5 Proficiencies of Great Church Staff Teams

Tag Archive - communication

5 Proficiencies of Great Church Staff Teams

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Great Church Staff Teams are full of team members who not only care deeply about people and are passionate about the ministry; they’re actually proficient in what they are doing. I actually believe you can fake passion for a while until your heart catches up. But you can’t fake proficiency. You’re either proficient or you’re not. That being said, I’ve been a part of Church Staff Teams for more than 20 years and the ones I’ve been on that are the best are always proficient in these 5 core areas:

#1 Team Player

Great Church Staff Team Members care more about the team than they do about themselves or their own standout performance. They’d rather the team win than get personal recognition for their individual contribution to the win.

#2 Specialty

Great Church Staff Teams are full of role players. They know what they’re brilliant at and they lead in those areas and they know what other team members at brilliant at and they submit in those areas. They play their specialized role well.

#3 Modeling

Great Church Staff Teams are built with people who lead with moral authority. They don’t just say, “Do as I say,” they model behaviors that they want replicated throughout the entire organization. They go first and inspire others to follow through their actions, not just through their words.

#4 Follow Through

This may sound simple, but it’s actually unfortunately rare. Great Church Staff Teams are made up of people who do what they say they’re going to do. They deliver on time over, and over, and over again. They can be trusted to do what they say they’re going to do. They follow through.

#5 Communication

Great Church Staff Team Members communicate early and often with each other. Instead of surprising one another they manage expectations through communication. Everyone doesn’t have to know everything on great teams when great teams communicate with one another.

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

Why Poor Internal Communication is a Symptom of something Worse

Sunday, January 29, 2017

Any growing church or organization is going to experience pain along the way. Contrary to popular belief pain is not always a bad thing. It can be an indicator that something needs to change. Internal streamlined communication is one of the most common pain points that churches and organizations experience as they grow. The intriguing thing is that communication is rarely the real problem. It’s usually a symptom that the church or organization has outgrown its systems, structures and its time to change, or there is an unhealthy team culture.

#1 Cascading Communication
When information doesn’t cascade quickly and easily throughout the organization allowing the team members to quickly align and make decisions at the appropriate pace to respond to issues as they come up, there’s a communication problem.

#2 Lines of Communication
Too many lines of communication complicate things and complexity that isn’t married to efficiency slows things down.

#3 Information as Power
When information is used as power to hoard instead of to share decision-making slows down and the organization is robbed of the best thinking and solutions.

#4 Silos
When communication becomes territorial and team members don’t share information between departments you know you’ve got a problem that’s bigger than communication.

#5 Who Makes What Decision?
When team members are confused as to whom they should go to for what decision communication is a symptom of a structural or system problem.

#6 Less Chance of a Veto
When information isn’t communicated up and team members would rather ask for forgiveness instead of permission, communication is an indicator that there is a cultural issue that needs to be addressed.

#7 End-around
When team members go around other team members, especially their supervisor this is another classic sign that unhealthy communication patterns are often a sing of an unhealthy team culture.

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

Why Wise Church Leaders don’t Say everything they See

Sunday, October 9, 2016

Ever say something you wish you could take back? Sure. Everyone has. Whether it’s something we regret saying to a spouse, to a child, to a friend, or in the workplace to a coworker. Everybody has said something they wish they could go back and say differently…or…not say at all.

Many of us are not aware of how powerful our words are and how they affect the people around us. The best church leaders I’ve ever been around understand this and they exercise discipline with their words.

Wise church leaders understand the power their words have to shape culture and as a result craft them carefully.

Leaders don’t Say Everything they See

Just because God has allowed you to see it doesn’t mean you need to say it. You may see things that need to improve. You may see where the church needs to go in the future. You may see team members that need to change. But wise church leaders don’t say everything they see. They say what people can handle. They say what people need to hear in order to help them move in the direction they need to go.

Leaders understand their Whisper is a Shout

The words of a leader have an inordinate amount of weight to them. If you’re a leader then your whisper becomes a shout very quickly. Similar to the power a father’s words have to a family. Wise church leaders understand the power and weight of their words and they are selective about how they use their words.

Leaders Kill Hallway Conversations

When leaders get in the habit of having passing hallway conversations they unintentionally build a culture of misalignment, competition, and create a bottleneck for decision making. Hallway conversations train your team that every decision needs to go through you. Worse hallway conversations create an environment where people go to you for a decision before a meeting and then walk into a meeting and say, “well I spoke to the leader and they said this…” Wise church leaders redirect hallway conversations to the right people and the right environments for decisions to be made.

Leaders don’t Speak to Everyone the Same Way

If you’re a parent you get this. Just like you don’t talk to each of your kids the same way you don’t talk to everyone on your team the same way either. Leaders also don’t speak to every audience the same way. A wise church leader learns to say the same ideas out loud to different audiences such as the church Board, their Sr. Leadership Team, the church Staff, Volunteers, and the whole church with a different voice.

