7 Things All Growing Churches Have in Common

Tag Archive - clarity

7 Things All Growing Churches Have in Common

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Once a month at Sun Valley Community Church (the church I have the privilege of serving at) we gather all of our staff from all of our campuses to have some fun, celebrate wins, keep everybody on the same page and often times do some leadership development training. Last week Chad Moore, who serves as the Lead Pastor at Sun Valley shared 7 Things that All Growing Churches have in Common…I thought these may be helpful to you in your local church context…

Church is not a building that you come to it’s a movement that you choose to be a part of to help people meet know and follow Jesus.
You can’t come to church because you are the church.
To get the right answers about church you have to ask the right questions.
The book of acts is all about how the early church acted

1. Passionate and Proficient leaders

The starting point for any movement is highly competent leaders who are deeply committed leaders to the cause. Without highly competent leaders the church will prematurely hit a leadership capacity lid. Without deeply committed leaders the church will be stunted due to leadership turnover when things get too difficult.

2. Clearly Defined Vision and Goals

Jesus gave the early Church a clear vision to get this movement going in Acts 1:8, we don’t have to make up the mission (why we exist) of the church. But we do get to lean into the vision (where we are going next) of the church. Most churches just say things like, “We are just going to follow the Spirit.” Which sounds really spiritual but is usually code for, “We don’t know where we’re going or what we’re doing.” Most churches forget that planning is spiritual, Proverbs is in the Bible too and God has a plan…He’s not just winging it. Hope is not a strategy; if you don’t have a target you’ll hit it every time.

3. Culture that Supports the Vision and Strategy

Culture is the soft squishy stuff that most organizations have a difficult time clearly defining. Culture is how the people in the organization think, feel, what they value, and how they actually behave. Regardless of what’s written on the wall, it’s what’s happening down the hall. Of all the things that a leader does the most important is what the leader does to protect and fuel the culture.

4. A Strong Communicating Leader (cultural architect)

The early church had Peter and Paul (among others). Contrary to popular belief in church-world; teaching on the weekends is not the most important thing we’re doing. The most important thing we’re doing is building culture and we’re using the Bible to reinforce and build this movement called the church. The primary purpose of the pulpit is not teaching, it’s leading.

5. Generous, Consistent Giving

When I first started giving I was nervous to do it, now I’m nervous not to do it. 2 common barriers that hold back the movement of the church are leaders and money. It is the leaders responsibility to not just develop leaders but also develop generosity in the heart of the church to fuel the vision.

6. Passionate and Proficient Next Step Leaders

Growing churches must have people on the team who are great at helping people take their next step with Jesus. The ministry of Jesus can be broken down into 4 categories:

Come & See: The woman at the well (John 4)…”come and see a man who knew all about me, could He be the Messiah”
Follow Me: This is a line in the sand (John 6)…you’re either going to follow Jesus or you’re not
Be with Me: Up close and over time…this is Jesus and the disciples
Remain in Me: This person knows the Bible, can read it and apply it on his or her own and lead others (John 15)

Preaching can only do the first two. Next Steps are the next two. The first two are message and mission. The last two are relationship and responsibility.

7. Unapologetic Focus on Evangelism

At the end of the day the church is all about helping people meet Jesus. Growing churches make decisions based on whom they are trying to reach, not whom they are trying to keep.

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation

How to keep Big Dog Leaders on your Church Staff

Sunday, February 12, 2017

There are all kinds of different leaders, but big dog leaders are a different breed altogether. And they need to be treated differently. On the team I lead there are multiple team members who have served as Executive Pastors at other large churches, on Sr. Leadership Teams of large churches, and even as a Sr. Pastor of a church of 1,000 in weekly attendance. So how do you keep that many strong leaders working together on one team?

1. Give them a Seat at the Big Kids Table

Big dog leaders need a seat on the Sr. Leadership Team. They need to be able to influence the direction of the organization not just a segment of the ministry. They need to be given real responsibility and the resources needed to produce real results. Big dog leaders want to get stuff done.

2. Big Vision

Vision answers the question, “Where are we going?” If the next hill you’re taking isn’t big enough and compelling enough to give their life to, big dog leaders will go somewhere else. Big dog leaders only hang around for big vision.

3. Provide Clarity

Clarity isn’t everything, but it changes everything. Big dog leaders don’t stay around in churches where there is confusion, because confusion creates drag on the entire organization and slows things down. If you don’t clear up confusion, big dog leaders will go somewhere else.

4. Turn them Loose

At the end of the day the best way to keep big dog leaders around is to turn them loose and let them lead. They were made to lead and when you don’t let them, they’ll go somewhere else where they can.

5. Listen to Them

Big dog leaders don’t want to just be given tasks and be told what to do. They have ideas that they need to express and they need their voice to be heard. To lead big dog leaders you have to actually believe that you don’t have all the answers. You have to believe in your team, and you have to listen to them. Because, if you don’t listen to them someone else will.

6. Pay Them

This may sound shallow, but if you don’t pay big dog leaders what they’re worth, someone else will. That’s just reality.

