Tag Archive - church

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“it’s my pleasure”

A couple of weeks ago we had the opportunity to have a couple of Operators from Chic-fil-A spend a half day training the Staff from all three Sun Valley Campuses on what they’re best at, customer service. When it comes to great customer service there are a few companies that consistently come to mind Southwest Airlines, Disney, Nordstrom’s, and of course Chic-fil-A. While I’ve always thought the Church should be hitting it out of the park on this one (after all it sounds an awful lot like Philippians 2), until we do I’m content to learn from the best. So here are some of my notes and thoughts from my time with the guys at Chic-fil-A.

 

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Posted in Leadership, Volunteers

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the blame game

Anyone who has watched an episode of Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice” has witnessed how the “boardroom” explodes when an initiative fails. Team members rarely choose to take responsibility for their actions and, instead, they resort to pinning the blame on a convenient scapegoat. What results is executive-level combat in which the candidates sell each other out in a bid to survive.

You can find the same less publicized bickering and back-biting in churches all across America.

When a church engages in the Blame Game, it is often because the creative process has failed. But unlike the Apprentice, church leaders must go on working together. And what is it stake is more than a job at Trump Enterprises; it’s often the well-being of our ministry and our community’s ability to live out its mission.

The creative process falters for a number of reasons. Sometimes the church rushes into creativity without being thoughtful about roles or infrastructure to support it. Other times, communication channels are unclear, creatives are micro-managed and relationships become strained.

Too many times, when our church’s journey to be creative takes a downward turn, we resort to finger-pointing. Fault is often assigned to the wrong things and the wrong people.

During my 25 years as a leader in the creative ministry, I have found the following issues to be at the heart of the Blame Game:

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Posted in Creative Arts

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Creating a Healthy Leadership Culture in your Church

Culture can be defined as the defining set of values, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of any one group. It is something that is usually unnoticed, unspoken, and unexamined, particularly in Churches. As a result, few churches ever take steps towards intentionally defining and building a desired culture; instead it usually happens by default. It’s very common to see churches fall into ruts and get stuck in the familiar traps of, “Just preach the Word,” “Just reach people,” or “Just build disciples.” The problem is building a healthy culture in a church; particularly a healthy leadership culture is never “just that easy.” As the leader you have to define and create the culture. If you don’t it will default to the strongest personality or loudest voice in the room. So here are four steps you can take that will help you to begin building a healthy leadership culture in your church.

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Posted in Leadership, Staffing

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First impressions

It was 14 years ago. Lisa and I had recently been married and I had just gone on staff at my first church as a Youth Pastor. She was finishing her teaching degree driving an hour each way to and from school. I was full on diving into ministry, trying to change the world. It was a pretty tradition church. There was an organ and a choir in the sanctuary. It was a suit and tie kind of a place, cool church, just a traditional style church. The youth ministry was growing at a pretty quick pace and students started coming to this church that didn’t look, act, talk, or smell like they had ever been in a church before, and that was because they hadn’t. Being a pretty conservative environment, the church actually had a hard time with these new students walking through the doors. But something about the whole thing felt right. To fast forward, a young man by the name of Will came to the Student Ministry one evening and got radically saved. Immediately we started praying for his little brother. Eventually Will’s little brother shows up at church one Sunday morning. I can remember, he walked in all thugged out with his saggy jeans, black t-shirt, stocking hat pulled down to eye level, and a chain hanging from his wallet to his jeans. He walks all they way down the center aisle of the sanctuary and plops down on the front pew. He slouches down, crosses his arms, and didn’t move the entire service, not even when we stood to sing. He just sat there, as if to say, “I dare you.”

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Posted in Creative Arts, Leadership
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