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My Interview with 5 Sr. Pastors Leading Multisite Churches of 5,000+ Pt-3

I recently sat down with 5 Sr. Pastors who are all leading Multisite Churches ranging from 5,000 to more than 15,000. Here’s some of what they had to say regarding church leadership. If you missed the first two parts of this series you can check them out here:

Part-1 “How do young leaders earn the right to be heard and succeed on your team?”

Part-2 “What are some indicators that momentum is moving the wrong direction and how do you turn the tide?”

Question #3 “What have been some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in going multisite and what are some of the most significant things you’ve learned as a result?”

Tyler Johnson: I think one thing I’ve learned is that ministry really is local. One of the challenges in it, is the more decentralized you get the more difficult communication and clarity become. So the need to simplify and clarify your language becomes huge. Distance really hinders relationship. So intentionally creating environments where relationship really can be established is really important. It’s a lot easier when you’re at a distance from somebody to have a very negative and uniformed view of somebody than it is when you get in a room when somebody. As you decentralize yourself and things get pushed away and somebody says, “I don’t know that person.” It’s a lot easier to say, “That person’s an idiot, why would they do that?” So when you believe that ministry is local, it’s challenging to get people together to where there is enough relationship so you can build the trust necessary to have candor. This is really challenging and you have to work really hard to build that kind of culture.

Cal Jernigan: Two things I would say about Multisite. Number one, I think it’s harder than anyone ever wants to admit. It seems like everyone is talking about it being so good, it’s all growth, it’s just the greatest thing. I think it’s a lot harder than people are talking about. And I think a lot of sideways energy is going in, a lot of wasted money is going into it and I think we just don’t want to call it out and say it’s as hard as it is. And the truth is you have to have a gear that not everyone else has. And you’re going to succeed if you have the gear and you’re not going to succeed if you don’t. The second part I would say is what makes it so hard are things like authority structures, and who makes the call, and how do you retain leaders, and how do you let leaders lead? And how we’re structured is we have 5 campuses and we have a central band that runs across it all. And there are significant points of tension that need to be managed in regards to who gets to lead where and who gets to make a call. And this stuff is really hard, and a single site church never has to deal with this.

Don Wilson: I think a lot of multisite is still faddish. It’s not been proven that long, plus we’ve never seen a real successful multisite church where the Sr. Pastor has left and someone else has taken over. I don’t know a single one of those yet. For us, we’re getting ready to start our fifth campus this week. Lots of people are doing multisite a lot of different ways. Whatever way you do it, you have to do it with your DNA. What we’re finding is until you do four campuses you never really have to intentionally change your central team. When you get to four it forces you to do things differently.

Scott Ridout: I don’t know that Sun Valley’s really gone multisite. We’ve merged and have two campuses there and then we did a parachute drop down in Casa Grande so now we’re at three campuses. We haven’t hived off anything from our original campus yet, so that’s our next experiment. So we’re merging, we’re parachute dropping, and we’re hiving.


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My Interview with 5 Sr. Pastors Leading Multisite Churches of 5,000+ Pt-2

I recently sat down with 5 Sr. Pastors who are all leading Multisite Churches ranging from 5,000 to more than 15,000. Here’s some of what they had to say regarding church leadership. Miss Part-1 of this post? Follow this link to get caught up on what they had to say about what it takes for “Young leaders to earn the right be heard and succeed.”

Question #2 “What are some indicators that momentum is moving the wrong direction and how do you turn the tide?”

Linn Winters: This is that part of leadership that has an awful lot of art to it. This is why you can’t put a diagram in a book and say this is when momentum gets lost. But the best way I can describe it is the church is a dinosaur. It is this big behemoth of a thing and it intuitively wants to sit down, it wants to rest. And the problem is if you ever let it sit down getting it to get up and move again is a horrific challenge. So better to have a tiny bit of momentum headed in a certain direction than to ever let it sit down. Because you guys have seen churches who have let the dinosaur sit down and were never able to recover that moment. But what I would say that as you go back and try and tackle momentum…because all of us have had to do this in a department, in a division of the church, or church wide…is that the thing I think that happens too often as leaders is we see the big problem. We think if we could take that hill 80% of the problem we’re dealing with right now would be solved…by taking that hill. And intuitively as leaders many of us try and take the biggest hill and solve the biggest problem in the room. And the problem is once the dinosaur has slowed down or sat down, the dinosaur no longer has confidence that it can take that hill. It does not believe you, that it can take that big hill. And I think in that moment, you and I are much better served as leaders to ask the dinosaur, “Hey what’s the biggest problem you see?” Because in this moment all you’re trying to do is get the dinosaur to move. You don’t even care what direction the dinosaur moves. And then once you get a little momentum, then you’re going to turn the dinosaur in the right direction. So an example of that would be, I think a lot of guys go into churches, they’re going to be turning that church around, and they can see they need to redo the auditorium or change the whole leadership culture. They can see the big pieces. But if you went to the church, the average person in the church is horrified to take that hill with you. You don’t have the confidence or the clout to do it. And the most powerful thing you can do is to ask that church, that division, that ministry segment what’s the hill you think we can take? And they’re going to come back with something really impressive like paint the nursery. And you’re going to go…that doesn’t even hit my radar! But what great leaders understand is that isn’t the issue. The issue is that I’ve got to get the dinosaur to move. And powerful leaders embrace this, they read the temperature of the room and they paint the nursery. And they go the Elder Board and they get the money to paint the nursery, and they get the men of the church to come down on a Saturday and paint the nursery. And now the nursery is painted, and what do the women of the church say? Oh, our Sr. Pastor is the smartest Sr. Pastor in the whole world. He painted the nursery. And now as they go home, because they have their freshly painted nursery, what are they saying to their husbands…that guy is the man! And what you’re doing is you can now go back and say what’s the next hill? And you’re building confidence and momentum with simple wins until you can go and take that big hill.

