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Don’t let your Organizational Chart Hold you Back

A friend of mine at the Unstuck Group shared a thought with me the other day that really resonated with me. He said, “Never let a box on an organizational chart define your level of influence in the organization.” My first thought was…”I wish more people thought like this!”

I’ve seen so many leaders, both young and old, limit themselves and limit their churches because of they way they think about their role, title, or box they sit in on the organizational chart. The problem is when you allow yourself to be limited by where you find yourself on an organizational chart you’ll always be limited by your organizational chart. This kind of thinking is a sure fire way to never grow or advance as a leader.

If you need a “Title” to Lead then you’re not a Leader

If you’re waiting for someone to give you a title or a particular box on the organizational chart to lead then you’re probably not a leader. Leaders naturally lead, because that’s who they are. I’m not saying leaders are bullies or that they don’t understand submission to authority that comes with being a part of an organizational chart. But boxes on organizational charts don’t box leaders in from being who they are.

Leadership is a Gift not a Position

The New Testament describes leadership as a spiritual gift, not a position on the organizational chart. Not everybody has that gift and it’s not given in equal measure. Positional leadership is the lowest form of leadership. If people only follow you because you have a title, you’re their boss, or you sign their paycheck then they’re not going to follow you very far or for very long.

Leadership is Acknowledged not Appointed

If you’re sitting around waiting for your opportunity to get in a particular position on the organizational chart before you start leading, you’re going to be waiting around for a long time. Leadership isn’t something that you get appointed to; it’s something that gets acknowledged for as you do it. So start leading where you are. Be faithful where you are right now today.


Posted in Leadership, Staffing

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Why Firing People who work at your Church Sucks

Changing Church Staff can be a terribly painful experience. Exiting a Church Staff Member costs the church more than just money. Trust is often eroded; people frequently leave the church during these times, and ministries typically lose momentum. Firing a Church Staff Member should always be a last resort option.

Simply put, firing people who work at your church sucks. It’s no fun for anyone and there’s rarely a win, that being said, there are times when it is the right decision. When those moments come along here are some principles to keep in mind.

Most churches tolerate Poor Work Performance over Poor Moral Behavior

The church is one of those weird “industries” that seems to tolerate poor work performance as long as you’re a nice moral person. I’ve seen churches keep people on staff who are constantly low performers and who produce little to no results simply because they like them and the relational or political fall out would be too great to withstand if they were ever let go.

Sometimes People in the church are going to Freak Out

No matter what you do there are going to be some people in the church who just freak out because they think a church shouldn’t fire people. In those moments, I wish the church cared as much about people who don’t know Jesus as they do about their favorite Staff member being asked to leave the team. But I wish that about a lot of things people freaked out about at churches.

Ministry is all about Relationships & Trust

Keep in mind that if you let go of one of your Church Staff that there will be some relational loss and trust will be eroded between the leadership of the church and the attenders. No matter how poor a performer or how right the decision is to let them go, ministry is all about relationships and everyone has their fans. Be prepared to lead through this loss.

People aren’t Expendable

Your Church Staff aren’t simply cogs in a machine that can be easily replaced or interchanged. They’re people to be developed and coached. In a current church climate where the talent pool seems to be thinning in America the best way to have a talented Church Staff team is to build and develop them. It’s hard to develop people if you’re constantly churning through them.

Mission Trumps Everything

Even thought it’s difficult, it’s okay to let someone go who works at your church. If they’re not doing their job, if they’re not the right fit, if they’ve hit their leadership lid and you don’t have another role for them or a number of other valid reasons. Jesus started this movement called the Church for a reason, He intends for it to accomplish something very particular. We don’t get to pick our mission. And the mission of the church is too important to allow the church to be held back from taking Kingdom ground because you have the wrong person on the team.

Your Church Staff Lose more than their Job when they Lose their Job

When your Church Staff lose their job they lose more than their jobs. They are losing their spiritual community, friendships, and the church that they and their family attend. So don’t make this decision flippantly.


Posted in Leadership, Staffing

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10 Articles that will Help Your Church Make Vision Real

Thank you for making September another great month here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! It’s fun to stay connected with you through social media and hearing that these articles have been helpful. So, thank you for connecting with me through the content on this blog! You made these the top posts from this last month. If you missed out on any of them, here they are all in one place for your convenience!

10 Insider Focused Ministry Names

The language we choose to use is important because it both reflects and builds culture at the same time. And one of the most obvious ways to tell if a church is insider focused or outsider focused is the language that they choose to use. It either says that the church is “inclusive” or “exclusive.”

