Tag Archive - development

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Take Someone With You

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Take someone with you. It’s the most overlooked and easiest way to develop people.

I’ve never worked with or consulted with a church that believed they had enough leaders. In fact, most churches are looking for some off the shelf content or course they can take people through and then call them leaders. Content and concepts can be helpful to understanding leadership practices. But understanding leadership doesn’t make someone a leader. Leadership is best learned by leading and being around other good leaders.

It takes time to develop people. Great leaders are gifted to be great leaders, but they also develop that gift over time. One simple way that you can help young leaders develop their leadership gift is to give them access to you and to allow them to watch you lead up close and personal.

Take them with you.

Invite them into you Schedule

It doesn’t necessarily require a lot of extra time for you to invest in others if you invite them into your schedule. Seriously, just have them come with you wherever you go. It gives them access to meetings, conversations and decision making that they normally wouldn’t get the opportunity to see first-hand. Yes, even allow them to observe Sr. Leadership Team meetings, Board meetings, and coaching meetings you have with other team members. In those meetings just have them observe, literally don’t let them say a word. Just observe. Over time you can invite their input when it would be helpful to the conversation or helpful to them.

Debrief later

With all of that shadowing they’re doing, there’s going to be natural moments walking or driving from one thing to the next for you to debrief them. Simply ask them what they observed and coach them to observe and understand the right things. Take a moment to answer any questions that they have about what they observed.

I know this post may seem over simplified…you may be reading and thinking, “That’s it?” Well…yea…that’s it. You don’t have to over complicate what it means to develop other people. No, taking people with you isn’t the end all, be all method of people development. But based on my interaction with churches, if church leaders just took this step it would net much better results that what they’re getting.

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation, Staffing

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5 Core Issues that will Fuel Growth in your Church in 2018

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

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.

At the Unstuck Group we’ve literally worked with hundreds of churches and one of the many things we’ve learned along the way is that there are 5 Core Issues that keep churches stuck.

The good news is that in 2018 your church doesn’t have to stay stuck.

This year your church can take a different approach. I’m not talking about trying harder, I’m talking about trying different. I’m also not talking about making some risk free small tweaks. If you want different results you’ve got to adopt a different strategy and employ different tactics.

What are you and your team willing to differently this year when it comes to your approach to these 5 Core Issues?

Discipleship Pathway

I’ve seen a lot of churches that offer a myriad of classes, small groups, and a grocery list of ministries that clutter people’s lives and compete for time, promotion, money and participation. But it’s rare to find a church that has a clear strategic pathway for people who are new to following Jesus to move towards knowing and following him. Is your church providing a menu of ministry offerings or clear next steps for people who connect with your church to become more fully devoted followers of Jesus?

Leadership Development

While many church leaders search for an off the shelf tool or some new content that is promised to produce leaders in their church they forget that the Church itself is the greatest leadership development engine that’s ever been designed. 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. Developing people is different than offering a class. What are you going to do to invest in people differently this year?

Mission / Vision

Clarity is king. Without clarity churches are left to fumble around in a fog and hope for the best. However, the clearer become the better decisions can be made and the faster alignment can be accomplished. When everyone on the team has clarity, and knows where you’re going and who is supposed to do what next things can really get moving. Unfortunately, the majority of churches aren’t very clear about their mission (why they exist) or vision (where they are going), and so they stay stuck. Here’s a post that will help you and your team gain more clarity on your mission and vision.

Communications

It’s not uncommon in churches to find ministries competing for “air time” in the weekend worship services. Many church staff members mistakenly think that if “their” ministry offering isn’t announced on the weekend then it’s not important and it can’t be successful. As a result, churches end up relying on the weekend bulletin and announcements in their services as the extent of their communication strategy. They communicate everything to everyone, hoping to get someone involved. If it’s not announced from the stage then they spam people to death with constant emails that are just ignored or deleted. Interested in learning more about church communications? Check out these 10 Findings from New Research on Church Communications.

Volunteers

A simple but deep truth that seems to have been forgotten is that volunteering is discipleship. Volunteering is 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.

If you behave differently towards these 5 Core Issues this year, you’ll get different results. And if you need help getting unstuck then connect with us at the Unstuck Group, we can help this next year be the best year of ministry you’ve ever experienced!

Posted in Leadership

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Top Posts of 2017 #5 “Why Leading by Example doesn’t Work”

Thursday, December 28, 2017

We’ve finally made it into the top 5 in this year’s countdown and it starts off with another popular post about team dynamics and leadership development.

Leading by example sounds like the right thing to do, doesn’t it? After all thousands of pages written on leadership, by leadership experts can’t be wrong can they? The problem is you can’t lead by example. Your example may inspire others, it may set behavioral standards for others, your example may even be a prerequisite for authentic leadership, but your example doesn’t actually lead others anywhere. Instead great leaders set the example and then hold the team accountable to the standard. The secret is in the accountability…not the example.

Set Expectations Often & Early

The earlier you state expectations and the standard with a team member the clearer everyone will be on deliverables. Without clearly stated expectations you end up surprising and frustrating team members when you hold them accountable to outcomes they were unaware of.

