Tag Archive - grow

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New Leadership Coaching Networks: Time is Running Out!

Sunday, August 30, 2015

Time is running out for you to get in on the Leadership Coaching Networks that are getting ready to begin at the Unstuck Group! We’re always excited about the start of new coaching networks, but this year, we’re more excited than ever!

NEW OPTION – Reaching 2,000 & Beyond (Atlanta, GA)

Develop strategies to tackle the unique challenges of larger churches, including leadership development, staffing, communications, discipleship and establishing healthy growth engines. (Reaching 2,000 & Beyond in Dallas filled up fast, so we’ve added a second location. There are already only four spots left.)

Reaching 1,000 (Irvine, CA)

Move from reaching hundreds to reaching 1,000 in attendance by clarifying what’s working and what’s wrong, defining an action plan for next steps, and establishing a staffing and ministry structure that supports growth and health.

Multisite Leadership (Colorado Springs, CO)

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.

Small Groups That Work (Nashville, TN)

Move from theory to practical next steps to help your church establish a thriving small groups ministry that provides a path for both healthy community and spiritual formation.

Next Level Staffing (Houston, TX)

Build your team through staffing strategies including hiring and firing, establishing a senior leadership team, structuring for growth, leadership development, managing performance and eliminating team dysfunction.

With each of these new coaching networks, you get a nine-month experience that includes three in-person gatherings and video conferences in the months when we don’t gather in person. Each will help you discover the shifts that need to happen in your leadership and your ministry strategies and systems. We hope you’ll join us!

Learn More & Apply Here!

In our coaching networks, you can expect a relational experience built around simple and practical systems and tools to help you take your next steps as a leader. We take a look at best practices in growing, healthy churches, and we press into tough conversations to help you get unstuck in your leadership and ministry impact.

If you’re considering joining us here are some things to keep in mind…

This is not an opportunity for someone who is looking for inspiration: These coaching networks involves work. You can’t just show up. You will have to commit to nine months of reading and engaging exercises with the ministry team at your church.

This experience isn’t for people looking for leadership theory: Yes, you’ll learn some leadership skills, but this experience is designed for you to put those skills into action. Every month you will leave with new tools to implement in your ministry environment.

This is not a conference experience: In a conference, you can sit and soak in the teaching without engaging anyone else. In this coaching experience, you will be encouraged and challenged by other leaders who will be counting on you to participate fully.

Posted in Leadership

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3 Organizational Changes that Multi-Site Churches Experience

Sunday, May 31, 2015

Multisite changes everything. If you’re leading in a multisite church you know this first hand. The way decisions are made, how the Staff are structured, how resource are utilized, how budgets are created and managed, and more all change along the way. It all changes. But knowing how things change can help you prepare for the next step. Here are three phases of change I’ve seen in multisite churches around the country.

1-3 Sites

Typically at this stage the original campus or “broadcast campus” is still the largest campus and attendance at the other 2 campuses is less than 50% of the overall attendance of the church. Not too much changes in the leadership structure at this point. Typically the staff at the original campus drives things.

3+ Sites

When campus number four launches everything changes. Staff Teams are restructured and a Central Service Team is typically built to support the campuses and allow things to begin to scale. I’ve previously written about Central Service Teams here. At this stage attendance shifts and more than 50% of the overall attendance of the church is no longer at the original campus. Someone is paid to be on Staff to wake up everyday thinking and leading the multisite initiative.

8+ Sites

Things move to district and regional oversight, often times crossing State lines. The organization of the church continues to scale and things shift towards becoming a movement of multisite churches instead of a multisite church. Multisite campuses are launching other multisite campuses by now.

Posted in Leadership

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The 5 Most Important Indicators of a Healthy Church

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Numbers can be overwhelming. I’ve seen churches keep numbers and measure all kinds of things. First time guests, returning guests, empty parking stalls during services, kids attendance, student attendance, short-term mission trip participation, first time givers, on and on the list goes…literally. None of these (or other categories not listed) are necessarily bad things to measure. In fact in totality they can help you gain understanding as to which direction things are moving at your church. The thing is, there are a lot of things you could measure, a lot of things you could pay attention to. But what are the most important things to pay attention to? I know some people will disagree with me, but based on my experience working with churches around the country, and being a guy that’s in the trenches day to day at a local church, the 5 most important numbers to keep a pulse on are the following.

1. Baptisms

You can measure first time guests and the number of people who say yes to following Jesus (and you should); but the most important number to measure in all of that is baptisms, because the other two numbers are wrapped up in the number of people being baptized at your church. And after all, this is the whole point of the church to help people follow Jesus, and a public declaration of that intent is a huge part of that process.

2. Volunteers

The number of unique volunteers you have serving at your church tells you two really important things. First it tells you who is with you. Who is bought into the vision of where you believe Jesus is uniquely leading your church. After all in today’s’ world it’s a lot easier to give some money than it is to give time. These are all-in people. It also helps you identify and develop potential leaders in your church, because volunteering is discipleship. You can’t follow Jesus without learning to live an others oriented life!

3. Groups

Simply put life-change happens best in groups…in the context of friendships, because after all what we are being discipled to when we follow Jesus, is friendship with Jesus. This is where people “work out” their belief system and begin to change their thinking. This number gives you an indicator of the number of people who are being discipled and moving towards what Jesus wants them to become.