What Growing Churches do Differently

It’s not faith, it’s not luck, and it’s not some leadership secret. Growing churches are actually doing something differently than the other 80% of churches in America that are stuck or declining. At the Unstuck Group we work with 100’s of churches every year and we’ve discovered that growing churches are actually doing some very tangible things differently than other churches. Below are just a few of them.

How Many People Should your Church have on Staff?

Before you buy into the idea that you need another staff person at your church, think again. That just may be the worst decision you make at your church this year.

8 Reasons Why People Don’t Volunteer at your Church

I’ve never worked with a church that has said they don’t need more volunteers. But I’ve worked with a bunch of churches that have trouble getting people to volunteer and stay engaged volunteering.

Stop Blaming your Team for Underperforming 

If you’ve ever managed a team you know how easy it is to grow frustrated when individuals on the team don’t perform well and the team doesn’t get the results you’re looking for. Unfortunately when things go wrong, the first place most leaders and managers look to place blame is on the team. Don’t hear what I’m not saying. Sometimes someone on the team doesn’t do their job and things fail. But the team should be the last place you look to place blame. The first place you should look to place blame is on yourself. When things go wrong on your team, keep the following principles in mind:

Hope is Not a Strategy

Hoping things will get better at your church won’t help things actually get better at your church. In fact the opposite may actually be true.

Church Leadership and the Illusion of Control

Church leaders are supposed to be the best kind of leaders, right? Caring, humble, courageous, strong, and selfless. The term controlling probably wouldn’t make a top-10-list of attributes to describe the ideal church leader. Now I know you’re not a control freak, I mean you’re way to godly for that. But if you’re on a church staff I’m sure you’ve served with a control freak at some point. And control freaks are dangerous, especially in the church.

Why More People Don’t Meet Jesus at your Church

One of the things we’ve learned through our experience and research at theUnstuck Group is that churches in America are only baptizing around 5% of their weekend attendance on average annually. In other words a church of 500 is seeing an average of 25 people take the step to be publicly baptized on an annual basis. We can do better than that. We must do better than that. But it is going to take facing down these big 5 issues that prevent more people from meeting Jesus at your church.

Tearing Down Leadership Idols in the Church

A quick Google search on “Church Leadership” will turn up literally over 170 million links. That’s a lot of content to dig into on church leadership. For all of the talk about church leadership out there today it sure seems that the church is pretty leadership poor. I know some folks down in Texas that would say that churches have a bad case of “big hat, no cattle.” Another way to say it would be that churches are all talk and no action when it comes to leadership.

How your Church can Produce More Leaders

Leadership scarcity is one of the most significant lids that prevent growth in churches today. While many churches are providing great leadership content and training in the form of conferences, classes, or coaching groups few are actually producing more leaders. There is more to developing leaders than providing good leadership content. It doesn’t happen without these 5 key underpinnings. 

Photo Credit: justin fain via Compfight cc


Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation, Staffing, Volunteers

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Church Leadership and the Illusion of Control

Church leaders are supposed to be the best kind of leaders, right? Caring, humble, courageous, strong, and selfless. The term controlling probably wouldn’t make a top-10-list of attributes to describe the ideal church leader. Now I know you’re not a control freak, I mean you’re way to godly for that. But if you’re on a church staff I’m sure you’ve served with a control freak at some point. And control freaks are dangerous, especially in the church.

The other day my 11-year-old daughter was asking me about a group of people she perceived to be controlling. With the innocent insight that only a child seems to have she said, “In the books I read people who are controlling are usually the bad guys.”

So here’s to hoping that you never turn out to be a “bad guy.”

Control is an Illusion

I’m about to say something that’s going to be difficult for some of you to hear. You’re not in control. I know you think you are…but…you’re not. Control is an illusion. I know all of you’re calendaring, budgeting, planning, organizational charts, and administrating tell you that I’m wrong. But I’m right. Those things lull you into thinking you’re in control and provide the illusion of control. It’s comfortable, like a warm blanket. But don’t be seduced into becoming a control freak. You’ll be in for a very rude awakening one day.

Jesus isn’t a Control Freak

Jesus is a gentleman. If you want to go down a path that isn’t good for you or others around you, He’ll actually let you do that. He may be sad for you because the choice isn’t the best for you, but He’s not going to freak out or fret about your choice. He most likely isn’t going to rescue you from the consequences of your decisions but He’ll let you make them. Even when He knows how life is designed to work and you choose your own way.

Your Policies can’t Control Outcomes

I know that you think your policies will make everybody behave the way you want them to and make everything run like a predictable well-oiled machine but unfortunately they won’t. I know that statement is hard for some of you to read, I’m sorry. I really am. I wish it weren’t true, it be easier if it weren’t true. But it is. Your policies might help you mitigate some risk, they may help you institutionalize the culture you’re trying to build, but they won’t control outcomes. No matter what policy you have in place, if someone wants to do something stupid, they will. Oh, and when you do try to control everything with over policying (I don’t think that’s a word) things, you’ll actually drive your most talented team members away.