Don’t Micromanage

Micromanagement discourages production and results instead of encouraging it. Team members tend to resist and rebel against leaders who micromanage them no matter what kind of “example” they are setting in the workplace.

Follow Through

Do what you say you’re going to do. Reward team members who perform well and correct those who don’t. Follow through and hold team members accountable to the standard.

Coach those who want to be Coached

Not everyone on your team wants to be coached, even though you may feel they need coaching. So spend time coaching team members who are coachable. Don’t waste your time investing precious time into people who can’t or won’t take coaching.

Posted in Leadership

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A Multisite Leadership Conversation

Sunday, August 27, 2017

I recently had a conversation with the Unstuck Group about multisite church leadership and here are a couple of highlights from the conversation:

Caroline: When leading a multisite church, what is the most important leadership tool to carry with you?

Paul: Hands down, your culture. You reproduce what you are, not what you think you are or wish you were. Does your church have a culture worth replicating? The fastest and most effective way to replicate your culture is through your people, both staff and volunteers. They are the cultural carriers of your church. Every church has a culture: the attitudes they want adopted, values they want championed, beliefs they want instilled and behaviors they want reproduced. Can you clearly and accurately articulate the culture of your church?

Caroline: In your multisite experience, what is the biggest challenge you’ve had to face?

Paul: The greatest challenge we’ve faced in going multisite is the challenge of “loss.” Just like you cannot follow Jesus and stay where you are, you cannot go multisite and stay where you are as a church. Going multisite forced us think about church in a new way.  For example, the original campus staff experienced a loss of preference when going multisite changed the approach we took to campus ministries, including their own campus ministry. They experienced a loss of perceived power when we built a central service team. They weren’t making all of the decisions anymore. Additionally, they experienced a loss of prestige when the growth rates at other campuses began to exceed their own and attendance at other campuses rivaled their own. There is no significant leadership without loss, and when you make a big directional shift like multisite, you experience a lot of loss along the way. But leaders understand that.

Caroline: What multisite models are usually the most successful?

Paul: A lot of people in church world don’t want to define success or talk about how one model/approach may be more successful than another. However, Jesus gave His Church a mission and it seems to me that success would look like accomplishing that mission. So I’ve always figured more people meeting and following Jesus is more successful than less people meeting and following Jesus. As a result, our models/approach to ministry should always be held loosely, or be subservient to whatever helps people meet, know and follow Jesus. That being said, there are a lot of ways churches are approaching multisite. The ones that I find have the greatest success are more consistent with their ministry approach between campuses, have a strong central service team to lead and help campuses succeed, and they use video to deliver consistent teaching everywhere.

Caroline: What is the most common mistake you see among multisite leaders?

Paul: The last statistic I saw was that only 15% of multisite churches ever get past 3 campuses. One reason why is that most churches treat multisite as though they are adding another ministry offering to their church. Instead of adopting a multisite mindset across the entire organization, they adopt a multisite ministry. Multisite isn’t something that happens “over there” at a new campus; it is a strategic approach to ministry that changes the entire way you do church everywhere. Most church leaders completely underestimate this when they choose to go multisite.

Interested in learning more about developing a multisite strategy for your church? Sign up for our Fall 2017 Multisite Leadership Coaching Network. This experience will help you navigate how to run a healthy multisite by discovering the shifts that need to happen within your church.  For more information and to apply, follow this link.

Caroline is a Content Specialist for The Unstuck Group. She is a graduate of The University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communication. She is involved with her local church in Athens, GA as well as other local ministries. She is passionate about leveraging communication strategies for helping churches experience growth!

Posted in Leadership

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The Power of Showing Up

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

There is incredible power in simply showing up. This is true in parenting, it’s true in coaching, it’s true in teaching, and it’s true in leadership. Over the years I’ve observed many church leaders who overestimate the potential of a pivotal moment and underestimate the power of faithfully showing up every day. When you show up daily, your leadership ends up showing up over time.

While there are some moments in leadership that matter more than others, one of the things that separates good leaders from great leaders is that they show up and approach every moment with the same vigor. So here are 5 principles of how great leaders show up every day:

Moments are more important than a Moment

Your most meaningful relationships, trust, culture, and influence. While all of them can be destroyed in a moment, none of them are built in a moment but in a series of moments over an extended period of time.

Follow Through

Never underestimate the power of following through and doing what you said you were going to do. Delivering on time and on target on mundane everyday deliverables will take you further than you think.

Missed Opportunities

Leadership can be a lot like sports and life; you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. Most opportunities are missed in life because people don’t show up and take them.

The Next Right Thing

Sometimes you need to stop worrying about the next big thing and just do the next right thing. It may be less glamorous, it may seem like it won’t get you as far as fast as you want to go, but it will help you build the necessary character, discipline, and practices that will get you there.

Faithfulness

Be faithful with what you’ve been given and you’ll probably be given more. If you’re familiar with the Bible you’re probably familiar with this principle. Don’t underestimate the power and faithfulness that comes from showing up every day.

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation, Staffing
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