1

Why Churches Refuse to Change

Sunday, November 24, 2013

In the “real world,” change is normal, it’s expected, and it’s even celebrated! When your team wins the Super Bowl no one ever looks around and complains about the stadium being too full. When your business takes ground and expands no one ever complains about experiencing success. When a new child is born into a family no grandparent complains about having to buy more Christmas presents. Change like this is celebrated. So much so, that we go around and show pictures of our new grandchild to everyone, we leverage the success of our business, and we buy t-shirts and other paraphernalia from the winning football team.

In the church it’s different. Even if it means growing, reaching more people, planting a new church, taking a risk, or even simply making the right change so that the church can be more effective with it’s mission; most churches avoid change like the plague. Here are a few reasons why:

1. Avoiding the Brutal Facts

Most churches would rather avoid reality by ignoring it, or explaining it away than dealing with it head on. Dealing with it would mean having to take ownership and responsibility.

2. Trapped by Past Practices

Many churches have been doing the same things methodologically for so long that people have fallen in love with methods instead of the message. What worked years ago in reaching people now works to keep people. And changing things up to reach new people creates fear in the hearts of many leaders about who they might lose instead of excitement about who they may reach.

3. Unclear about Next Steps

Some churches want to change. They want to move forward, they want to reach new people with the Gospel. They just don’t know what to do next. If this is you I’d like to encourage you to check out the Ministry Health Assessment that we offer at the Unstuck Group. We can help you understand your current reality and identify next steps.

4. Leadership Lacks Courage

The tough thing about leadership is that eventually you have to lead. It takes real courage to receive criticism (some of it fanatical) and keep moving in the direction the Lord has asked you to go.

5. The Weekend Happens…well…Every Weekend

It’s the tyranny of the urgent. It’s hard to rebuild a plane while it’s in flight. You can’t just shut the church down while you work on it. You’ve got to learn to be an incessant tinkerer. Consistently improving things as you go. While it’s difficult to take energy away from the weekend, you’ve got to figure out how to spend time working on your work (organizational health) and still get the weekends done.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about why churches refuse to change! Leave a comment!

Posted in Leadership

0

Introducing the Unstuck Group

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

I’m pleased to announce the launch of the Unstuck Group! Founded by Tony Morgan, the Unstuck Group is made up of an incredible team of experienced ministry leaders from around the nation. This team knows how to help churches implement the strategies and take the correct actions to move from where they are to where God wants them to be! Below are some of the consulting services that we provide.

Assessment: Complete a comprehensive assessment of your ministry and identify opportunities for next steps.

Strategy: Clarify your mission, vision, and core strategies—and then realize it through prioritized action initiatives.

Structure: Determine the best organizational structure for future growth and get the right people in the right roles.

Communications: Review communications systems, staffing, website, graphic design, branding, social media, and messaging to develop a communications strategy.

Creative Arts: Evaluate your creative arts structure, series planning, and service programming then design strategies for improved service experiences.

Speaking: We’re available to speak at your conference, leadership or staff gathering on a variety of leadership and ministry topics.

At the Unstuck Group we don’t just offer consulting solutions. We help churches get unstuck! Ready to move forward? Our team is ready to help you have a bigger impact. We’d like to get to know you, talk through options and design solutions that work for you. Let’s start the conversation. Follow this link to get started today!

 

Posted in Leadership

4

8 Reasons Why People Don’t Volunteer at Your Church

Sunday, November 17, 2013

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. This is a critical issue for churches to figure out. The reason why this has to be a front-burner issue is because at the heart of it, volunteering is an essential component of the discipleship process in someone’s life. Plainly put, volunteering is discipleship. Understanding that, here are 8 reasons people aren’t volunteering in your church…and subsequently aren’t growing in their relationship with God.

1. Don’t Feel Needed

Many people come to church week in and week out, they have an incredible experience and go home thinking, “All of this happens every week without me, what do they need me for?” Churches need to provide vision for people to volunteer and tie it to the spiritual growth process of the church.

2. They Think Staff Should do it

Some people simply have an unbiblical view of church…that the Church Staff should do everything. And unfortunately many churches have only reinforced this with a heavy staffing model and in so doing unfortunately built a culture that says, “Only professional Christians can do ministry.” Churches need to equip, empower, and release their volunteers.

