and watch some crazy, anonymous fundamentalist jerk turn you into this money-spending, luxury-loving, pleasure-driven Satanist on his loser hate blog. (Do I sound bitter?). I guess what happens in Vegas should really stay there.

    9. Post about a new time-sensitive initiative your business is about to deploy and watch your competition try to beat you to it. (You know who you are.)

    8. Post a picture of your sister-in-law in a bathing suit. Enough said!

    7. Post a mindless tweet about “making hard business decisions” and watch your entire organization get worked up into a frenzy.

    6. Twitter about an anonymous “difficult client” and get calls and emails from 10 people asking, “Are you talking about me?” Yes, yes and yes!

    5. Secretly twitter from the jury box during a trial. It’s fun until you get caught.

    4. Twitter about leaving early from an event because it “gave me such a headache” and get a call later from the event organizer in tears caused by your insensitivity.

    3. Twitter what you find cute or funny about your children only to hear “Dad, I can’t believe you twittered that! Isn’t anything sacred?”

    2. Name a friend on a tweet who is supposed to be sick and in bed and watch him get a call from his boss during your two-hour outdoor lunch.

    1. Twitter details of your anniversary dinner, including pictures of every course and then hear “if this were our first date, it would be our last.”

    This is my list. What’s yours? Do share. I’d love to compile a list to share with Twits world wide.

  • Celebrating Faith, Faithfulness and Friendship with Frank

    Yesterday I spent the day in New Millford, CT celebrating 10 years of ministry with a client and good friend, Pastor Frank Santora. His church dedicated the weekend services to Frank and his family for his faithfulness to his calling and to Faith Church. I met Frank 8 years ago shortly after he had taken on a very difficult situation where even the most seasoned of leaders might not have survived. But Frank not only survived, he went on to build one of the largest churches in New England.

    During the service I was thinking back to my first visit with Frank and all the years we have worked together. We have been through three capital campaigns, a building campaign, one major relocation, a name change (from Bright Clouds Ministries–ok, that was not a hard one to do), hundreds of creative sessions and several strategic plans.

    Through all these years, I have seen Frank’s faith and willingness to continue to learn and trust God as hallmarks of his ministry. New England is not an easy place to grow a church; well, I would even venture to say that it’s a hostile environment to the message of the gospel. But I’m thankful for Frank, his unwaverign commitment to preach the gospel, his tenacity to continue to push against so many barriers, and mostly for his friendship over the years, letting me speak into his life and ministry.

    The New Yorker did a 9-page spread on Faith Church last november. I wrote about it here. While they got a lot of the facts correctly, they could not get the heart of the matter. God looked for someone to stand in the gap 10 years ago and he found a young Italian who was willing to trust Him and put everything on line.

    I’m encouraged to know that when we trust God, He shows up–even in Connecticutt. I’m proud of my friend, Frank for always pushing forward even in the midst of impossible odds, always trusting that the God who called him to lead this congregation has great things planned for them, and for never settlling for the status quo. Days like yesterday remind me of how rewarding my job really is.

  • The Inconvenience of Travel and the Opportunity of Ministry

    God has a way to intersect our lives during the mundane to do something amazing when we least expect. I call these moments “divine appointments.” These are times when God places people, often the unlikely, in an intersecting path with our own, but the result is seldom what we anticipate. It’s usually something truly inspired. Unfortunately, I, for one, too often fail to see these divine appointments for what they are, and let them pass by unaware of their power to change lives, mostly mine.


    I travel a lot–frankly more than I want to, but it’s necessary to do my job. One of the things I enjoy about flying is the time it affords me to read , to write, or to just nap after a long day (I’m one of the few people who can sleep soundly in a plane). A few months ago I was on a flight and, for reasons I didn’t understand at the time, I felt compelled to engage the man sitting next to me. It was a strange prompting. It called for me to put down my book and begin a conversation with a total stranger.

    Last time I had such a feeling, the passenger next to me became a Christian before the flight landed, so I knew better than to ignore it. The fellow turned out to be a friendly young man, who told me he worked for a marketing company that specializes in the automotive sector. This was a short one hour flight and the conversation never went beyond that. Even though we hit it off personally, I never got a chance to share my faith or anything of significance with him, and I felt disappointed in what seem to be a missed opportunity.

    The next day as I boarded the plane back home–you’ve guessed it–there he was, standing in line. And, yes, he sat next to me again. I was completely blown away. In all my years of travel, and in all the flights I’ve been on, this was a first. Emboldened by the apparent crazy coincidence, I wasted no time and went for the whole enchilada at once:

    “man, I don’t know you from Adam, but one thing I’m sure, God has put you in my path twice in two days, and I want to be obedient to Him and find out why. So what’s going on with your life?”

    As I’m saying those words I’m thinking “great, I just freaked the dude out completely.” And frankly, I could see the struggle on his face as the man tried to figure out if I was right or just plan nuts. I waited for the verdict during what seemed like an eternity. Finally a big smile came on as he decided I was ok. He then began to tell me about his career, about the fact he was on a job interview and his struggle with his Christian faith. It was an hour confession from the man on seat 12c.

    I prayed with him and pledged to walk with him both through his job opportunities as well as his faith journey. Since then we’ve kept in touch through emails and phone conversations. Today he called to let me know that he made the decision on his new career opportunity. “Man, you’ve helped me so much. I couldn’t have done it without you,” he said over the phone. Well, I know he could have, but God chose for my story to intersect with his and for us to walk together for a while.

    This chapter for him is done, but the story is not finished. We’re still talking about his spiritual life and restoring his faith walk. The interesting thing for me is that through this whole process, God has made my life richer, my next casual encounter more meaningful. The inconvenience of travel has become the opportunity of ministry. Tomorrow morning, I’m flying out again. I can’t wait to see what happens.