Why are 50% of Church Staff Teams Unhealthy?

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Why are 50% of Church Staff Teams Unhealthy?

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

“1 in 2 church staff members do not believe that their team is healthy and effective.”

The health of a church begins with the health of its team. You simply cannot build an effective church without building a strong staff. We want to help you do just that!

That’s why we partnered with Vanderbloemen Search Group to ask church leaders how they staff and structure their teams. The responses were nothing short of surprising. In fact, we were shocked to learn that 1 in 2 church staff members do not believe the team they work with is healthy and effective. Specifically, that’s 47% of churches that are likely struggling to reach their communities because they are struggling to build a great team.

What would the staff members of your church say about the health of your own team? What steps are you taking to help them become more effective?

In our research, we found that the most effective church staffs operate very differently than most. Their leaders develop Next Level Teams by utilizing the following and more:

3 Critical Aspects of an Effective Senior Leadership Team
3 Key Components of Leadership Development
2 Things Every Staff Member Needs Clarified

What would happen if you learned and applied these insights with your own team? We’d love to equip you to strengthen your staff.

We’ll be releasing these insights in our Next Level Teams webinar on January 21 at 1:00 pm EST. Tony Morgan will be hosting a conversation with William Vanderbloemen and members of The Unstuck Group about the most crucial steps church leaders can take with their staff to increase effectiveness. In just 45 minutes, we’ll provide key insights, followed by a live Q&A.

Are you ready to start building your own Next Level Team? Click here to register and join us for this exciting conversation. Participation is limited so register soon!

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

5 Core Behaviors of Churches that get Unstuck

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Churches all 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. Stuckness is no respecter of the “brand” or “flavor” of the church. It happens to all kinds of churches. Lead long enough in a church and it will happen to you. 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.”

Churches get stuck for all kinds of reasons but there are a handful of core behaviors that I see over and over again in churches get unstuck.

1. They’re Outsider Focused

They’re consumed with the idea that the need for the Gospel in their community is greater than their capacity to meet it. And so they’re willing to go to extraordinary measures to bring people far from Jesus close to Him. So much so that their posture is towards those outside of the faith rather than those inside of the faith. They consistently make choices based on who they’re going to reach rather than who they’re going to keep.

2. They have a Strong Organizational Culture

They are clear about their vision, they know where they’re going. But it’s not just that they have some aspirational idea about where they think God wants them to be one day they actually have a clear plan to get where they’re going and they methodically work the plan. They’ve done the hard work of defining their leadership culture, and values, and aligning every ministry of the church to move in one singular direction.

3. They Develop People

They don’t pay everyone in the church to do ministry, instead they typically have a pretty lean staff (a ratio of 1:100+) and pay those staff to invest in and develop volunteers. They identify young leaders and give them real responsibility to make real decisions and own the ministry. Actually be the church instead of just come to church.

4. They view Spiritual Maturity Differently than most

They don’t view spiritual maturity as something that happens in a classroom. It’s not about content but rather your behavior. In other words it’s not so much what you know, it’s what you do with what you know. Ironically enough, that’s the same way Jesus defined it. They’ve also mapped out a clear pathway for people to run on. The moment they say yes to following Jesus there is a series of clear next steps for them to take to move forward with Jesus.

5. They’re Courageously Humble

The posture of their leadership is a humble confidence. They’re life long learners and incessant tinkerers. Willing to learn from anyone from any industry and any size organization. They’re not afraid to ask for help, even outsiders. They lead in their area of brilliance and submit in areas of weakness. They’re willing to confront the brutal facts and listen to the truth, even when it’s not pretty.

Does your church need help getting unstuck in 2015? The Unstuck Group can help, follow this link to learn how.

Photo Credit: Lachlan Hardy via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership

Top Posts of 2014 #6: “4 Indispensible Truths about the Art of Planning”

Friday, December 26, 2014

We’re almost half way there on our countdown of the Top 10 Posts from 2014! This one in particular is one I see churches struggle with frequently. And it doesn’t have to be that way!

All of us have been in planning meetings before with a team that seemed to have had a break through moment. You know, that moment when everyone says, “Yes! That’s exactly the direction we need to move, and that’s exactly how we need to get there from here!” There was energy, excitement and unity as everyone left the meeting. But the more time that passed after the meeting dismissed the more that energy that was there faded and the less movement towards actualizing the plan took place. In fact a large majority of planning meetings don’t actually provoke much real change in most churches and organizations. Here are 4 reasons why many of your plans aren’t really getting you anywhere:

1. Planning is Hard Work

Anybody who tells you any different is lying to you. Not only do you need to have the ability to get the stakeholders in the room but, there are some key questions you’ve got to wrestle to the ground. There are probably a lot of things we could do, but what must we do? What plan best fits and reinforces our culture? How will we resource the plan? How do we know if the plan is working? What staffing structure best suites our plan? Will the plan actually get us where we want to go?

