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10 Articles that will Help your Church Make Vision Real

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Thank you for making June another great month here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! June in Arizona means no more sitting outside and blogging…it’s so hot they’re cancelling flights at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport because the smaller regional jets can’t get enough lift with the excessive heat to get off the ground! So thank you Jesus for air conditioning!

Besides that…it’s still great to stay connected with you through social media and hearing that these articles have been helpful. So, thank you for connecting with me through the content on this blog! You made these the top posts from this last month. If you missed out on any of them, here they are all in one place for your convenience!

By the way…if you look closely you’ll notice that 3 out of the 10 most popular posts this month have to do with volunteering…hopefully churches are catching onto the fact that volunteering is their “leadership development program” at their church.

It would be Easier if your Church Didn’t Grow

Ministry would be a lot easier if your church didn’t grow. I know that most church leadership books, blogs, and conferences are designed to give you the inspiration, principles, training, and tools to help your church grow; but If you really knew the truth about how hard it is to actually grow a church, you probably wouldn’t want to do it. Just think about how much easier it would be if your church didn’t grow. There’s all kinds of difficult things you wouldn’t have to do.

6 Signs that you’re Leading a Healthy Church

Healthy churches produce results and you can know if your church is healthy by the results it’s producing. And while I’d quickly admit that none of the items on this list guarantee a healthy church, you probably can’t lead a healthy church without these things.

Dumbest thing that Emotionally Intelligent Leaders Do

But just because someone has a high E.Q. doesn’t mean they’re necessarily going to be a good leader. They may be talented but that doesn’t make them good. Those are two very different things. No amount of emotional intelligence will compensate for a fatal flaw of character. Void of character a high E.Q. will drive leaders towards manipulation instead of leadership.

8 Reasons Why People Don’t Volunteer at your Church

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.

10 Keys to Managing Change in a Church

Many churches I talk with want different results; they actually want to see more people meet Jesus and follow Jesus this year than last year. Unfortunately, they just aren’t willing to change, let go of old tactics and take a different approach.

The Difference between a Shepherd and a Leader

I love helping churches and leaders get unstuck and make vision real. In fact out of all the stuff I get to do with churches and leaders one of the things I enjoy the most is Leadership Coaching. Recently I had the incredible opportunity to spend a day coaching a group of Pastors and Church Leaders from Australia (unfortunately their cool accent didn’t rub off). One of the topics we spent time digging into was the difference between shepherding and leading in relation to why some churches are stuck while others move forward. Here are couple of thoughts from the conversation.

5 Foundational Leadership Lessons I Learned from my Dad

Father’s Day always provides a great opportunity to reflect on the kind of Father you had growing up and of course the kind of Father you would like to be yourself. In thinking about my Dad this weekend there were so many lessons that he taught me that came to mind, and fortunately, many things I still have to learn from my Dad. And while every father and man has their deficiencies to be sure, my dad has been an accelerant in my life and leadership by consistently allowing me to stand on his shoulders. Dad, I love you, and I’m so grateful that you’re in my life! So here are a handful of leadership principles that I learned from my Dad.

Should your Church Start New Campuses or Plant New Churches?

Church planting has been a time-tested strategy to reach new people in new cultural contexts. Church planting works best to reach people who are culturally and/or demographically different than us, where a different approach than the way we do church would be the most effective. Starting new multisite campuses on the other hand works best for people who are geographically closer, and both culturally and demographically similar to us where the same approach to the way we do church would be the most effective. In other words, it’s not one or the other, it’s both-and. It’s about what approach is going to be the most effective in reaching people with the Gospel. However, there are some significant differences between adopting a planting or a multisite model.

Leadership Lessons I Wish I Understood as a Young Leader

5 Leadership Lessons for Young Leaders based on my experiences training for a triathlon.

What is a Campus Pastor?

In August, 2012, Leadership Network released a report stating that over 5,000 churches are now multi-site churches (churches that meet in more than one location for worship). It’s a growing trend that first began with mega-churches, but has now expanded to churches of all sizes. With this new trend a new staff role has emerged, that of “Campus Pastor.” While a lot churches are still trying to figure out this new role, here are 6 things that great Campus Pastors do:

Photo Credit: justin fain via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership

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Why the Internet will Strengthen, not Kill the Church

Sunday, July 2, 2017

Ever since the modern internet hit the scene in the 1990’s (thank you Al Gore…smile) doomsday Church Leaders have been fretting that it would be hurtful to culture, the Gospel and the movement of the Church.