Don Wilson: The purpose of a leader is to define reality and the problem is with many of our churches that are growing, we’ll stand up here and tell you how it’s growing, but the truth is we really don’t know. Because there are some God things going on that you can’t put 1-2-3 to in my experience. So the struggle is a lot of times if you don’t know why you’re growing and it stops, you won’t know how to get it growing again. And if your church is growing you’re not as good as you think you are, and if you’re church is declining you’re not as bad as you think you are. We’re all in the size of churches that we’re no longer a canoe we’re a cruise ship. It takes a lot longer to turn a cruise ship around than a canoe. And so the danger with momentum is once you lose it, you can work hard, but you may not see any movement for 12-18 months. And that’s where I think a lot of people get disenchanted because they say your ideas aren’t working. So I think one of the toughest things in leadership and momentum is that you might be growing now, but it might be a false growth.

Continue Reading…


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My Interview with 5 Sr. Pastors Leading Multisite Churches of 5,000+ Pt-1

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with 5 Phoenix Valley Pastors who are leading multiste churches that range in attendance from 5,000 to more than 15,000. In the next couple of days I’m going to be sharing some of their comments about Church Leadership. Here are the pastors who participated in the conversation:

Question #1 “How do young leaders earn the right to be heard and succeed on your team?”

Linn Winters: I think this may one of the biggest challenges in the church today. Older leaders need to learn how to embrace younger leaders and younger leaders need to stop fighting older leaders by trying to make their identity as different than older leaders instead of receiving a hand off from older leaders. Honor in public gives you influence in private. The most powerful thing a young leader can do to earn the right to be heard is they’ve got to learn how to support their leader publicly even if they disagree with them. Every older leader has got to figure out about the younger leaders on their team, are you Aaron or are you Absalom? You hear the story of Moses when Israel is fighting the Amalekites, and the battle goes by whether or not Moses’s arms are up. And if you think about it, that’s a horrible plan. Hey, we’re going to go fight, and the plan for winning is I’ll raise my arms. And I get it as young leaders that you say, “Sometimes I don’t know if I buy the plan of my older leader. I’m not sure if that’s how I would do it if I were king.” But that’s not the issue. The issue is honoring your leader. And Aaron knew this. When Moses’s arms get weak and tired, he helps to lift his arms. Because he knew that at the end of the day as the leader goes, so goes the church. And so they’re invested in the success of the leader, not for his sake, but for the sake of the nation. And young leaders need to learn to be invested in the success of their leader, not for his glory but for the greater glory of the church. And when you do this your leader is much more willing to hear the push-back and allow influence in private. Absalom does just the opposite. Absalom decides to sit at the city gate and criticize one of the greatest men of God ever. And David had his flaws. But Absalom decides to process every decision through the filter of “if I were King.” And the moment he does that he’s dissatisfied with his own father. And he spends his time trying to tear down his fathers Kingdom, to the harm of Israel. And at the end of the day if you’re going to be a young leader of influence you’ve got to decide, are you going to be an Aaron or are you going to be an Absalom? “Aarons” get heard; “Absaloms” get hung from trees by their hair.

Scott Ridout: The thing about leadership that most young leaders miss is that leadership isn’t appointed its acknowledged. When you’re a leader everyone knows it. And great leaders, young or old, play their position they don’t lead through our position.

Tyler Johnson: The reciprocal of this is true as well. As a leader the way you make your staff successful is a fundamental belief that my job is to help make them successful. Because the utmost example of somebody in power, Jesus who is God…Philippians 2 says: doesn’t count His position as something to be grasped but He humbles Himself and becomes obedient for the benefit of those other people. And I think that curve that you see theologically in Scripture, which in your dying for the benefit of somebody else, brings about resurrection. So a culture that is built upon servant leadership. I have a mentor who reminds me that, “Everyone talks about servant leadership but hardly anybody does it.” Because that death being at the center of love, your dying for somebody else’s gain is extraordinarily hard. And I think has application to both younger leaders and older leaders.

