5 Articles to Help Your Church Make Vision Real

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Thank you for helping make October a great month here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! It’s fun to be a part of the interaction on social media and hear about how helpful the content has been. So, thank you for connecting with me through the content on this blog! You made these the top 5 Posts from this last month. If you missed out on any of them, here they are all in one place for your convenience!

1. 6 Children’s Ministry Trends

I was recently at a Vision Arizona Network meeting where two very successful Children’s Ministry Directors were interviewed about recent trends in Children’s Ministry. Brett Humprhey from Sun Valley Community Church and Michell Loyd who serves at Harvest Community Church shared some great thoughts that I wanted to pass along to you. And for those of you who were wondering, Vision Arizona is Church Planting Network that I’m a part of. Thinking about planting a church in Arizona? You should check these guys out!

2. 5 Reasons People Don’t Volunteer at Your Church

Do you need more preschool workers to serve children? Do you need more greeters to greet? Do you need more ushers to…ush? If so, you’re in familiar territory. I’ve never met a church that said, “You know…when it comes to volunteers, we’re good. We’ve got plenty. In fact, there’s a waiting list for the nursery.” Churches everywhere need to mobilize more volunteers to get ministry done. But before you start signing people up and filling slots, it might be helpful to take a look at why people are NOT volunteering.

3. What the Church Can Learn from U.S. Airways About Fun

When you put the word “fun” and “airline” together in the same sentence what usually comes to mind for people who regularly fly is Southwest Airlines. They’re known for their comical antics and exceptional guest experience. But I can honestly say that I recently had one of the best flying experiences of my life, and shockingly it was with U.S. Airways! All of the credit is due to the lead Flight Attendant, a young lady by the name of Florence, who made the experience hilariously fun. Sadly most organizations miss out on what a powerful driver fun can be in the workplace.

4. 10 Indispensable Practices of the 2-Minute Leader

I’m excited about my friend Brian Dodd’s new book and accompanying study guide 10 Indispensable Practices Of The 2-Minute Leader. Brian has over 25 years of experience in church leadership and his site Brian Dodd On Leadership is one of the most popular Christian blogs for Church Leaders. I recently had the opportunity to talk with Brian about his new book. Here are some of the highlights and thoughts that stood out to me from the conversation:

5. The Difference Between a Shepherd and a Leader

I love helping churches and leaders get unstuck and make vision real. In fact out of all the stuff I get to do with churches and leaders one of the things I enjoy the most is Leadership Coaching. Recently I had the incredible opportunity to spend a day coaching a group of Pastors and Church Leaders from Australia (unfortunately their cool accent didn’t rub off). One of the topics we spent time digging into was the difference between shepherding and leading in relation to why some churches are stuck while others move forward. Here are couple of thoughts from the conversation.

Posted in Leadership

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What the Church can Learn from U.S. Airways about Fun

Sunday, October 6, 2013

When you put the word “fun” and “airline” together in the same sentence what usually comes to mind for people who regularly fly is Southwest Airlines. They’re known for their comical antics and exceptional guest experience. But I can honestly say that I recently had one of the best flying experiences of my life, and shockingly it was with U.S. Airways! All of the credit is due to the lead Flight Attendant, a young lady by the name of Florence, who made the experience hilariously fun. Sadly most organizations miss out on what a powerful driver fun can be in the workplace.

1. Fun Can Change People’s Attitude

The guy sitting across from me on the flight came onto the plane frustrated and complaining about the poor experience he had in the airport and while boarding the plane. And yet Florence had him laughing and smiling within 2 minutes. Do you have people in your church who consistently complain? Help them have fun and you may be surprised how things change.

2. People Want to be in on Fun Stuff

Please don’t miss this simple but profound statement. Everyone on that flight is now more likely to be a repeat customer and fly U.S. Airways again because of the fun infused into the experience by Florence. Do people want to be a part of your church because it’s fun?

3. What makes it Fun is the Right People

The reason everyone on that flight had fun was because the Florence was having fun. If you want people around you to have fun, someone has to go first. Fun is just as contagious as complaining is.

4. You know when People are Having Fun

It’s easy to measure if people are having fun. Their face shows it with a smile and laughter. Within just 5 minutes of the flight being fully boarded, people on the plane were literally asking out loud how they could let U.S. Airways know how well she had done her job. And they were all smiles.