Nothing could be further than the truth.

The last time there was a technological advancement of this magnitude the printing press was invented, which helped propel the Gospel in an unparalleled manner at the most opportune time of the Protestant Reformation. For the first time in history the average person (who was literate) could actually read the Bible for themselves in their own language! It was legitimately world changing.

The internet and this highly technological culture that we are living in has the same potential to catalyze the movement of the Gospel in a way not seen since the Protestant Reformation.

The Bible App

The Bible App, developed by the good folks at Life Church has been downloaded and installed more than 200 million times. When YouVersion launched there were 12 versions of the Bible available in 2 languages. Today there are more than 1,200 versions of the Bible available in more than 900 languages! YouVersion is working to make God’s Word available to every person on Earth, no matter where they live or what language they prefer.

Video Teaching

The internet and technological advances have fueled video teaching, which has propelled the multisite movement not only in North America but around the world. Each week more than 100,000 people attend a Hillsong Church Campus in one of more than 25 locations in more than 12 countries around the world.

Internet Evangelism

The internet is creating a unique and interestingly safe place for people of other spiritual backgrounds to investigate Jesus’ claim to be the only path to God. Thousands of Muslims, in particular, are saying yes to following Jesus as a direct result of intentional internet evangelism.

Technology and the internet are creating opportunities to fuel the Gospel that haven’t even been thought up or leveraged yet. My hunch is if Jesus walked the Earth today instead of reading someone’s account of the sermon on the mount (Matthew 6) we’d probably be watching it firsthand on YouTube.

Forbes recently ran an article entitled, “Five Signs That Stores (Not E-Commerce) Are The Future Of Retail”

  1. All But One Of The Top Ten U.S. Retailers Are Physical Chains
  2. Stores Are More Profitable Than E-Commerce
  3. Amazon Purchased Whole Foods
  4. Millennials And Generation Z Prefer Real-Life Stores
  5. Online Retailers Are Being Eaten By Legacy Retailers

In this new cyber-age the Church isn’t going anywhere. It is going to take ground, not lose it. You and your church just need to figure out how to leverage this new opportunity. While technology and the internet can enhance and catalyze the growth of the church in new ways it isn’t going to replace the church. Even with global work place trends towards automation the Church will remain, interestingly enough, distinctly human. A place where real people can interact with other real people about the most important conversations and topics life has to offer. But what technology can do for the Church is:

  1. Create new ways for all people on the planet to engage in the Bible
  2. Build new ways to deliver biblical teaching across the globe
  3. Provide opportunities to get quality, accredited biblical training online anywhere in the world
  4. Create new, easily accessible, safe space for people to connect with other people and engage in dialogue about God and His principles

What other opportunities are you seeing or sensing that may be next for the Church to take hold of and leverage for the sake of the Gospel? I’m interested in your thoughts and ideas…leave a comment!

Posted in Leadership

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Should your Church Start New Campuses or Plant New Churches?

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

“Multi” doesn’t mean “Mega” anymore. According to a study conducted by Leadership Network there are more than 8,000 multisite churches across America and more than 1,600 megachurches (churches of more than 2,000 people in weekly attendance). While both are growing, the multisite church movement has outpaced the megachurch movement in America. What was once seen only as a Band-Aid solution for space issues at megachurches has become a vehicle for growth in local churches of all kinds and all sizes (the average size that a church goes multisite is around 850).

But multisite is not the only way to reach new people. Church planting has been a time-tested strategy to reach new people in new cultural contexts. Church planting works best to reach people who are culturally and/or demographically different than us, where a different approach than the way we do church would be the most effective. Starting new multisite campuses on the other hand works best for people who are geographically closer, and both culturally and demographically similar to us where the same approach to the way we do church would be the most effective. In other words, it’s not one or the other, it’s both-and. It’s about what approach is going to be the most effective in reaching people with the Gospel. However, there are some significant differences between adopting a planting or a multisite model.

