A Large Multisite Church in Phoenix is Hiring a GroupLife Pastor

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A Large Multisite Church in Phoenix is Hiring a GroupLife Pastor

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

I’m pleased to announce a new Staff Search. Sun Valley Community Church, the church I have the honor of serving at, is beginning a national search for a GroupLife Pastor to serve on our Gilbert Campus. Sun Valley began as a church plant in 1990 in Chandler, Arizona. Over the years Sun Valley has grown into a large mult-site church in the Phoenix area. Currently there are three campuses located in Casa Grande, Gilbert, and Tempe with a total weekend attendance of over 5,000 people and in recent years was named by Outreach Magazine as one of the top 10 fastest growing churches in America. The Gilbert Campus is the original and largest campus with over 3,500 in weekly average attendance. Sun Valley was recently featured in a new book by Leadership Network about church mergers: Better Together: Making Church Mergers Work. To learn more about that story click here Part-1 and Part-2.

Interested in learning more? Continue reading below… Continue Reading…

Posted in Staffing

Top Posts of 2014 #4: “The Four Stages of a Church Staff Team”

Saturday, December 27, 2014

I’m always looking for great word pictures for leadership systems and structures in the local church. Apparently other people are too, because this was the 4th most popular post on Helping Churches Make Vision Real this year!

If you’ve ever been a part of a growing church you know that growth changes everything. Especially the relational, organizational and working dynamics of the staff team. Larry Osborne, Lead Pastor at North Coast Church writes the following in his book Sticky Teams:

“Never forget growth changes everything. A storefront church, a midsized church, a large church, and a mega-church aren’t simply bigger versions of the same thing. They are completely different animals. They have little in common, especially relationally, organizationally, and structurally.”

Fortunately I’ve had the opportunity to sit down with Larry and hear him expound on this idea and talk about what he describes as, “The Four Stages of a Team.”

Stage 1: Track Star

The track star performs alone. They may train with others and their score may affect an overall team win, but they operate by themselves. This is the solo pastor. Typical Church Size: 0-150

Stage 2: Golfing Buddies

At this stage the church staff is highly relational. They enjoy deep relationships and doing life together outside of work. They’re doing what they love with people that they like. Typical Church Size: 150-600

Stage 3: Basketball Team

Basketball is a team sport not a friendship sport. It requires working together, trusting one another and sharing the ball. While there are still meaningful relationships, genuine camaraderie, and a shared sense of purpose; there are too many players for everyone to be best friends. On a basketball team there are star players and role players. And they’re paid differently due to the role that they play. Typical Church Size 600-2,000

Stage 4: Football Team

This is the most drastic and difficult change. And it’s the reason why so many churches get stuck and so few ever break 2,000. Football can be a dangerous game if you think you’re still playing track, golf, or basketball. In the game of football there are highly specialized roles and team work is essential. The offense, defense and special teams all have different playbooks. Often times the offense isn’t even watching what the defense is doing while they’re on the field and visa-verse. They’re preparing for the next time they’re on the field. Everyone no longer knows what everyone else is doing. When the defense adds a new blitz package without telling the offensive line, the offensive line doesn’t care. They’re just glad someone sacked the opposing teams quarterback. And even in football there are different levels of the game. There is a big difference in talent, coaching, speed of the game, and complexity between High School, D1 College, and the NFL. Typical Church Size: 2,000+

Photo Credit: PowerMax Energy via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

The Freshmen Get Smaller Every Year

Sunday, December 7, 2014

I took a trip down memory lane this weekend. I spent some time back east consulting with a great church in my hometown of Stafford, VA. It’s been 20 years since the last time I was in Stafford. And while I was there I took a minute to drive around a bit; and let me tell you a lot has changed in 20 years! I felt like I could get lost in my own hometown! I went by the house I grew up in and even past the High School I graduated from. First thing that came into my mind? “I remember my High School being a lot bigger than that.” And then another thought raced into my mind. It was a statement from a conversation that I had with Larry Osborne when he said to me, “The freshmen get smaller every year.” In other words every year there is a new freshman class. Every year as you get older they seem to get smaller, weirder, and more clueless. And somehow the older you get the more it seems you were never that small, that weird, or that clueless. But you and I know better, don’t we?

The best leaders I’ve ever been around know there’s great value in hanging out with the “freshmen.” In fact here are a couple of things I’ve seen some great seasoned leaders do over the years to invest in the next generation leaders.

