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Why Policies are Bad for your Church

Sunday, October 12, 2014

No, I don’t have a policy for that. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked to share a Staff Handbook, the hiring process I’ve built and use, budgeting policies, board policies or a whole host of other policies someone is looking to implement at their church. Because the majority of my experience in church-world has been in the role of Executive Pastor most people automatically think, “policies and administration.” My real job is to bridge the gap between vision and reality…but that conversation is for another time. While some policies can be useful and helpful (by the way if they aren’t helpful you shouldn’t have them), I’m actually a minimalist when it comes to policies. And here’s a couple of reasons why…

1. Policies Have a Tendency to Shrink Thinking

Policies are rules that shrink the box of creativity, problem solving, and big ideas. Policies set the standard for how we do what we do every time we do it. And that’s fine if we’re on an assembly line making cars. You want consistency in that situation. But disciple making is not the same thing as making cars.

2. Policies are Anti-Leadership Statements

Leaders want to tell, not be told. Leaders want to build, not be confined. Leaders want to move, not be held back. Policies constantly tell people in the organization what they can’t do, and leaders are solution oriented not excuse or problem oriented. A church with a lot of policies will consistently find it difficult to attract and keep good leaders.

3. Policies Punish Everyone

Policies are designed to punish everyone in the organization everyday for something that someone might do someday.

Please don’t mishear me. I’m not saying all policies are bad. Just that I have a tendency to take a minimalist approach. Less is more when it comes to policies in a church. Only put a policy in place if it’s absolutely necessary. And there are only two reasons in my mind that it’s necessary:

#1 Legal Obligation

#2 It Helps you Make the Vision Real

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Posted in Leadership

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5 Articles that will Help Your Church Make Vision Real

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Thank you for making September a great month here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! It’s great staying connected with you through social media and hearing about how helpful different articles have been. So, thank you for connecting with me through the content on this blog! You made these the top 5 Posts from this last month. If you missed out on any of them, here they are all in one place for your convenience!

1. How Much Should Your Church Pay Your Pastor?

The 2014 Large Church Salary Report conducted by Leadership Network in partnership with the Vanderbloemen Executive Search Firm has just been released to the public. The largest survey of its kind ever conducted, 727 churches of over 1,000 people in attendance from 42 states and Canada participated to provide more information and more specific information than ever before available. Follow this link to get your hands on a copy of the survey results! Here are a couple of facts that caught my eye along with the top 10 findings info-graphic below.

2. You’ve Got to be Stupid to take that Job!

Thinking about taking a new job? Think twice, because you’ve got to be stupid to take that job. And I mean it. There’s a special blend of arrogance and naivety needed to take a new job, especially in church-world.

3. Your First 90 Days

Some have said that your first 90 days in a new job are your most important 90 days in that job. After all in those first 90 days a new leader sets the tone for and posture from which they are going to lead. They begin to reveal how they will interact with other team members, how they make decisions, their communication style, and their ability to assess the landscape and implement change. During the first 90 days leaders are literally setting the tone and the underpinnings for the culture that they are going to build moving forward.

4. Church Shopping: Find What You’re Looking For

People church shop. Like it or not when people look for a church they typically go on a bit of a shopping spree to find what they’re looking for. Comparing and measuring teaching, worship style, facilities, kids ministry, general vibe…the list goes on and on. Week after week they walk on church properties with a mental scorecard looking for that special feeling that says, “You’re home.” So here’s how to find what you’re looking for when you’re church shopping.

5. Top 10 Reasons Churches get Stuck

For more than 18 years I’ve been working full-time in a local church setting. The last 13 of those have been in large mega-church and multi-site settings. I’ve had the unique opportunity to work with an incredible team of people at a the Unstuck Group a successful consulting firm specializing in helping churches get unstuck. Over this span of time I’ve seen churches get and stay stuck for all kinds of reasons but there are 10 catalysts for church stuckness that I see come up over and over again. Here they are in no particular order:

Posted in Leadership

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What every Executive Assistant wishes their Boss Knew

Monday, October 6, 2014

Fortunately I’ve had the opportunity to work with some incredible Executive Assistants through out the years. I recently asked my current Executive Assistant to do a bit of “market research” for me and have some conversations (a lot of conversations) with other administrative staff and come up with a list of top things they wish their bosses knew. Here’s some of the ideas that came back…

1. Consistency: Consistent weekly meetings are invaluable to me. Often the first and last of the week to touch base on tasks, projects, calendar, and objectives. This helps us effectively communicate and stay on the same page.