3. Poor Past Experience

Many people have volunteered in the past and had a bad experience. They weren’t supported, encouraged, cared for well, or set up to succeed and they’re not sure they want to put themselves in that position again.

4. Don’t Feel Qualified

Many people don’t feel qualified or worthy to volunteer at a church. I’ve met incredible business leaders and military leaders who won’t volunteer in their churches because they don’t feel spiritually worthy. You need to help people understand that they are gifted and created to serve…even in the church.

5. Too Much Commitment

Some people are either at a stage of life or are over committed with other things and don’t have the time to volunteer. Churches need to provide these folks with easy low commitment opportunities to volunteer and perhaps a bit of coaching to move towards a sustainable pace in their lives.

6. Fear of Commitment

Some people simply are afraid that if they volunteer once then they’re in it for life. They’re afraid of making a commitment that never ends. So provide them with short term opportunities to experiment with volunteering and easy outs or off ramps from seasons of volunteering.

7. Difficult to get Involved

The number one complaint I hear from people who want to volunteer in churches who don’t is that they’ve tried to volunteer, they’ve signed up, they want to but they don’t know how to get involved, it was hard to get involved (they had to take multiple classes or be a member of the church prior to volunteering), or no one ever called them back.

8. Criminal Record

Yea, so you know that background check you run on people who volunteer with minors (and you should)…some people don’t want their past brought up on the results of that background check. So, help them get volunteering somewhere else.

I want to help your church get on the solution side of this conversation. That’s why I want to point you to one of my ministry partners: The Volunteer Rocket. These guys will help resource you with the appropriate tools, systems, and processes to help your church win, when it comes to building a volunteer culture.

Posted in Volunteers

1

Early Warning Signs Your Church is in Trouble

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Many churches have a tendency to measure attendance and money as their primary indicators for success, and not necessarily always in that order. There are a lot of other indicators that churches can measure to understand if they’re winning or not (baptisms, 1st time guests, and how many people are in bible studies just to name a few). Early indicators that a church is in trouble are often more difficult to detect however. Similar to the way many life threatening diseases behave a church can look healthy on the outside while wasting away on the inside. And like a life threatening disease it can be very difficult to detect. Here are a few early indicators your church should be paying attention to:

Fuzzy about the Future

Perhaps the single most life-threatening indicator that a church is in trouble is a lack of clarity. Clarity provides a church with the power to make decisions efficiently and align the organizational components of the church to move forward. If you don’t know where you’re going, and can’t state it clearly, you’ve got no chance to get there.

High Rate of Turnover

When a church has trouble keeping staff and volunteers, the church is in trouble. Turnover is not only an issue when it comes to the paid staff of the church but also the volunteers. When turnover becomes the norm there is a cultural problem at play.

Playing Defense

When a church becomes risk averse and starts making choices based on who they are going to keep as opposed to who they are going to reach, the church is in trouble. The real danger in playing defense is that it becomes a cultural mindset that actually stands in opposition to the Gospel. You see the Gospel was never meant to be or does it need to be defended it’s intended to be unleashed.

Inward Focus

When a church uses language that you have to be an educated Christian to understand, has a high giving-per-head ratio, is expecting nonbelievers to jump in on and participate in ministry programs that long-time believers participate in, have a poor guest experience and haven’t thought through way-finding…that church is in trouble. For more on being an insider focused church follow this link.

Think your church might be in trouble? The Unstuck Group can help! We help churches grow their impact through church consulting and coaching experiences designed to focus vision, strategy and action. Follow this link to learn more!

Posted in Leadership

0

A Large Multisite Church in Phoenix is Searching for a Campus Pastor

Sunday, November 10, 2013

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 Campus Pastor to serve on our Tempe 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 Tempe Campus is the result of a merger in October of 2011 with Bethany Community Church. In the merger Sun Valley acquired a 16-acre, 8 building campus with over 100,000 sq. ft. under roof. Since the merger the campus has doubled in attendance and at present attendance is over 1,000. When fully utilized the campus capacity will accommodate more than 6,000 people. 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 about what it means to be a Campus Pastor? Follow this link!

Sun Valley is excited about working with The Vanderbloemen Search Group who is managing this search. Interested parties should follow this link for more information.

Posted in Leadership, Staffing
Page 126 of 202« First...100110120«124125126127128»130140150...Last »