Don Wilson: I think the question, “What do young people need to do to be heard?” is the same thing older people need to do to be heard. I don’t think it’s an age issue. I think if you want to be heard first of all you need to have some results so they know you’re doing it. And secondly when you open your mouth to be heard, you’ve got to know what you’re talking about. And if you do that you’ll earn credibility whether you’re young or you’re old. If you get old and you can’t deliver or say the right thing you don’t have any influence either. You earn that by your servant attitude, your results, and then when you do speak you add something to the table. Probably the qualities I would say we look for…is one of the guys on our staff said, “There’s only two things you can control, your attitude and your effort.” And to me one of the greatest examples in business of attitude is Southwest Airlines. They hire for attitude. If we’re not careful, in the church I think sometimes we hire for skill and skill can plateau but if you have the right attitude you can always keep growing.

 


Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation, Staffing

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Preach Better Sermons

After working with thousands of pastors and churches, we’ve realized that while preachers love preaching, it’s the preparation that often hurts.  So we’re going “behind the scenes” once again with some of America’s best speakers to find out how they create great messages.

Would you like to learn practical tips from Andy Stanley, Lysa TerKeurst, Carl Lentz, and Derwin Gray for preparing, studying, and delivering your messages? Would you like to learn how to balance sermon/message prep time, with family time, and other commitments?

All of this happens on Tuesday, April 29th at 1pm EDT.  And best of all, it’s 100% FREE.  Preach Better Sermons is a free, three-hour, online conference focused on helping communicators prepare and deliver messages that matter.  Some of the best communicators in the world will unpack preaching principles you can use right away.

It’s 100% free and since it happens online, there are no travel costs.

Date:  April 29th, 2014
Time:  1pm – 4pm EDT
Speakers:  Andy Stanley, Matt Chandler, Lysa TerKeurst, Judah Smith, Herbert Cooper, Michael Hyatt, Andy Andrews, Derwin Gray, & Carl Lentz.
Registration:  Free sign up at PreachBetterSermons.com


Posted in Leadership

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5 Articles that will Help You Make Vision Real

Thank you for making March an incredible month here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! It’s great staying connected with you through social media and hear about how helpful these 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 When to Add Another Worship Service at Your Church

Many churches are stuck in attendance simply because they haven’t maximized their current facilities and campus. Thinking about adding another worship service at your church? Here are five strategic concepts to consider before you do. Not sure if multiple worship services are right for your church? Check out this blog on Overcoming the Fear of Moving to Multiple Worship Services.

#2 4 Reasons Why People Don’t Change

People always want to change their circumstances, but they never want to change their lives. But everything gets better when we get better. Families get better when fathers and mothers get better. Students get better when educators get better. Organizations get better when leaders get better. And churches get better when church leaders get better. But change is painful. Don’t let anyone tell you any different. It’s always easier and more comfortable to stay where you are than to change and move forward. But if you want to grow at some point you’ve got to stop doing what’s easy and start doing what’s right. Here are 4 traps that people fall into that prevent them from changing.

#3 Multisite Campus Constants

At Sun Valley we are one church family that meets in many different locations. As any church or organization grows there comes a point in time where oral tradition only goes so far. At some point, you’ve got to write things down. This helps provide clarity to everyone as to how to make decisions and what direction to go. After all lack of clarity is the greatest barrier to growth and speed in any organization. To that end we’ve adopted the following “Campus Constants” that every existing and future Sun Valley Campus will adopt. If you’re in a multisite church or thinking about going multisite I hope this serves as a resource to you and your church!

#4 5 Characteristics of Generous Churches

Generosity stands in direct opposition to our sin nature. After all most of us don’t wake up thinking about someone else’s day. But what we have to get done today sure has a tendency to consume our thoughts. Fortunately for us we have a generous God. After all “For God so loved the world that he GAVE His only Son,” Jesus gave His life, as a ransom for many, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives spiritual gifts. And God expects his church to reflect his personality and characteristics through becoming generous. To that end, here are 5 characteristics that all generous churches have in common:

#5 Breaking Through Your Leadership Lid

If you lead long enough, eventually you’re going to hit a leadership lid. It happens when you reach your capacity in a particular area, and the good news is there may be a solution. But what you do next has the potential to make or break your leadership future. Ignore it, deny it, make excuses about it, or refuse to acknowledge and deal with it and you’ll undermine your impact. Face reality and you’ll create a window of opportunity to grow.


Posted in Leadership