Helping Churches Make Vision Real

5 Articles that will Help Your Church Make Vision Real

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Thank you for making August 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. A Large Multisite Church in Phoenix is Hiring a Preteen Pastor

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 Preteen Pastor to lead the ministry to 5th & 6th grade students 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 metro area. Currently there are three campuses located in Gilbert, Tempe and Casa Grande with a total weekend attendance of over 5,000 people. Sun Valley was recently 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 well 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.

2. 5 Reasons I Would Never Hire You

Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to hire a lot of people. Student Ministry Pastors, Campus Pastors, Children’s Pastors, Worship Pastors, Executive level roles and Administrative roles. I’ve run the searches myself and used an Executive Search Firm. I’ve even had the opportunity as a consultant to help other churches find their right next hire. Hire the right person and the whole team benefits. When you invite the right person to join your team not only is there is an infusion of new talent, but also new ideas, fresh eyes, and a new well of experiences to go to. One new hire can make the entire team better. On the other hand, hire the wrong person and you can pay a price you weren’t prepared to pay. While at first pass this post may come off as negative, the goal I can assure you, is to be helpful. I’ve had to say no to more people than I’ve said yes to. My hope is that this post will help move you in the direction where you’d hear me, or someone else, say yes to you in the near future.

3. How to Identify Young Leaders in the Church

Do a quick Google Search and you’ll find volumes written about this next generation entering the workforce. Much of it is written from a negative perspective. The search will tell you that this generation is entitled, lazy, they don’t follow through and they can’t be trusted with real responsibility. This trend has great implications for the modern day church. And while the researchers might be right, I still believe that there are great up and coming leaders in the next generation taking their place in the church today. Two reasons stand out and have convinced me.

4. The Art of Difficult Conversations

If you lead a team long enough, eventually there are going to be some difficult conversations that are going to happen. No one wants to have difficult conversations, there’s nothing fun about them. But if you care about the team and if you care about your teammates then eventually someone is going to need to be confronted. It could be poor work ethic, breaking organizational values, underperformance, misrepresenting the organization, or it could even be a moral or ethical problem just to name a few. But who is the right person to have that difficult conversation when it needs to happen?

5. Leading Through Change: What Game is Your Church Playing?

On a regular basis at Sun Valley Community Church (the church I have the honor of serving at) we get the staff together from all three campuses for leadership development and training. This past week one of our Lead Pastors, Chad Moore, shared about the different games that churches play. I thought I’d share with you some of the key take-aways and learnings. Do you know what game your church is playing? Follow this link to learn more about the “4 Stages of a Church Staff Team.”

Posted in Leadership

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A Large Multisite Church in Phoenix is Hiring a Small Group Pastor

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

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 Small Group 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

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An Interview with William Vanderbloemen on Pastoral Succession

Monday, September 1, 2014

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with William Vanderbloemen, the founder and CEO of the Vanderbloemen Search Firm, to discuss his new book, “Next: Pastoral Succession that Works.” Every pastor is an interim pastor and succession planning is one of the most critical issues facing the church in America over the next decade. In partnership with Co-author Warren Bird, Director of Research at Leadership Network, William has brought the experience and the research together to provide churches and pastors with an incredible resource to help them navigate succession planning! You can follow this link to get your own copy of this newly released book! Check out the interview below!

Free Resource: The First 5 Commandments of Pastoral Succession Planning

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

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How to Manage the Tension between Work and Rest

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

In the beginning, even before the fall of mankind, God created both work and rest (you can check out Genesis 1-3 for all the details). Both were helpful, both were holy, and both were enjoyed by and benefited man. After the fall of mankind everything was messed up, including mankind’s ideas and inclinations about work and rest. This tension still plagues us today, including church leaders. Our tendency in different seasons of leadership is to lean into one or the other more than we are designed to. And if not caught early it can do damage to our souls and ultimately the ministries that we are charged with leading.

Work

Personal ambition: When our ambition for growth as church leaders surpasses our ambition for God, there’s a problem.
High Expectations: When fast-charging and high-driving church leaders have set their vision and expectations higher for themselves and their ministries than God does, there’s a problem.
Selfish Gain: When we become consumed by our work and our identity as church leaders becomes rooted in our work rather than in God, there’s a problem.

Rest

Discouragement: When church leaders fall into discouragement and shrink back because things aren’t going the way they think they should be going, there’s a problem.
Emotional Weight: When church leaders pick up and begin to carry the emotional weight of the team, the outcomes of the vision, and the expectations of people in the church, there’s a problem.
Laziness: When church leaders over spiritualize the concepts of faith and dependency upon the Holy Spirit to work and avoid working hard themselves, there’s a problem.

When our hearts call too much for one or the other, something is off in us. We’ve been chasing after something that we were never intended to pursue. It should be an indicator to us that it’s time to return to the mission and return to God.

Photo Credit: CyboRoZ via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation

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5 Reasons I Would Never Hire You

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to hire a lot of people. Student Ministry Pastors, Campus Pastors, Children’s Pastors, Worship Pastors, Executive level roles and Administrative roles. I’ve run the searches myself and used an Executive Search Firm. I’ve even had the opportunity as a consultant to help other churches find their right next hire. Hire the right person and the whole team benefits. When you invite the right person to join your team not only is there is an infusion of new talent, but also new ideas, fresh eyes, and a new well of experiences to go to. One new hire can make the entire team better. On the other hand, hire the wrong person and you can pay a price you weren’t prepared to pay. While at first pass this post may come off as negative, the goal I can assure you, is to be helpful. I’ve had to say no to more people than I’ve said yes to. My hope is that this post will help move you in the direction where you’d hear me, or someone else, say yes to you in the near future.

1. Attitude

Your attitude is more valuable than your aptitude. You can learn skills, and talent can be developed, but attitude is one of those things you either have or you don’t. I want you to come in and help make the team better, and a bad attitude or critical spirit never makes the team better.

2. Track Record

I’m not all that impressed by big talkers. Sales pitches usually don’t work on me. So don’t try and impress me and sell me on what you’re going to do. Show me what you’ve done. And while it doesn’t necessarily need to be “big,” it does needs to have been done well and there needs to be a track record of progressive responsibility. Over and over and over again…all throughout the Bible when people who have been faithful with the little they’re given, they are then are given an opportunity to be faithful with more.

3. Creative Problem Solving

Please don’t think that when you finally arrive in a large church that you’ll finally have the resources you wish you had in a smaller church you were serving in. Like a lot of things, resource challenges often scale. You need to have a proven track record of resourcefulness. Instead of being frustrated at resource challenges or other potential issues learn to live on the solution side of every problem. Develop an eye for opportunity and improvement not a critical spirit that tears people and ministries down.

4. High E.Q.

You’ve got to demonstrate a high level of emotional intelligence if you’re going to be very successful in ministry over the long haul. Relationships are both the glue and the grease that make work happen in the workplace. And at the end of the day if you don’t like to and don’t want to be around people, you’re going to have a pretty tough time in local church ministry.

5. I Actually Like You

This may seem like the shallowest one on the list, but it may just be the most important factor in any hire. The reason why is chemistry and culture. While I’m not paying you to be my friend, friendship is an incredibly high value on my team. You see if I can’t picture you getting along with the team and me, if I can’t picture hanging out with you, if you don’t have a similar DNA to the team your joining then chances are you don’t belong on the team.

Photo Credit: Jeffrey Simms Photography via Compfight cc