1. Surround yourself with Young Talent

Not so they can admire how experienced and how incredible you are. You don’t need groupies. But so you can invest in them. Spend time with them, let them ask questions and simply talk about leadership. Let them see you lead up close and personal. And then debrief with them about what you did and why. Share with them your greatest leadership struggles, challenges, failures and successes.

2. How Young Can you go with your Next Hire?

When you are getting ready to make that next hire ask yourself, “How young can we go with this hire and not jeopardize the job that needs to get done?” It’s a simple question that will force you to think differently about bringing young talent onto the team. And frankly, it’s a question that I wish I started asking a long time ago.

3. Invite Young Talent to the Adult Table

Thanksgiving was just a couple of weeks ago. And if your house is similar to mine you had a kids table and an adult table. In leadership the same is often true. One of the most simple and overlooked opportunities to develop young talent is to periodically invite young talent to the adult table. Let them sit in Sr. Leadership meetings and see how the top leaders in your organization or church think, problem solve, interact with one another, make decisions and well, lead. This kind of access is an incredible gift to a young up an coming leader.

4. Remember to Tell Yourself the Truth

No matter how good you were as a young leader, you weren’t as good as you remember yourself being, you just weren’t. And neither was I. The further you and I get away from being a young leader the more we think, “I was never that small, I was never that weird, I was never that clueless.” Tell yourself the truth and instead of criticizing the freshmen why don’t you choose to hang out with them and invest in them?

Photo Credit: Russ Allison Loar via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

10 Keys to Guarding the Gate to your Sr. Leadership Team

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

So who gets to be on the Sr. Leadership Team at your church? Is it based on who’s been there the longest? Is it based on who has the “in” and best relationship with the Sr. Pastor? Is it done, like Congress, by ministry representation so every ministry is represented? While all those things aren’t bad things in and of themselves, they aren’t necessarily strategic. And they certainly won’t move you any closer to accomplishing the vision that God has for your church. Here are 10 characteristics that you should be looking for when you’re thinking about adding someone to your Sr. Leadership Team.

1. Big-Picture Thinking

They think about the church before they think about their ministry. They understand that everything affects everything. If I’ve got a Youth Pastor who Youth Ministry is their first filter, they can’t be on the Sr. Leadership Team. The church has to be the primary filter before any one ministry.

2. Strategic

They naturally think about steps, movement, and alignment to vision. They’re strategic about how to get from here to there. They have a leadership intuition and can appreciate and move back and forth between the art and science of leadership even though they have a natural bias for one or the other.

3. Leadership

They have a leadership gift. While leadership skills can be coached and developed, the Scriptures are clear that leadership at its essence is a gift from God. I hate to burst your bubble, but everyone isn’t a leader.

4. Vision

They’re a stakeholder and vision carrier in your organization. They don’t allow the vision to be relegated to just the Sr. Pastor. They’re constantly asking themselves, “What did I do today to advance the vision of the church?”

5. Culture

They embody the culture of your church, or the culture you’re trying to create in your church. They embrace and live out the unique values of your church in their personal life not just their work life.

6. Team Builder

People are already following them. They have the ability to attract, recruit and develop teams of people to accomplish things that no one person could do alone. They are already moving people in a coordinated effort towards a destination. They don’t simply delegate tasks they empower people.

7. Execution

They actually get stuff done. They have demonstrated the ability to turn ideas into reality. They communicate action steps clearly, meet deadlines, and deliver on their promises. I’ve got to trust this person. I’ve got to know if I pass them the ball they’re going to catch it, turn up field and get a first down.

8. Likability

I put this one on the list at the risk of sounding shallow, but I’ve got to actually like the people that I’m leading with. If they don’t pass the “I like you” test, it’s not happening. Highly talented people can mess up a locker room if there’s not good chemistry between them and the rest of the team.

9. Biblical Requirement

They’ve got to meet the Biblical requirements for pastoral leadership. After all we’re not building a corporation, we’re shepherding the body of Christ. What we are doing is intrinsically spiritual and those leading the church need to meet the spiritual requirements to sit in that seat.

10. Humility

Humility is the context in which all the other fruit of the spirit thrive. They must have a teachable spirit and be a life-long learner. They need to be able to lead with the right questions, not just the right answers. Humility provides a pathway to access the true person and essentially is linked to trust. And the best Sr. Leadership Teams run on trust.

Interested about learning more about Sr. Leadership Teams? Check out my interview with Tony Morgan about his book “Take the Lid Off Your Church: 6 Steps to Building a Healthy Sr. Leadership Team”

Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

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