Posted in Leadership

7 Core Issues that your Church Needs to Address in 2016

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Recently I had the opportunity to facilitate a round table discussion for Executive Pastors of large churches. Nearly 20 large churches were represented in the discussion. We began by working through an exercise to identify the greatest pressure points that the group was experiencing at their churches and then we used those key items as our agenda for the conversation that ensued the following two days. Below are the 7 biggest items that consumed our time and energy. If you’re anything like these churches, then the following 7 Core Issues are items that the Sr. Leadership Team at your church needs to address in 2016.

#1 Multisite

According to the most recent research conducted by Leadership Network there are nearly 8,000 churches in the U.S. that have adopted a multisite model. Yet few would say that they’ve perfected it. Instead most are faced with a new set of challenges that they never anticipated. Ready to make Multisite work for your church? Don’t miss this free Multisite webinar hosted by Tony Morgan and the Unstuck Group!

#2 Volunteers

Volunteering is discipleship. It’s not just about roles that need to be filled anymore but people that need to be developed. The role of the Church Staff Member isn’t to do the ministry but to equip the church to do the ministry. While most church staff would generally agree to that statement, few are actually doing it. Want to learn more about developing an effective Volunteer Strategy at your Church? Check out these 10 Articles that will Help your Church Build a Stronger Volunteer Culture.

#3 Re-Structuring for Growth

Your church is perfectly structured for the size and results you’re getting today. But like most churches, it’s probably not structured for growth. What is the next staff re-organization that your church needs to make in order to prepare for, accommodate and even catalyze growth?

#4 Generosity

Wherever you find people who truly understand grace you’ll find people who are generous. Money can be a difficult subject for church leaders to talk about with their churches. At times it can come off as though churches want something from their people instead of something for them. Does your church have an effective generosity strategy? This post will help: “20 Ways Church Leaders can Help their Church become More Generous”

#5 Staff Development

How deep is the leadership bench at your church? Most churches are struggling to identify their up and coming young leaders. Is your church attracting, identifying, and intentionally developing young leaders? Most are hopeful that it will somehow happen, but hope isn’t a strategy. Check out these 10 Articles that will Help your Church Develop Young Leaders.

#6 Discipleship Pathway

The majority of churches in North America have no true discipleship pathway. They may have a class or a multitude of ministries that compete for time, promotion, money, and participation. But they do not have a true clear strategic pathway for people who are new to following Jesus to move towards knowing and following Him. What is the next step that you want people to take at your church to become a more fully devoted follower of Jesus?

#7 Communication Strategy

In most churches a weekend bulletin and announcements in the worship service is the extent of their communication strategy. And most of the ministries in the church are competing for “air time” on those announcements. If it’s not announced from the stage they spam people to death with constant emails, to the point that they are ignored. Interested in learning more about church communications? Check out these 10 Findings from New Research on Church Communications.

It would be worth talking about this list of Core Issues for Churches in 2016 with the Sr. Leadership Team at your church to make sure you’re all on the same page with how you’re addressing them.

Posted in Leadership

Does Video Teaching Really Work in a Multisite Church?

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

According to research provided by Leadership Network about 50% of the approximately 8,000 multisite churches out there are delivering preaching in their weekend worship services via video. Even though 8,000 churches are doing it successfully I’m still frequently asked if video teaching really works. So here are a couple of thoughts that may help:

#1 I never watched Jesus preach His best Sermon live

I never saw Jesus preach His best sermon (the sermon on the mount) live, but it’s changed my life. It was written down for us to read because that was the medium that was available at that time in history. My guess is if iPhones existed at that time someone would have recorded that incredible sermon and posted it on YouTube for all of us to see and hear first hand.

#2 Everyone is against it in principle until they experience it

Most people are against the idea of video teaching until they personally experience it. I’ve seen firsthand people quickly forget that they’re watching video preaching and begin to interact with video by laughing, nodding their heads, raising their hands when asked to by the pastor, and even stand up and walk to a volunteer to say yes to following Jesus. All through video teaching.

#3 The Early Church had Multisite tendencies

While the Apostle Paul was busy going around planting new churches and developing young leaders to care for and lead those new churches, those same churches were busy listening to Paul’s teaching. Not live mind you, but rather they would pass around his letters from church to church to read out loud for the church to hear.

#4 It’s a Proven Model

The truth is video teaching is working. The fact that more than 8,000 multisite churches are delivering teaching via video demonstrates that it’s a proven model. In fact at the church I serve at we even have a traditional campus that is video. It’s a full on traditional service with a choir stained glass windows and an average age demographic of 70. And it’s working.

Interested in learning more? Check out this article I wrote earlier this year: “Video Teaching Versus Live Teaching in a Multisite Church”

Photo Credit: pvj photography via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership

Page 2 of 8«123 4 5 »...Last »