2. Trust: Don’t micromanage me. Help me understand the objectives and the playing field and then let me run.

3. Input: Let me have input into decisions that affect me. I see things from a different point of view than you, and you could be missing something.

4. Care: Care about me as a person, not just someone who gets things done for you. Ask me about my kids and my family and remember special days like my birthday and anniversary.

5. Clarity: Allow me to ask for clarity. When you give me a list of tasks to get accomplished on Tuesday and you already gave me a task list on Monday, allow me the freedom to push back and get clarity on what’s most important now, what can wait until next week, and what can wait until next month.

6. Boundaries: I’m your Administrative Assistant not your Personal Assistant. I’m not all that interested in picking up your laundry, scheduling hair appointments and the like.

7. Calendaring: If you want me to keep your schedule, then let me keep your schedule. 2 people trying to manage the same calendar just creates confusion and overlap. Help me know what kind of work routine and rhythm works best for your week, month, and year.

Photo Credit: libraryman via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

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Top 10 Reasons Churches get Stuck

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

For more than 18 years I’ve been working full-time in a local church setting. The last 13 of those have been in large mega-church and multi-site settings. I’ve had the unique opportunity to work with an incredible team of people at a the Unstuck Group a successful consulting firm specializing in helping churches get unstuck. Over this span of time I’ve seen churches get and stay stuck for all kinds of reasons but there are 10 catalysts for church stuckness that I see come up over and over again. Here they are in no particular order:

1. Insider Focus

Alright so I said these weren’t in any particular order, well that’s mostly true. All except for this one. The most common area where I see churches get stuck is this issue of being insider focused. And it’s rooted in this fundamental question, “What is the church for?” I feel like I write about this topic a lot so I won’t regurgitate it here, just search “insider focus” in the search bar to your right and you’ll get a grocery list of stuff. Bottom line is a majority of churches that are stuck get that way and stay that way because they’re focused on insiders instead of outsiders. They would resist that diagnosis and the label, but they’re practices, language, guest services (or lack thereof), and low number of annual conversations and baptisms tell a different story.

2. Staffing and Structure

There are very common growth barriers that churches hit and get stuck at. A start up church that is setting up and tearing down in rented space, the medium sized church, the megachurch and multisite church aren’t different in size or economies of scale. They are completely different organizations. To get through these barriers and stay past these barriers takes more than momentum it takes changing the staffing and organizational structure of the church, and often times the way the Church Board operates in relationship to the staff. Do you have a staffing plan to get you where you want to go? Do you know what structure best fits your size and strategies?

3. Misalignment

A majority of churches do not organize around a central vision. Many don’t have a clearly stated, meaningful, actionable, and relevant mission statement, vision statement, or organizational values. Or if they do they’re on a piece of paper in a drawer somewhere. It’s the rare church that actually organizes the staffing strategy, budgeting process, ministry calendar, weekend teaching schedule, and communication strategies to synergistically move the whole church in a particular direction. There is no clear plan to move from where they are to where God wants them to be. And a failure to plan is planning to fail.

4. Leadership

I love what Bill Hybles, the Sr. Pastor at Willow Creek has said about leadership, “Everyone gets better when the leader gets better.” A leader can be the lid on a church. In other words, sometimes churches get stuck because the leader is stuck. And it’s one thing to get stuck and a whole other thing to stay stuck. Leaders need to invest in their own leadership gifts and keep growing or they’ll end up being the reason the church gets stuck.

5. Teaching

So I may be about to get some speaking pastors a bit upset. But speaking/preaching is a gift. Not everyone has it. Right? The other truth is not everyone who has a preaching gift has that gift given in the same amount. There are some that are simply great preachers. And guess what. Mediocre teaching, even good solid teaching is a barrier to growth and can lead to stuckness if great teaching isn’t developed or hired. Your church may be stuck because the teaching is stuck.

6. Weekend Experience

A lot of ministry segment leaders aren’t going to like what I’m about to say here, but it’s true, even if you don’t like it. In North America, it’s all about the weekend experience. That total street to seat experience that people have when they come to your church. It’s why your children’s ministry is growing (kids don’t drive themselves to church because they like the crafts that much), it’s why people say things like, “I’m not sure what it is but there is something special going on here.” New people bring new people when the weekend experience is going well. But when it’s stuck, there are no new people.