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

How to Gain and Sustain Momentum at your Church

Sunday, January 24, 2016

There is one resource that every organization needs and smart leaders seek out. It is a resource that cannot be purchased, borrowed or copied from someone else. Churches and organizations that have it, experience far greater wins than those that do not. Teams that have it perform at their best, without it they almost always flounder. It is a key determining factor in whether a church or ministry thrives or dies. It’s a single word. Momentum. Momentum is the force of your organization’s forward movement toward fulfilling its mission. Take a few seconds and rate your current organizational momentum in the ministry or church you lead?

Momentum Scale

Stuck—No momentum
Losing Speed
Maintaining
Gaining Speed
Advancing (Unstoppable)

If you are 3 or below, your church or ministry needs a boost of momentum. If you ranked yourself a 4 or 5, momentum is present but you need to be sure you know how to sustain momentum. Creating and sustaining momentum requires understanding what gets people moving. Take a look at this definition.

Momentum is sustained motivation over time. There is a very real relationship between organizational momentum and personal motivation. As personal motivation goes up and to the right so does momentum. As motivation diminishes in your team, among your attenders or even within yourself, momentum loss is inevitable. It’s motivation that gets you moving. Now rate the motivation level of your team. Where do they fall on the scale below? Rate yourself? People will rarely be more motivated than their leader. How do you rank?

Motivation Scale

Discouraged
Losing motivation
Maintaining
Gaining Motivation
Driven

How do your momentum and motivation scales compare? If your team is like most teams, high momentum scores go hand in hand with high motivation scores. The reverse is true as well.

So, what does it take to be motivated or to motivate someone else? There are two necessary ingredients: clarity and energy. Here is another way to say it. Motivation requires clarity of vision and energy to make it reality.

Clarity

Clear motives create real motivation. If there is confusion among your team they will be less motivated to get moving. When the vision is fuzzy few people follow. If momentum seems low, ask yourself these questions.

Have I been crystal clear about my expectations?
Have I given those I am leading really clear short term and long-term goals?
Are my values clear enough to define the behaviors of my team?
Can my team imagine and articulate your organizations preferred future?
Have I clearly defined our strategy and trained the best practices for ministry?

Energy

The other necessary ingredient of motivation is energy. You may see clearly where you want to go, but without energy you will never get there. Ask yourself what fuels your team members and what drains your team members. Become an expert in what energizes them. Here is a quick list of energy boosters.

Trust: People are energized when they follow a leader who is trustworthy, consistent, caring and competent.
Fun: Laughter lifts the spirit. Game nights, outings and fun surprises fill the tank.
Rest: How much time is your team getting to refresh? Challenge them to get real rest not just vegging out in front of the television. Model it.
Exercise: There is a clear link between physical exertion and motivation. The more motivated they are to be physically healthy the more likely they are to be motivated in other areas of life.
Relationships: Meaningful relationships in our life fill the tank. Create ways to build relationships among the staff or volunteers.
Faith: Provide opportunities for your team to grow spiritually. Coach them on how to cultivate a personal devotional life with Jesus. Again, model it.

Ask yourself this question? What can I do this month to focus and fuel my team? How do I give clarity and energy to my ministry leaders? The best way to start is to simply ask these two questions. What is currently unclear or confusing? What gives you energy?

Motivation is not created overnight, but with intentionality it will grow and so will the momentum of your organization or team.

This is a guest post by Brian LaMew who serves as the Campus Pastor at the Tempe Campus of Sun Valley Community Church. You can keep up with Brian on Twitter or Facebook.

Posted in Leadership

10 Signs your Church is Headed for Decline

Sunday, June 21, 2015

When I was young my Aunt purchased a brand new car. I didn’t have a car yet so even though it wasn’t red and it had 4 doors instead of 2 I thought it was really cool. And because she had a car and I didn’t she by default was cool too.

Everything was cool until she forgot to change the oil. Truth be told, she never changed the oil. From the day she drove the car off the lot to the day it died (which was much, much sooner than it should have), that car never experienced a single oil change. Routine maintenance wasn’t her strong suite. And most of us are just like her. We put off going to the doctor for our annual check-up, we postpone going to the dentist for our 6-month check up, and yes we put off routine maintenance on our automobiles.

We just keep going until it hurts enough that we are forced to stop and go in for a check up.

Unfortunately most church leadership teams operate the same way. They put off routine check ups and maintenance until it’s too late and decline starts to set in. What if there were early warning signs (flashing lights on the dashboard) that helped indicate that trouble was ahead? In my experience Coaching Church Leaders and Consulting with Churches across the country I’ve seen the following 10 indicators of an impending decline over and over again.

1. High Staff Turnover

When a church has trouble keeping staff, the church is in trouble. Some attrition is natural over time as the church grows, the staffing structures adjust, leaders hit lids, or vision shifts. But when turnover shifts from being a season to being the norm there is a cultural problem at play.

2. Fuzzy Vision

Without a doubt 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.