Location

Unless a new church plant is specifically designed to reach a different demographic in a current community, church plants typically take place outside of a 30-minute drive time radius of the sending church. New multisite campuses are typically launched within a 15-30-minute drive time of the sending church.

Leadership

The prototypical Church Planter is entrepreneurial, has a unique culture they are building, a specific vision they are chasing, and acts as the team owner. Great Campus Pastors on the other had embrace an existing vision, implement that vision in their unique campus context, shepherd the local congregation, and are great at coaching the team.

Finances

In a typical church plant, it’s not uncommon that the plant team raises financial support outside of the budget to fund their salary and to fund the public launch of the ministry. Often this financial support may come from individual donors, sending churches, or sending organizations. In a multisite setting, the original campus or existing campuses fund the new campus including salaries, facilities, and start-up costs (usually with more significant funding than a church plant setting). Once that new campus is financially healthy they also typically begin funding central services with a fixed percentage of its budget.

Genesis

In a church plant, everything is starting at the beginning. Everything is new by nature, hasn’t been done in that unique church and context and by necessity must be created. In a multisite setting things aren’t being created as so much as they are being contextualized and replicated. After all, one of the reasons churches go multisite isn’t to create something new but rather because they have a culture worth replicating.

Governance

This one seems to be a bit of no-brainer, but church plants are typically self-governed and have their own board, even if they have a connection to a denomination. Multisite campuses, on the other hand, are governed by a central board of elders whose decisions influence every campus.

When it comes to managing the tension between church planting and multisite, it’s not a matter of either or, it’s both-and. They don’t have to be competing strategies. After all the goal is to lead more people, in more places, into a relationship with Jesus.

If your church needs help taking the next step with your multisite strategy I would encourage reaching out to the Unstuck Group. Our team has 40+ combined years of experience leading in successful multisite churches. Our proven multisite services are designed to help multisite churches clarify their strategy and effectively lead one church in multiple locations.

Posted in Leadership

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The Dumbest thing that Emotionally Intelligent Leaders do

Sunday, June 25, 2017

Emotional Intelligence will change the way you view yourself, the way you view others, and the way you go about your work. While I.Q. measures your intelligence, or the way you process information, E.Q. measures how effective someone is at interpersonal relationships. It is the unique combination of being simultaneously self-aware and others focused.

In today’s modern leadership environment, it is commonly accepted that people with a high E.Q. outperform people with a high I.Q. Every time. That’s because to get significant and meaningful work done it requires a team. The team outperform the individual every time, and to get a team working at a high level requires a high E.Q. Great leaders are great team leaders. They have the ability to make people on the team feel heard, valued, as though we can trust them, and that we actually want to follow them where they’re going. They are masterful at the art of relationships, and relationships are both the grease and the glue that make work happen.

But just because someone has a high E.Q. doesn’t mean they’re necessarily going to be a good leader. They may be talented but that doesn’t make them good. Those are two very different things. No amount of emotional intelligence will compensate for a fatal flaw of character. Void of character a high E.Q. will drive leaders towards manipulation instead of leadership.

Leadership = I want something for you

Manipulation = I want something from you

When emotionally intelligent leaders get these two confused and become unaware of which lane they are in their E.Q. quotient actually goes down. When they do it on purpose they turn into very dangerous people. When leaders allow the organization that they’re leading to begin serving them instead of them serving the organization they’re a part of, those leaders actually cripple both their leadership footprint and the mission impact of the organization that they’re leading. That’s the dumbest thing that an emotionally intelligent leader can do.

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

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How to Staff your Church to Fulfill your Vision

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

 

The Unstuck Group is partnering up with Vanderbloemen Search Group to offer a webinar on How To Staff Your Church To Fulfill Your Vision.

You need more than a clear vision for where your church is headed. You need a team of people that can lead your church to accomplish it. Join Tony Morgan, Founder and Lead Strategist at the Unstuck Group and William Vanderbloemen, Founder and CEO of the Vanderbloemen Search Group to learn 3 Key Secrets to Building a great Church Staff Team:

#1 How to get the right people in the right position on your staff

#2 How to encourage your leadership team to own the vision

#3 How to evaluate whether your team needs an internal or external hire

Thursday, June 29 at 12:00pm EST
Space is limited to the first 500 registrations
Click here to register!

Posted in Leadership, Staffing
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