7. Volunteers

I rarely come across a church that says they have all the volunteers they need. I also rarely come across a church that makes it easy for people to get connected and start volunteering and they view volunteering as a part of the discipleship process. Meaning that when you serve you are actually becoming more like Jesus. In most churches the same people are still doing everything that they’ve always done. And until things change, nothing is going to change.

8. Finances

Many churches are stuck because of finances. Some are over extended in debt with no clear plan to pay it off. Many don’t have and haven’t thought through a clear strategy to engage the givers in their churches. Few have a clear and effective budgeting process, much less know what financial health looks like in a church setting. Many don’t teach about generosity for fear of sounding like all they care about is money. Your church doesn’t have a generous culture and as a result the Kingdom isn’t taking the ground that it should be. If you don’t have a clear plan to manage today’s resources for tomorrow, your church is probably stuck financially.

9. The Past

I commonly see churches that are still enamored with past practices and ministry programs that worked years ago to connect new people to Jesus, but now only serve to keep the committed comfortable. Most churches don’t know how to gracefully put old ministry programs out to pasture. Unfortunately as a result those same churches continue to engage in ministry practices that were successful in the past but keep them from being successful in the future.

10. Next Steps

Many churches haven’t defined next steps for people who are attending their church. What is the next step coming out of a sermon? Now that I’ve attended for the first time as a guest, what do I do now? How do I get into a Bible Study? How do I get involved volunteering? How do I financially contribute? Has your church defined the win regarding spiritual maturity and what you hope people will look like, and have you clearly charted a road map to help them get there?

What are some other reasons you’ve seen churches get stuck? What would you add to the list?

Does this list resonate with you? Is your church stuck in one or more of these areas? It might be worth a conversation with the Unstuck Group, we specialize in helping churches get unstuck!

Photo Credit: tricky (rick harrison) via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership

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Your First 90 Days

Sunday, September 28, 2014

Some have said that your first 90 days in a new job are your most important 90 days in that job. After all in those first 90 days a new leader sets the tone for and posture from which they are going to lead. They begin to reveal how they will interact with other team members, how they make decisions, their communication style, and their ability to assess the landscape and implement change. During the first 90 days leaders are literally setting the tone and the underpinnings for the culture that they are going to build moving forward.

There are two distinct veins of thought when you’re beginning a new job, and they’re polar opposites. The first is to change everything you can during the first 90 days because you’ll never get another window of opportunity like this again. After all the reason that you’re in the room is because the last person couldn’t affect the change necessary to move things forward and so change is to be expected with a new hire right? The second approach is to be patient, seek first to understand, and chart a clear course of action to begin to implement change and build the culture you hope to become reality in the organization you find yourself leading. My encouragement whenever possible is to go with option #2. While not every job situation will allow you the luxury of seeking understanding first, some situations demand immediate change and definitive decision making, taking the time to seek organizational and cultural understanding will allow you to execute the right change, with the right people and resources, at the right time, with the right approach. Get one of those four out of order and you could be in trouble.

In his book, “The First 90 Days,” author Michael Watkins writes…

“There are no universal rules for success in transitions. You need to diagnose the business situation accurately and clarify its challenges and opportunities. Start-ups, for instance – of a new product, process, plant, or completely new business – share challenges quite different from those you would face while turning around a product, process, or plant in serious trouble. A clear diagnosis of the situation is an essential prerequisite for developing your action plan.”

To be sure, each unique situation that you walk into will require a unique approach. In “The First 90 Days,” author Michael Watkins unpacks what it means to develop a strategy that matches the unique situation that you’re walking into.

#1 Start-up: Is this a new team or company?

#2 Turnaround: Is the group in trouble, do you need to help get things back on track?

#3 Realignment: Do you need to revitalize the project, team, or processes?

#4 Sustaining Success: Is this a well-oiled machine that simply needs you to keep moving it in the right direction?

A blessing and a curse of being new to the organization is the gift of fresh eyes. You haven’t been in the organization long enough to catch the disease of the organization, and so you see things others do not. So be honest, sober-minded, go slow when you can, don’t get stuck in minutia, keep first things first, and be decisive when decisions need to be made. You can do this!

Need help developing an actionable strategy to lead from where you are to where God wants you to be? The Unstuck Group helps churches clarify their mission, vision, and core strategies—and then realize it through prioritized action initiatives! Check it out!

Photo Credit: Skley via Compfight cc

Posted in Staffing
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