And U.S. Airways, if you’re out there and reading this, give Florence a raise! She’s worth it!

Posted in Leadership

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Leadership Lessons from a Family Vacation

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Like many families this summer, we did a family vacation. Lisa and I had the opportunity to take the kids (all 4 of them now) for an incredible week in the mountains! Like any leader, it’s tough for me to just “turn it off.” So…upon reminiscing, here are five leadership lessons that parallel our time together we had as a family this summer.

1. The Best Teams have Fun Together

We hiked together, rode go-carts, played miniature golf, taught the girls to play Settlers of Catan, wrestled, snuggled, roasted marshmallows on a fire…the list goes on an on. Bottom line is…we did a lot of stuff to build memories and have fun together. The best teams I’ve ever been around have those same dynamics. They work hard at the work they’re doing, but they also work hard at building memories and having fun together.

2. Spend One-on-One Time with Your Most Important Players

One of the more exciting things for me was to do some one-on-one time with each of the kids. I got to take each of the girls to the driving range and putting green (yes they’re learning to play golf, and love it…shout out to The First Tee), and then just sit and hang at Starbucks. Lincoln, he’s easy at this age, just take him out for ice cream and he’s your best friend forever. Great leaders always intentionally invest individual time in their most promising players.

3. Make Space to Work on Yourself

Each day on vacation I got to spend a little time working on me. Whether it was exercising (I don’t like it, but I need it), or reading, I made space to work on me. The best leaders I’ve ever been around build time into the rhythm of their work to invest in their own personal development and growth.

4. Remember that Sometimes Leadership is just Messy

It rained almost every afternoon on vacation. Which was perfect for getting muddy on the trails (see the picture above). The reality is leadership isn’t always as crisp and clean as everybody makes it out to be. While you can study the science of management, leadership is an art. And like any art it can be messy, it can surprise you, it can turn out beautiful, there are moments that are discouraging, and there are moments of great triumph.

5. Build Time to just Rest

One of the most glorious things about vacation? Let’s all say these two little words together: sleeping in! Believe it or not sleeping in or taking a nap could be the most spiritual thing you do all week. Simply put, if you run your life wide open with the pedal to the metal, you won’t be running for very long.

Posted in Family, Leadership

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What the Church can Learn from Southwest Airlines about Volunteers

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

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.

1. Create Entry Level Volunteer Opportunities

Handing out snacks isn’t the most complicated job on the planet. Just about anyone can do it, right? That’s kinda the point. Creating simple opportunities for people to jump in on allows them to safely test the waters and take another step at their own pace. Don’t worry; leaders will always rise to the top. And it’s important to keep in mind that volunteering is different than leading. Who knows, that woman may end up as the next great flight attendant at Southwest Airlines.

2. On the Job Training

It took very little to no training for this woman to perform the role of handing out snacks on that flight. Realistically she’s probably seen it done a hundred times before. Modeling and coaching in real time is a great way to train, and it doesn’t take hours of time out of the lives of your volunteers and take them away from their families.

3. Throw Away your Complex Volunteer Application

The flight crew didn’t make this woman fill out an application to work at Southwest prior to letting her hand out snacks. I know you think that having a multipage thorough application is responsible, places a high value on volunteering and is helpful. But it’s actually creating an obstacle to people volunteering in your church. While there may be a few volunteer roles that require a background check, for example working with minors. In actuality there’s only a very limited amount of information that you need from potential volunteers, which can be quickly collected in the on ramping process. Especially if you’re intentional about creating easy access entry level volunteer opportunities (like handing out snacks).

4. Make it Fun

Southwest is notorious for being a fun place to work. And when the Staff has fun the people on the flight will have fun too. And hint, hint…they’ll want to join in. If your Church isn’t a fun place to work and your Staff isn’t having fun, chances are you’re going to have a difficult time attracting volunteers.

Disclaimer:

Dear Southwest Airlines,

If you’re out there and reading this, and I just got the flight crew who allowed this woman the opportunity to volunteer in trouble by outing them, I apologize. Really I guess I should apologize to the flight crew. But I think what they did was stellar!

Posted in Volunteers