4. Giving

You cannot follow Jesus without giving and serving. Giving is an indicator of the level of buy-in people have in the direction you’re moving as a church. Healthy churches have a strategy to help their people become more generous. Not because they want something from them, but because they want something for them. They want them to look and live like Jesus. They aren’t simply teaching or telling their people to give, there is a holistic strategy to help them move towards becoming generous like Jesus.

5. Attendance

You knew this one was coming didn’t you? It may be simple but attendance numbers matter. Numbers count because people count. Every number has a name and every name has a story. The goal of the Gospel movement, called the Church, that Jesus started was not that it would get smaller and less influential, but rather that it would become a movement that would go to the ends of the Earth!

Interested in discovering how healthy your church is? Take the step to engage the Unstuck Group in a comprehensive Ministry Health Assessment of your church!

Photo Credit: griseldangelo1 via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation, Volunteers

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Why Churches Don’t Grow: #3 No Spiritual Maturity Pathway

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Today we’re continuing this series of blog posts 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.

Many churches are stuck or declining not because they have a difficult time attracting or introducing new people to Jesus but because they have no plan in place to move people towards spiritual maturity or the plan they’re working is broken. Here are a couple of indicators that there is a breakdown somewhere in your spiritual maturity pathway:

1. Content is Mistaken for the Solution

Neither Jesus nor the Apostle Paul defined spiritual maturity as knowledge. Content is not the solution. It’s not what you know; it’s what you do with what you know. It’s an issue of obedience and application. Is your church actually helping people apply the Bible to their everyday life or are you just teaching bible classes?

2. There are Too Many Steps

If the road map to spiritual maturity has been defined at your church and it’s too long or has too many steps it simply won’t work. People will quit on you. Then you will have the tendency to think the few people you end up with at the end of the arduous process you’ve build are the spiritual elite. Meanwhile many people who could have been brought along with you have been left by the wayside to figure it out on their own. Jesus only spent 3 years with His disciples and then turned them loose to change the world. Most churches today would never let the disciples serve in a leadership role, much less lead the church because they hadn’t “walked with Jesus long enough.” We’re not building Fords, we’re building disciples. Disciplemaking is not an assembly line.

3. There is No Clear Next Step

When someone says yes to following Jesus have you defined the next step for them to take? Then what happens next? Is the process working? Each step in the process needs to be clear, natural and intuitive. Has your church taken the time to map out and answer the question of “What’s my next step?” Then ask that question over and over again until you’ve arrived at some point of “spiritual maturity.”

4. People aren’t Giving or Serving

You’re never more like Jesus than when you give or when you serve; because giving and serving are the very essence of what it means to live like Jesus. Does your church treat volunteering as discipleship? Does your church not only provide opportunities for people to give and serve but train them how to do both well?

Photo Credit: boegh via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation

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Why Churches Don’t Grow: #2 The Inward Focused Church

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Last week I started a series of blog posts 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.

One of the most dangerous places a church can be in their life cycle is when the ministry they are doing is having a big impact with insiders (people who already know Jesus and are inside the church) but a low impact with outsiders (people who don’t know Jesus yet). It’s dangerous because it’s comfortable. It feels like things are going well and you have momentum because people are happy, they’re regularly attending, and they seem to be “all in” with what you’re doing. But if you aren’t reaching new people, your church or ministry is already taking steps towards unhealthiness and decline. So how do you know if your church is drifting towards becoming insider focused? Here are a couple of indicators:

1. Insider Language

The most obvious way to tell if a church is insider focused or outsider focused is the language that they choose to use. It either says that the church is “inclusive” or “exclusive.” And it’s important because words build worlds. There are all kinds of ways this goes wrong in churches. Preaching as though everyone already knows Jesus and comes to the room with basic Bible knowledge, coming up with cool names and brands for ministries that mean nothing to people outside the church, 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. A Poor Guest Experience

Is your church prepared for guests? My wife and I were attending a church for the first time. We have kids, a lot of them. So the first thing we were looking for was where to take our children. But we couldn’t seem to find any clear signage to point us in the right direction or any guest service volunteers that were easily identifiable to ask where to go. Finally, I saw someone walking by and asked where to take my children. Instead of stopping to help us they continued to walk past us and shout and pointed down the hallway. Come to find out later this person was a Children’s Ministry Staff Member. 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.

3. Low Percentage of Baptisms

The average healthy church in America baptizes 10% of their total weekend attendance each year. That is to say in an outsider focused growing church of 500 people (weekend attendance: worship services and kids), on average that church would baptize 50 people in a year. I always think to myself how ironic it is when I hear an insider-focused church 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.

4. High Giving-Per-Head

It may sound counter-intuitive but in growing outsider focused churches I consistently see giving-per-head numbers around $25-$40 per person. In churches that are stuck and insider focused it’s not uncommon to see giving-per-head numbers between $40-$60 per person. Churches that are filled with people who have been around for a while, know Jesus and are biblically educated to tithe consistently have a strong giving-per-head number. Churches that are reaching a lot of new people are consistently going to lag in their giving.

5. Risk Avoidance Culture

New things attract new people and new churches reach new people. When a church is starting up it’s all about risk (church planting by it’s very nature is risky). Over time however it’s easier (and less risky) to do ministry programs to keep church people happy than it is to continue to reach out to people who are outside of the church. When is the last time your church risked something big for God?

Interested in digging into this topic more with your team? Follow this link for a FREE resource to use with your team.

Photo Credit: BrianTuchalskiPhotography via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership
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