Your Team needs to be Unleashed not Controlled

I know you think you’re pretty special, truth is you are. But Jesus has gifted your team with some pretty incredible gifts too. In fact I bet they have gifts that you don’t have. Controlling leaders stifle fun, innovation, and ultimately production. Your team needs to be empowered and unleashed to be who Jesus has created them to be. That’s when they’ll have the most fun and you’ll get the greatest results. The sad, and very dangerous, thing is controlling church leaders actually stifle personal growth in others and the expansion of the Gospel.

The Only thing you can Control is your Attitude and your Effort

The good news is there is something you can control, and that’s you. You are responsible for what happens inside of you, how you respond to life, and the actions you take. Every moment of every day you have the incredible opportunity to control your attitude and your effort. There’s not much that you can actually control and change, but you can control and change you. Truth is, that’s probably enough. Much more and it would probably be a bit overwhelming.

Photo Credit: fishbulb1022 via Compfight cc


Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation, Staffing

1

10 Articles that will Help Your Church Make Vision Real

Thank you for making August another great month here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! It’s great staying connected with you through social media and hearing that these articles have been helpful. So, thank you for connecting with me through the content on this blog! You made these the top posts from this last month. If you missed out on any of them, here they are all in one place for your convenience!

10 Insider Focused Ministry Names

The language we choose to use is important because it both reflects and builds culture at the same time. And one of the most obvious ways to tell if a church is insider focused or outsider focused is the language that they choose to use. It either says that the church is “inclusive” or “exclusive.”

Why People Volunteer at Some Churches But Not at Others

Ever notice that a lot of churches feel like a spectator sport? You know, the kind of place where people sit around watching the paid staff do everything. The average church in America engages around 45% of their average adult and student attendance in some kind of volunteer role (check out the Unstuck Group Health Assessment for more info like this). But there are those churches that are above average. The top 10% of churches somehow seem to break all the normal statistics and engage more than 70% of their average adult and student attendance in some kind of volunteer role. Here are a couple of things they do different.

How Many People Should your Church have on Staff?

Before you buy into the idea that you need another staff person at your church, think again. That just may be the worst decision you make at your church this year.

Leadership Summit 2016: Bill Hybels

If you missed the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit this year, no worries I’ve got you covered. I’ll be posting my notes and thoughts from each presenter over the next couple of days. Willow Creek Community Church Founder and Senior Pastor Bill Hybels opened the Summit addressing The 4 Lenses of Leadership.  The following are leadership quotes and lessons from this incredible session.

My Top-10 Church Leadership Posts of All-Time

I’m about to drop a secret on you about my blog. What keeps me going week in and week out is my personal discipline to continue to grow as a leader. This site acts as an accountability tool to keep me consistently thinking about, writing about, and testing my leadership thoughts and ideas. I don’t keep doing this for a platform, I keep doing this because I want to keep growing, so in essence you, the reader, get to have a sneak peak each week into my online, public, leadership journal. Over the years some posts have been more useful than others to readers. So I thought I’d share some of the most helpful articles over the last 6+ years with you. Happy reading!

The Art of Execution

Highlights from a leadership talk by Chad Moore, who serves as the Lead Pastor at Sun Valley, about bridging the gap between vision and reality. The art of execution. Here are some of the best highlights.

8 Reasons Why People Don’t Volunteer at your Church

’ve never worked with a church that has said they don’t need more volunteers. But I’ve worked with a bunch of churches that have trouble getting people to volunteer and stay engaged volunteering.

How to Change the Results at your Church Before they Happen

Churches measure what happened all the time. We measure what the attendance at last week’s worship services was, we measure what the offering was, we measure how many people were in groups last week, how many people served last week, and so on the list goes. The tough thing is you can’t change what just happened at your church last week. Most of the key metrics we look at are all about what has already happened. But what if there were things that we could measure that were indicators of future performance?

10 Signs your Church is Headed for Decline

What if there were early warning signs (flashing lights on the dashboard) that helped indicate that trouble was ahead? In my experience Coaching Church Leaders and Consulting with Churches across the country I’ve seen the following 10 indicators of an impending decline over and over again.

4 Bad Habits that Young Church Leaders Need to Break

Before you read this, please understand that I love and am for young leaders. After all, I was one once. But there are some really bad habits that young church leaders are exhibiting that need to be broken if they have any hope or chance of having the deep and broad Kingdom impact that they’re dreaming of.

Photo Credit: justin fain via Compfight cc


Posted in Leadership, Staffing