3. Complexity

When the church is growing it’s exciting! Staff members are hired, ministries are started, buildings are built and people are meeting Jesus! But it’s not as exciting when all of that growth and fun naturally lead to complexity. Growth naturally leads to complexity and complexity slows everything down.

4. Inward Focus

I’ve said this many times before, the most dangerous place a church can be in their life cycle is when the ministry they are doing is having a big impact with insiders (people who already know Jesus and are inside the church) but a low impact with outsiders (people who don’t know Jesus yet). It’s dangerous because it’s comfortable. It feels like things are going well and you have momentum because people are happy, they’re regularly attending, and they seem to be “all in” with what you’re doing. But if you aren’t reaching new people, your church or ministry is already moving towards unhealthiness and decline.

5. Defending the Past

When a church is busy defending the past instead of building the future it is headed for decline. 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.

6. No Strategic Plan

Strategy answers the question, “How are we going to get there?” It’s planning for tomorrow today. Little is more demoralizing to a church staff team than a bunch of empty inspirational talk that never materializes into real courageous action.

7. Leadership Void

There are a lot of challenges facing the modern church, but perhaps the greatest challenge is a leadership challenge. The modern church is simply an anti-leadership organization. It doesn’t attract, develop, or keep leaders. Leaders by their very nature are change agents. Because the unstated goal of most churches is to preserve the past, church leaders often times find themselves fighting the family instead of fighting the enemy.

8. No Spiritual Maturity Pathway

I’ve observed that some churches are stuck or declining not because they have a difficult time attracting or introducing new people to Jesus but because they have no plan in place to move people towards spiritual maturity or the plan they’re working is broken.

9. Policy Trumps People

Policies shrink the box of creativity. They set the standard for how we do what we do every time we do it. Policies tell everybody in the organization what they can’t do, and leaders are solution oriented not excuse or problem oriented. A church with a lot of policies will consistently find it difficult to attract and keep good leaders. It’s very possible to policy your way right into decline.

10. Volunteer Scarcity

One of the things we’ve learned through our research at the Unstuck Group is that the average church in America is mobilizing somewhere around 43% of their adult and student population in volunteer opportunities. The reason it is so critical for churches to address this and take steps to move their culture in the right direction is because volunteering is discipleship. It’s not about filling roles and getting ministry done through people. It’s not about what we want from people, but rather what we want for people. It is discipleship. Because volunteering and living an others first life is the very essence of what it means to live like Jesus.

It would probably be worth some time discussing this list with the Sr. Leadership Team at your church and evaluate where your church measures up in each of these 10 areas of health.

What can we do about it? Engage the Unstuck Group in a Ministry Health Assessment. Discover islands of strength to build on and areas of opportunity to work on before they become serious and decline sets in.

By the way…leave a comment; I’d love to hear about what you’d add to the list!

Posted in Leadership

5 Reasons Churches Don’t Grow

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Stuckness is no respecter of the “brand” or “flavor” of a church. All kinds of churches across America are stuck. Large churches, small churches, old churches, new churches, Baptist churches, Methodist churches, Nazarene churches, Presbyterian church and even non-denominational churches are stuck. In fact Thom Rainer, President and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources has stated in his research that:

“Eight out of ten of the approximately 400,000 churches in the United States are declining or have plateaued.”

While there are all kinds of reasons that churches end up stuck, at the Unstuck Group we’ve identified 5 key contributors that lead to churches being stuck. Through working with churches across America we’ve observed these contributors over and over and over again. You can click on the following headings below to learn more about each of the 5 key reasons that churches get stuck. So here they are in no particular order:

#1 Lack of Vision

An old Japanese proverb says, “Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.” There are a lot of churches out there living a nightmare because while there may be ministry activity, that ministry activity is not aligned to move the whole church towards accomplishing a clear vision.

#2 Inward Focused

One of the most dangerous places a church can be in their life cycle is when the ministry they are doing is having a big impact with insiders (people who already know Jesus and are inside the church) but a low impact with outsiders (people who don’t know Jesus yet). It’s dangerous because it’s comfortable. It feels like things are going well and you have momentum because people are happy, they’re regularly attending, and they seem to be “all in” with what you’re doing. But if you aren’t reaching new people, your church or ministry is already moving towards unhealthiness and decline.

#3 No Clearly Defined Spiritual Maturity Pathway

Many churches are stuck or declining not because they have a difficult time attracting or introducing new people to Jesus but because they have no plan in place to move people towards spiritual maturity or the plan they’re working is broken.

#4 Complexity

It’s exciting when you’re adding staff, adding ministries, building buildings, and more and more people are meeting Jesus. But it’s not as exciting when things get really complex and the fun stops and growth begins to slow down. Growth by it’s very nature leads to lids of complexity.

#5 Lack of Strong Leadership

The greatest crisis facing the modern day church is a crisis of leadership. The modern day Church simply doesn’t attract, develop, or keep leaders. Leaders by their very nature are change agents. Because the unstated goal of most churches is to preserve the past, church leaders often times find themselves fighting the family instead of fighting the enemy.

Photo Credit: heanster via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership

Page 2 of 4«123 4 »