Top 10 Posts from 2015

Tag Archive - development

10 Articles that will Help Your Church Build a Stronger Volunteer Culture

Sunday, December 20, 2015

I’ve never worked with a church that has said they don’t need more volunteers. But I’ve worked with a bunch of churches that have trouble getting people to volunteer and stay engaged volunteering. Because volunteering comes up so often when I work with churches I’ve ended up writing about volunteering quite a bit over the years. Here are some of the more popular posts.

Why People Don’t Volunteer at Church Anymore

According to the U.S. Census Bureau 1-in-4 adults volunteered their time in 2013. Altogether, 62.6 million Americans volunteered nearly 7.7 billion hours in 2013. Based on the Independent Sector’s estimate of the average value of a volunteer hour, the estimated value of this volunteer service is nearly $173 billion. People in the community you live in volunteer their time. That includes people in your community who know Jesus and those who don’t know Jesus. But are they volunteering at your church?

How to Build a Strong Volunteer Culture in your Church

Most church leaders I speak with identify a shortage of volunteers and volunteer leaders as one of the top 5 issues holding their church back from reaching the vision that Jesus has given them. It doesn’t have to be this way. You can build a strong volunteer culture at your church by implementing the following 8 principles.

How Many People should be Volunteering at Your Church?

Did you know that there is a direct connection between the amount of money a church invests in staffing and the number of people who volunteer? What we’ve discovered in our research at the Unstuck Group is that the as a church increases its spending on staffing the number of people volunteering decreases.

What the Church can Learn from Southwest Airlines about Volunteering

I was recently on a Southwest Airlines flight and witnessed one of the most amazing volunteer moments I’ve ever seen. When it came time for the midflight snack of pretzels and peanuts a woman on the flight stepped up and volunteered to pass out the snack. And here’s the amazing thing…they let her! No application, no waiver, and no complex training classes. They simply handed over the basket of snacks and said go for it! Watching this whole thing go down I couldn’t help but think about how difficult we make it for people in the church to volunteer. Here are a couple of observations from that moment that I think are worth the church considering.

Why Volunteering is the Biggest Issue Facing the Church Today

Your church is full of talented volunteers. In fact the people who attend your church are so talented that companies actually hire them to do jobs everyday and they actually get paid for it (sarcasm indented). The real issue is that the church needs to change the scorecard. We need to shift the focus of paid-staff from ministry production and execution to volunteer and leadership development. The churches that do this understand the following 5 principles and the incredible results that accompany applying them.

8 Reasons Why People Don’t Volunteer at your Church

The reason why this has to be a front-burner issue is because at the heart of it, volunteering is an essential component of the discipleship process in someone’s life. Plainly put, volunteering is discipleship. Understanding that, here are 8 reasons people aren’t volunteering in your church…and subsequently aren’t growing in their relationship with God.

4 Principles that should Shape the Volunteer Philosophy at your Church

If you’re on staff at a church your job is essentially to be a volunteer specialist. And while volumes have been written on building and leading volunteer organizations, below are four simple (while not easy) principles that should be at the foundation of your philosophy of volunteerism.

Building and Leading a Volunteer Organization

The most important asset you have as a Pastor is not your buildings, budget, or even your vision. It is the people that God has entrusted to you. So below are a few thoughts that may help you in building and leading this volunteer organization called the Church. For your volunteers to jump on board, and stay on board, you’ve got to answer 4 key questions for them…

5 Symptoms your Church Needs more Volunteers

While a lot of churches need more volunteers, most don’t know why they need more volunteers, or why it’s difficult for them to enlist and keep new volunteers.

Stop Paying People to do Ministry

As they grow, many churches eagerly anticipate the moment when they’re finally big enough that they can afford to hire more staff and offer more ministry options for people. For example I’ve heard churches say they can’t wait to hire a Men’s Ministry Pastor. Nothing against Men’s Ministry per se, but that’s an expensive model. If you run it out to its logical end you’re going to have a lot of people on your payroll. Paying people to “do” ministry instead of “lead” ministry is an expensive mistake that many churches fall into. Here are 3 principles that will help you focus the Staffing & Volunteer philosophy at your church.

