Tag Archive - focus

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6 Indicators You’re Leading an Insider Focused Church

How do you know if you’re leading an insider-focused church? Here are 6 indicators that you and your team can use to evaluate your church:

#1 Language

The language you choose to use is important because it both reflects and builds culture at the same time. There are all kinds of ways this goes wrong in churches. Coming up with cool names and brands for ministries that mean nothing to people outside the church, sub-branding things to death, and mentioning people from stage by name without explaining who they are just a couple of them. Two big principles to keep in mind when it comes to the language you choose to use in your church are: clear always trumps cute or cool and you’re always better off just calling things what they are.

#2 High giving-per-head

It may sound counter-intuitive but in growing outsider focused churches I consistently see giving-per-head numbers around $20-$30 per person. In churches that are stuck and insider focused it’s not uncommon to see giving-per-head numbers between $30-$50 per person.

#3 No Way-finding

At one church I visited I had no idea where to take my children. Everyone else seemed to know where to go but us. When we asked for help we were told to go to the “B-Building.” While the person who helped us was polite and came off as genuinely interested in helping us I had no idea what or where the “B-Building” was. Even worse there was no signage directing us to the “B-Building” or anything else for that matter. You’d be amazed how well placed, clear, directional signage and calling things what they are (i.e. Children’s Center, Student Center, Office, Worship Center) can help guests find their way on your campus.

#4 No clear Spiritual Maturity Pathway

Most churches are hoping that people outside of the faith will somehow miraculously jump in on what the church is already doing for existing members of the church. The problem is that just doesn’t happen. Have you clearly defined what you want people to look like who are walking with Jesus and created clear steps for them to get there?

#5 Few Baptisms/Conversions

Insider focused churches have a tendency to criticize growing churches, as if to say “They are doing something wrong and aren’t preaching the Word.” Essentially saying that if they were doing things “right” and “preaching the Word” they wouldn’t be growing.

#6 Poor Guest Services

My first week attending a church that I had recently gone on staff at we showed up trying to discover where to take my children for the Children’s Ministry (are you sensing a theme here?). A Children’s Staff Member shouted and pointed from down the hallway. There was no one to help us get where we needed to go, including that staff member who kept walking the other direction after they had yelled at us. The ironic thing is they had a great children’s ministry. Developing a culture of guest services in your church begins with developing a culture of guest services among your staff.

If none of those ideas resonate with you, here’s something that should push you towards taking a serious look at evaluating the church you’re leading. Don’t forget that you can still be growing and be insider focused; it’s called being the best Christian show in town.


Posted in Leadership

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Creating an Outsider Focused Culture in your Church

Becoming Insider Focused is Natural: It’s natural to be insider focused, because what comes natural to us is us. It is not natural to let other people go before us, think about what others prefer before our own preferences, or meet the needs of others before meeting our own needs first. We are naturally self oriented as people so it’s no surprise that businesses, organizations, or even churches tend to be so as well. That’s why in their teaching Jesus and the Apostle Paul directly connect spiritual maturity to becoming others oriented.

This past week I taught a breakout session at Converge Ignite 2013 a conference designed for churches that are committed to advancing the Gospel through various Church Planting and Multsite models. If you were at the breakout and want to share the notes or would simply like to see some of what you missed just click the link below to download the notes FOR FREE! By the way there’s a great tool in there that you can use to work through as a team to evaluate the focus of your church!

Session Notes: Creating an Outsider Focused Culture in your Church


Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation

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Resistance keeps you upright

After listening to the guide do their best to convince everyone in the raft that they were likely to drown on the way down the Royal Gorge this past week in Colorado, she finished her little speech by stating, “the best thing you can do to stay in the boat is paddle hard.” She explained that paddling creates resistance and keeps you upright. As you feel yourself falling out of the boat, paddling creates a strong base and helps keep you in the boat.

Leaders need resistance, without it we fall out of the boat. In fact here’s a list of the 5 deadliest things that can happen to leaders without resistance.

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Posted in Leadership

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How to say no to ministry

One of the more difficult tasks to accomplish in leadership is to relentlessly guard the vision of the organization. As they grow organizations, including churches, naturally drift towards complexity. People have good ideas that require action, development, project management, resource allocation, and organization that at surface level seem to enhance and strengthen the organization. These structures, while well meaning, often times actually slow down, detract from, and often prevent the organization from moving forward. I’m not saying that systems are the enemy, however the worship of systems. Remember systems aren’t the vision, the vision is the vision, and effective systems simply become the pathway for the organization to easily move along towards the vision. The single greatest word you can ever use to relentlessly guard the vision is to learn to say no to what detracts from it.

Below are 5 evaluative questions designed to help you narrow the focus and say no to opportunities that will cause you to subtly drift away from the vision.

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Posted in Leadership
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