Helping Churches Make Vision Real

How to Handle Success

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Ever wonder what the dog would do if he actually caught the car he was chasing? What then? What do you do when you actually reach your goals? What do you do when you actually experience success? What happens after you win? What then?

“Success is a lousy teacher. It reduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.” Bill Gates

1. Don’t Believe Your Press Clippings

When you win people will notice, period. But the goal is not to bring attention to you. I’m not prescribing a false humility; rather, leveraging the platform that success has brought you to bring more attention to Christ and advance the mission of the Church.

2. Build the Right Team

When you’re winning other people are going to want to be a part of it. In fact winning can provide you with the opportunity to attract team members that could really help make the vision become reality!

3. Stay Disciplined

Keep doing what you’ve been doing that got you here and if you don’t know why you’ve been successful your first priority is to find out, and I mean quick. Stay focused on the mission and screening every decision through the filter of where you’re going. Avoid the temptation to overreach. Remain relentless in your pursuit of the mission.

4. Invest in Others

The most successful leaders, leaders that last, are those who are personally secure enough to share success with others. Use the opportunity that winning has brought to develop and invest in those around you. One of the most effective methods to keep highly talented leaders on your team is to share success, share leadership opportunities, and invest in them.

5. Stay Consistent

Just because you won once, doesn’t mean the pressure is off. If anything it means the pressure is on. Now people are going to want to see if you’re a one hit wonder or if you’ve got what it takes to build a consistent winning record.

6. Be Content

Winning can be addicting. It can make people do crazy things. If you can’t be happy with a little, you’re not going to be happy with a lot. Winning just puts the spotlight on you and accentuates everything that’s good or bad about you. If you don’t have the character to handle things as they are, chances are you’re not going to be able to handle the spotlight that comes with winning.

Posted in Leadership

Soul Care and the Leader

Sunday, November 11, 2012

We’ve all heard the statistics. And what the statistics are telling us is that beneath the surface of appearances, a majority of pastors are hurting and discouraged. Do a quick Google search on “pastor burnout” and you’ll easily find the following statistics and more!

• 1,500 pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout or contention in their churches.

• 80% of pastors and 84% of their spouses feel unqualified and discouraged in their role as pastors.

• 50% of pastors are so discouraged that they would leave the ministry if they could, but have no other way of making a living.

Great, so that’s reality. Really encouraging right? So what are Pastors to do about it?

1. Learn to say “No”

Believe it or not “no” can be a complete sentence. The Church already has a Savior and He’s doing quite well. Jesus already died for the Church, you don’t need to!

2. Learn what “Fuels Me”

You’ve got to discover what fuels you and then do that. Whether it is recreational or spiritual (it can be both) you’ve got to take the time to understand your own soul. One of the reasons there are so many spiritual disciplines is because there are so many different personalities and styles. Don’t do what works for somebody else. Do what works for you!

3. Protect Each Other

Life is best lived in community. In fact life-change happens best in the context of relationship. That’s not just a cliché we use to get people into small groups. Who are you doing life with? Who knows you? Who are you intentionally opening your soul to? Who is protecting you, and who are you protecting?

4. Control your own schedule

Time is simply an asset to leverage in order to get you where you want to go. Use it how you want to, so you can get where you want to. Intentionally schedule time with your family, vacation, time to evaluate, personal retreat days, etc. If you don’t control your calendar, everyone else will.

What have you found helpful in avoiding burnout in ministry? Leave a comment!

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation, Staffing

5 Reasons We Started from Scratch with our Website

Thursday, November 8, 2012

At Sun Valley we recently just completed a ground up redesign and launch of our website. Here are 5 reasons why we did, and you might want to as well:

1. Ease of Navigation

We understand that for many people our website is their first interaction with our church. So we worked hard to simplify navigation, make it easy for people to find what they are looking for, and answer questions people were asking. It meant choosing to be clear over being cute and get rid of “insider language” and simply call stuff what it is. For example you may have a “Stephen’s Ministry” at your church (great ministry BTW). But if you’re an outsider and you’re looking for care you have no idea who Stephen is and what’s so special about his ministry.

2. Going 2.0

To be honest our last website was really nothing more than an online brochure, very 1.0. With the new website we wanted to create more of a 2.0 feel with the integration of social media (Facebook and Twitter), blogs, and media that can be easily interacted with. We want to invite conversation and interaction, not just give people information. Information doesn’t change people’s lives, relationships do.

3. Re-branding

We needed to rebuild our website not just do a facelift. It was important to us that our website more closely reflect the brand and culture of our church. We intentionally worked to keep it clean, clear, and simple. We also worked to orient the website around our pathway and help people take steps in their spiritual journey.

4. Timing

This year we recently made the change from 1 campus to three campuses. We needed a website that was consistent in brand but could be unique based on the uniqueness of each campus. With the shift to multiple campuses and the re-brand that took place in the middle of it all, it was the perfect time to tackle this project. Not to mention going live now allows us to get any bugs worked out before a wave of people we anticipate seeing this Christmas.

5. Simple Updates

A practical change we made was that we had a simple content management system built that ministries could use to update the content and keep their areas of the site current. Nothing is worse than going to a website and getting old, stale, out of date information. Instead of the old system of going through one person to make all the updates (who has time for that), the new system allows for ownership, faster decision making, and current content for users to interact with.

Posted in Creative Arts

Measure what Matters

Sunday, November 4, 2012

I can remember as I was growing up my dad got this idea to build a barn (big enough to park a boat in). He drew the plans up himself and had in his mind that this was going to be one of those father-son bonding moments, a rite of passage into manhood so to speak. While some of us in the family look back at the moment more fondly than others (the barn was built and I don’t think a hurricane could take it out), I did take a valuable lesson out of the experience. “Measure twice, cut once.” Apparently accurate measurements can lead to a successful project, and a failure to measure accurately meant more time on the project, more money to buy more supplies, and a goofy looking barn that would probably come down in the first rainstorm.

As churches are in the middle of evaluating 2012 and planning for 2013 there are a couple of critical principles about measurement that we need to keep in mind…

Posted in Leadership