Posted in Leadership, Volunteers

5 Keys to Developing Young Leaders in Your Church

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

It seems like everywhere you turn lately some national church leader is writing about the bleak future of the US Church due to younger generations leaving. Well, recently I spent some time at a place that made me really hopeful about the future of the church in America.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to do some coaching at Ethos Church, a young multisite church located in Nashville, Tennessee. In just 7 years Ethos has grown to 3 locations and more than 2,500 people in attendance, and the rate at which they are baptizing people is in the top 10% of churches in the US! Plainly stated God is using the ministry of Ethos Church to change people’s lives. But what excited me the most about my time with them was everywhere I looked there were young leaders, and not just serving as interns or in some inconsequential role. But there were young men and women in their 20’s and 30’s (the ones in their 30’s were the old ones…I guess that makes me ancient now) who are serving as the Sr. Leaders of this fast growing church.

In working with churches around the country unfortunately churches like Ethos have become the exception rather than the rule. It doesn’t have to be that way. This list below of “5 Things Young Leaders Need” is a great place for your church start.

1. Opportunity

Even leaders who have been gifted greatly don’t start out as great leaders. Someone somewhere gave them their first opportunity. The tough thing about leadership is that it isn’t learned in a classroom it’s learned by leading. In order to grow and develop, young leaders need the opportunity to get real hands on experience.

Question: Does your church give young leaders real opportunities to lead stuff that matters?

2. Access

Young leaders need access to real leadership conversations. They need to be a “fly on the wall” in board meetings, management team meetings, and executive team meetings. They need to watch the Sr. Leaders in the organization lead through the tough stuff and make the big decisions. They need access to ask experienced leaders questions about how they lead and why they do it the way they do.

Question: Do the Sr. Leaders in your church give young leaders unfiltered access to watch real leadership take place and discuss it?

3. Authority

Young leaders don’t just need busy work to keep them occupied. Once they’ve proven they can deliver through following through on tasks being delegated to them they need to be empowered to make real decisions and exercise real authority to accomplish objectives through leading their own teams and delegating to others.

Question: Does your church give young leaders real consequential responsibility?

4. Grace

Part of the nature of being a young leader is making mistakes. Even experienced leaders don’t get it right all the time; and young inexperienced leaders certainly are going to make mistakes, it’s the nature of young leaders. How you respond when young leaders fail matters.

Question: Does your church give young leaders the room to fail?

5. Coaching

Great coaching can make all the difference in the performance of a team or a particular player. Great coaches do four simple things with their players. They train their players before the game, they put their players in game like situations in practice and get “reps” in before the real game happens, they make in game adjustments, and they watch the game film after the game to review and learn from the player’s performance.

Question: Does your church expect young leaders to learn on their own through their own experience or do you actually coach them?

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation, Staffing

Join a Multisite Leadership Coaching Network

Sunday, August 16, 2015

I’m excited to share some big news with you! At the Unstuck Group we’ve successfully been coaching Pastors and other Ministry Leaders at churches across America for years. And this fall we are offering 7 brand new coaching networks including the one I’ll be facilitating, Multisite Leadership.

In this Coaching Network you’ll learn from leaders who have served in some of the largest multisite churches in the country about developing a strategy and structure for growing the impact of one church in multiple locations.

> When & Where will We Meet?
Colorado Springs, CO
Gatherings: October 1-2, January 28-29 and April 14-15
Video Conferences (1:30-3pm EST): November 13, December 11, February 12, March 11, May 13 and June, 10

> Who Will Participate?
These networks are designed for leaders and strategists who serve in a local church. Typically, that has included lead pastors, executive pastors, campus pastors and other senior leaders. You’ll participate in an environment where you can experience coaching but also learn from your peers.

> What Will You Receive?
The group receives six days of in-person coaching sessions over nine months, plus six 90-minute video conference coaching sessions in the months when the group is not meeting in person. This includes training on a variety of ministry strategy topics including staffing, leadership development, communications, financial stewardship, volunteer team development, weekend services, ministry structure, discipleship, multisite and more. You’ll learn about tools, exercises and best practices to implement after every session. In addition, in the multisite network we’ll:

Discover how to identify and develop Campus Pastors
Gain exposure to different Multisite Models
Determine how to know if you’re ready to go multisite and how to you launch your first campus successfully
Learn how to restructure your staffing and systems successfully to support a multisite model
Move past 3 campuses (80% of multisite churches in America never get past 3 campuses)

One of the primary benefits will be the opportunity to network with and learn from like-minded leaders. We set aside dedicated time in every gathering to talk through the pressing issues you are facing. You’ll have access to your coach throughout the network gatherings. Additionally, you’ll receive several free resources and books, plus some other fun surprises.

> What are the Expectations & Costs?
You will be expected to attend all coaching sessions, cover your own travel expenses as needed, and commit to reading a book and completing exercises between sessions. Complete the coaching network application and pay your initial deposit to hold your space. The deposit will be your first month’s fees. The fee to participate in the network is $2,500.

The Unstuck Team provides leadership training for pastors and other ministry leaders through coaching networks. These networks are focused on helping you discover the shifts that need to happen in your leadership and your ministry strategies and systems. The only way to get different results is to engage different systems. This experience will challenge you to take those next steps.

This network is limited to just 12 spots, so follow this link to register and get all of the details you need to be a part of Coaching Network!

Posted in Leadership

Why Churches Don’t Grow: #5 A Leadership Void

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

This is the final post in a series of blog posts that I’ve been sharing about the 5 key contributors that lead to 80% of churches in America being stuck or in decline. These key contributors have been observed repeatedly in our work with churches at the Unstuck Group. While churches get stuck and decline for all kinds of reasons, these 5 key contributors are the consistent culprits.

Out of these 5 key contributors, this next one carries the most weight. 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 find themselves fighting the family instead of fighting the enemy. I thought that building a list of indicators to help you understand that your church has a leadership problem would be the lazy way to go with this post. Anyone can take shots at the church and build a list of everything the church does poorly when it comes to leadership. Instead I’ve built a list of what leadership traits I’ve noticed are most needed in the American Church today:

1. Courage

The majority of churches that I work with aren’t stuck because their pastors don’t know what Jesus wants them to do next. Often times they just need a competent and experienced outsider to confirm and say out loud what the Holy Spirit has already been saying to them. They simply need an infusion of courage and clear steps to get where Jesus wants them to go. If you’re leading a church let me encourage you. Please, obey what Jesus is asking you to do. Please, lead your church where Jesus wants you to go. There’s too much on the line not to.

2. Tenacity

The church desperately needs an infusion of leaders who hang onto the vision in an unwavering manner; leaders who have the steadfast tenacity to stay with it until it gets done. Don’t give up, don’t give in, don’t back down, don’t let go. There’s too much on the line not to.

3. Development

The Gospel doesn’t need to be defended it needs to be unleashed. And for the church in America to turn the corner and be the movement Jesus has intended for it to be it’s going to take current leadership to unleash the next generation. Not just hand off the church to the next generation of leaders through good succession planning but legitimately unleash them by preparing them and turning them loose. There’s too much on the line not to.

4. Humility

Let’s be honest, neither you nor I have all of the answers for the challenges facing the church today. It’s going to take humility on our part to invite new voices into our lives, to be a lifelong learner, to give away our leadership credits to others, and to play our part in the Body of Christ that we play best so others can be their best. Humility is courage before it’s needed and at the same time it’s the chief virtue and the soil that all the other fruit of the Spirit grow up in. It is absolutely a necessity in leadership in the church today. There’s too much on the line not to.

Photo Credit: alexcoitus via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership

Page 5 of 11« First...«3 456 7 »10...Last »