2. Plans Don’t Self Execute

No matter how incredibly airtight your plan is, no plan self executes. You’ve taken the time and put in the hard work of putting a plan together and in so doing you’ve taken one of the first steps in making vision real. But now comes the really hard work. Executing the plan.

3. No Plan Survives Contact with the Enemy

I have a long and rich military heritage in my family. Maybe that’s why I love this statement so much…because that’s where it comes from. All great Generals and Military Leaders know that no matter how well conceived that plan is at Head Quarters; Officers on the field of battle are the ones who are actually leading their men to take the hill. The enemy never behaves exactly as you expect him to. Great Military Leaders understand the art of making adjustments on the fly all while keeping their eyes on and men moving towards the objective.

4. A Good Plan that can’t be Changed is a Bad Plan

If you’re inflexible you’re going to find executing a plan to be nearly impossible. No matter how much preparation you put into it there are still going to be unforeseen obstacles. You may find you have the wrong leader executing the plan. You may have underestimated the resources required to execute the plan. Or you may overestimate the pace at which the plan can be properly executed.

Is your church stuck? Need help clarifying where God is taking you? The Unstuck Group can help you clearly articulate you mission, vision, and core strategies while build alignment and movement towards your future through prioritized action initiatives! Follow this link to learn more!

Photo Credit: One Way Stock via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership

Get Your Church Staff & Org Structure Unstuck

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Do you feel like your team is achieving its full potential?

Staffing and structure is an area of ministry that The Unstuck Group (the consulting group I’m a part of) is consistently asked about. Regardless of a church’s size or success, few leaders feel like they fully have the right people in the right seats. We want to get church staffing and structure unstuck. We believe that the quality of the team significantly impacts a church’s level of impact. And we’re ready to see your staff start running on all cylinders. That’s why we’re partnering with Vanderbloemen Search Group to seek better solutions.

We need new truths about church staffing and structure. Conventional answers to church staffing problems don’t seem to be cutting it. Today’s challenges will only be overcome by new truths about staffing. Here are a few of the questions we’re looking to answer:

Where do growing churches find new staff members?
How does the size and health of a senior leadership team impact the effectiveness of a church?
Are larger or smaller churches more efficient with staffing?
How does a church’s structure affect its growth or decline?
In multisite churches, what is the most effective staff structure?

We need your help. To uncover new truths, we must explore new research. If you are on a church staff, your experience is vital to this initiative. Will you take the next 8 minutes to complete a short survey? When you do, you’ll earn free early-access to everything we discover. We’re excited to see what happens when churches across the nation get their staff and structure unstuck!

Click to take the Staffing and Structure Survey

Photo Credit: Darwin Bell via Compfight cc

Posted in Staffing

4 Principles of Highly Effective Churches

Sunday, August 3, 2014

This past week the Unstuck Group met in Atlanta for our annual planning and team gathering. Not only is it an incredible team to be a part of but also it’s incredibly rewarding to help churches all around the world get unstuck, which ultimately results in the Kingdom of God taking ground and more people saying yes to follow Jesus!

There is genuine excitement on the team, a sense of unity of purpose and calling to help churches get unstuck, and frankly there’s momentum. But even with the positive momentum and sense of winning there were a few key principles that came up repeatedly in our time together. And as a local church guy at heart I was reminded of these four key principles that all highly effective local churches employ.

1. The Team Outperforms the Individual

It was exciting and humbling to be in the room with the whole Unstuck Group at the same time. It really is a high powered, highly talented, experience rich group. When you hire the Unstuck Group you’re not just hiring a single consultant, you’re bringing the experience of the whole team to the table. As we dreamed about the future and built plans to get us there it was incredible to watch the team make ideas stronger than any individual would alone.

2. Plan Your Work & Work Your Plan

An old Japanese Proverb states that, “Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.” Most churches are either busy daydreaming or stuck in a nightmare. Fortunately the art of planning and turning vision into focused action is a core strength of the Unstuck Group. It was fun to apply tools that we typically use to help churches get unstuck to our own future and action required to get there.

3. Guard the Gate

You become who you hire. Successful churches are borderline fanatical about who they allow to join the team. They know that people build culture and with each hire they either move closer to, or further away from the culture they’re trying to build.

4. Lean into the Fountain of Youth

Every great ministry started as an idea, but not every idea ends up being a great ministry. The key question is are you generating new ideas? Do you have a drawer full of “fountain of youth ideas” to implement when the time is right. If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. And you’ll age out as a church. Great churches innovate, are idea rich, and discover new solutions to old problems.

Photo Credit: Stuck in Customs via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership