Tag Archive - growth

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10 Articles that will Help your Church Make Vision Real

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Thank you for making September another great month here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! It’s great staying connected with you through social media and hearing that these articles have been helpful. So, thank you for connecting with me through the content on this blog! You made these the top posts from this last month. If you missed out on any of them, here they are all in one place for your convenience!

What Separates Good Church Leaders from Great Church Leaders?

Over the past 20+ years of full-time ministry and 5+ years of consulting with churches and coaching church leaders around the country there are a few characteristics that I’ve observed that separate good church leaders from great church leaders.

8 Reasons Why People Don’t Volunteer at your Church

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.

When to Invest in a Young Leader and when to Ignore them

Experienced leaders are always going to have more opportunities available to say yes to than capacity to meet them. This is true in leadership and this is true in developing young talent. You have to make a choice. So, choose wisely. How do you know who to invest in and who to ignore?

5 Reasons Why Churches Avoid Developing a Strategy

Churches avoid developing a strategy for all kinds of reasons. Many are tied to not wanting to use “business practices” in the church or not being “spirit led.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus has a strategy, and your church should too!

A Sneaky way to Change the Culture of your Church Staff Team

Here’s a low investment example of a sneaky way you can start changing the culture of your church staff team and ultimately your church.

Why Churches Decline and Die

Church decline can be avoided and even turned around. If your church is stuck or in decline I’d encourage you to start a conversation with the Unstuck Group. They have proven track record of helping churches get unstuck. Here are a couple big reasons, in no particular order, why churches decline and die.

You Get what you Tolerate

I talk to church leaders all the time who dream about how they wish their church were different. But I rarely talk to church leaders who are willing to take action and do something with all of that wishing. Just like in parenting, any relationship or social construct, in church leadership you get what you tolerate. If you tolerate bad behavior, you’re going to get bad behavior.

7 Questions to Help your Church determine the Location of your next Multisite Campus

If you church is thinking about launching a new multisite location in the next 18 months I’d encourage you to seriously think and talk through the following 7 questions with your Sr. Leadership Team to help you determine the next right location.

The Difference between Preparation and Planning

Do great organizations prepare for the future or do they plan for it? The answer is, “yes.” To be clear preparation and planning are not the same thing, and great organizations become great by doing both.

The Tension between Leadership and Power

A little bit of power can go to your head. Give some people a uniform, a title, or a little bit of authority and they can become a little overbearing and overzealous (the movie Mall Cop comes to mind). People often confuse power and leadership. I get it, leaders by perception have all the power and leaders often misuse power. But leadership and power are not the same thing.

Posted in Leadership

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Has your Church Hit a Growth Barrier?

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Growth barriers often leave leaders feeling like they’ve exhausted their options and resources for growth and that they are stuck. But, here’s the good news about growth barriers: they can be broken down by changing your ministry routine.  Shifting the way you approach leadership, structure, and methods can provide a huge boost to your church’s growth.

For many years now, we’ve been hosting coaching networks. The Unstuck Team continues to put on these networks for many reasons, but the primary would be this: we want churches to get unstuck. We’ve seen these networks challenge and encourage leaders to break growth barriers by learning insights and strategies to take their church to the next level.  

In these networks, you’ll learn best practices from healthy, growing churches and begin applying them in your church environment from day one. The Unstuck Team will walk alongside you as you take your next steps in leadership by fighting for healthy growth and learning how to establish a healthy church structure.

Each church is unique in its strategies, methods and practices. This is why we believe in the power of coming together to discover ways to explore outside of our ministry routine to experience growth.

This fall, we’re hosting 3 leadership coaching networks. Each will consist of a 7-month, collaborative coaching experience that includes 3 gatherings in Atlanta, 2 exclusive webinars, and 2 one-on-one coaching calls. Here are the options:

The Unstuck Church: Reaching 1,000 Coaching Network

This network is designed to help you 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.

The Unstuck Church: Growing Beyond 2,000 Coaching Network

This network will help you develop strategies to tackle the unique challenges of larger churches including leadership development, staffing, communications, discipleship and establishing healthy growth engines.

Multisite Leadership Coaching Network

This experience will set you up to more effectively lead a growing, multisite church. We will help you navigate Common Pitfalls in Multisite, Refining Your Model, Clarifying How You Structure and Operate, Best Practices for Launching a Campus, Managing the Tension (Central vs Campus), and more!

We have space for only 7 churches in each network — some of which are already gone, so make sure to follow this link secure your spot soon!

Posted in Leadership

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Why Churches Decline and Die

Sunday, August 20, 2017

Years ago, a church started in the Phoenix east valley. This church plant grew rapidly. Helping new people meet Jesus, they became one of the first mega churches in the east valley. Eventually the pastor, under whose leadership this growth took place, left and the succession didn’t go very well. Neither did the next succession. Or the next. In fact, that church went through 18 straight years of decline until at the end of that decline they ended up merging with another church.

Today the new campus averages more than 1,000 people in weekend attendance and is helping new people meet, know and follow Jesus.

Unfortunately for most churches in decline there’s no great comeback story. Churches decline for all kinds of reasons and it’s usually more complicated than one simple decision that was made somewhere along the way.

However, church decline can be avoided and even turned around. If your church is stuck or in decline I’d encourage you to start a conversation with the Unstuck Group. They have proven track record of helping churches get unstuck. Here are a couple big reasons, in no particular order, why churches decline and die.

1. Fuzzy Vision

Vision answers the question, “Where are we going?” Vision provides everyone clarity and without clarity things slow down, or even worse people start doing what they think is right in their own eyes. One of the single most life-threatening indicators that a church is in trouble is a lack of clarity. Clarity provides a church with the power to make decisions efficiently and align the organizational components of the church to move forward. If you don’t know where you’re going, and can’t state it clearly, you’ve got no chance to get there.

2. Staff Hired to Do Ministry

When your church has a high staff to attendance ratio (at the Unstuck Group we encourage churches to staff 1:100 – that is 1 full time staff equivalent for every 100 attenders) and you’re hiring staff to do ministry instead of leading ministry by recruiting, developing and empowering volunteers to do and lead ministry your church will end up in decline.

3. No Strategic Plan

Strategy answers the question, “How are we going to get there?” Strategy fills the gap between where you are and where you want to be. It’s planning for tomorrow today. Little is more demoralizing to a church staff team than a bunch of empty inspirational talk that never materializes into real courageous action.

4. Over Reaching

My dad used to call this having, “Wine taste on a beer budget.” Over reaching and overextending the church with unsustainable decisions such as too much debt, offering too many ministry options, or starting too many things at once can cripple a church and set it back years, often times never recovering.  

5. Style Worship

No, not worship style (although those battles can be tough too), style worship. When churches begin to care more about ministry programs or a style and approach to ministry than the results of the ministry they’re on their way to decline.

6. Demographic Drift

Over time it’s not uncommon for the demographics around a church to shift. This can easily be observed most commonly through age and race. Many churches choose to ignore these changes and as a result never change their approach to ministry which leads to decline every time.

7. Insider Focus

I’ve said this many times before, the most dangerous place 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 moving towards unhealthiness and decline.

Posted in Leadership

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Tearing Down Imaginary Fences

Sunday, July 30, 2017

Have you ever thought to yourself or even said out loud, “we could never do that,” at our church? Maybe you don’t think your denomination would allow it, or your pastor wouldn’t allow it, or your church board wouldn’t allow it. Maybe you feel as though there are too many road blocks to change and you feel helpless or hopeless.

What I’ve found is that many church leaders are living within imaginary fences that they’ve constructed in their minds through either assuming the worst or building an entire reality in their minds based on one (or a couple) of bad experiences.

The truth is, you probably have more leeway to implement change at your church than you think. Here’s how…

Find the Yes

Stop looking for the no…find the yes. It’s easy to go negative and keep your eyes and mind on everything you can’t do. Anyone can to that, it takes no work, energy or leadership. Being solution oriented on the other hand is rare. I guess that’s why real leadership is rare too. You’ll find what you’re looking for.

Focus on Growth Not Change

Every change you make is a criticism of the past, and no one likes to be criticized. So, focusing on or even talk about change in an anti-change environment is a recipe for disaster. Instead focus on growth, helping people spiritually grow and join Jesus on His mission to help people know Him and follow Him. You cannot follow Jesus and stay where you are. This is true personally and organizationally. So focus on growth and change will happen.

Assume the Best and Clarify

What if instead of assuming the worst about your denomination, your pastor or your church board you assumed the best and then clarified? What if you changed all of that self-talk and chose to believe that these were all people who cared about people meeting Jesus and following Jesus?

Stop talking about what’s Wrong

Words create worlds. Language builds culture. You may have a negative culture on your church team because you’ve been speaking negatively about your denomination, pastor or church board. Take personal ownership for your attitude and your words, and how they’ve contributed to the problem. And…you actually may have some sin to confess in there somewhere.

Promote the Gospel not a Method

Stop worrying about a particular ministry program, method or approach you want to take and start focusing on the Gospel. Your ministry program or method isn’t going to change the world, Jesus will. And all of us know that methods come and go. That method you love today is going to be stale in the future and someone is going to feel the same way about it that you do about old methods you’re trying to change.

Want to learn more about changing your church? Here’s a couple of posts will help you:

Posted in Leadership

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Why the Internet will Strengthen, not Kill the Church

Sunday, July 2, 2017

Ever since the modern internet hit the scene in the 1990’s (thank you Al Gore…smile) doomsday Church Leaders have been fretting that it would be hurtful to culture, the Gospel and the movement of the Church.

Nothing could be further than the truth.

The last time there was a technological advancement of this magnitude the printing press was invented, which helped propel the Gospel in an unparalleled manner at the most opportune time of the Protestant Reformation. For the first time in history the average person (who was literate) could actually read the Bible for themselves in their own language! It was legitimately world changing.

The internet and this highly technological culture that we are living in has the same potential to catalyze the movement of the Gospel in a way not seen since the Protestant Reformation.

The Bible App

The Bible App, developed by the good folks at Life Church has been downloaded and installed more than 200 million times. When YouVersion launched there were 12 versions of the Bible available in 2 languages. Today there are more than 1,200 versions of the Bible available in more than 900 languages! YouVersion is working to make God’s Word available to every person on Earth, no matter where they live or what language they prefer.

Video Teaching

The internet and technological advances have fueled video teaching, which has propelled the multisite movement not only in North America but around the world. Each week more than 100,000 people attend a Hillsong Church Campus in one of more than 25 locations in more than 12 countries around the world.

Internet Evangelism

The internet is creating a unique and interestingly safe place for people of other spiritual backgrounds to investigate Jesus’ claim to be the only path to God. Thousands of Muslims, in particular, are saying yes to following Jesus as a direct result of intentional internet evangelism.

Technology and the internet are creating opportunities to fuel the Gospel that haven’t even been thought up or leveraged yet. My hunch is if Jesus walked the Earth today instead of reading someone’s account of the sermon on the mount (Matthew 6) we’d probably be watching it firsthand on YouTube.

Forbes recently ran an article entitled, “Five Signs That Stores (Not E-Commerce) Are The Future Of Retail”

  1. All But One Of The Top Ten U.S. Retailers Are Physical Chains
  2. Stores Are More Profitable Than E-Commerce
  3. Amazon Purchased Whole Foods
  4. Millennials And Generation Z Prefer Real-Life Stores
  5. Online Retailers Are Being Eaten By Legacy Retailers

In this new cyber-age the Church isn’t going anywhere. It is going to take ground, not lose it. You and your church just need to figure out how to leverage this new opportunity. While technology and the internet can enhance and catalyze the growth of the church in new ways it isn’t going to replace the church. Even with global work place trends towards automation the Church will remain, interestingly enough, distinctly human. A place where real people can interact with other real people about the most important conversations and topics life has to offer. But what technology can do for the Church is:

  1. Create new ways for all people on the planet to engage in the Bible
  2. Build new ways to deliver biblical teaching across the globe
  3. Provide opportunities to get quality, accredited biblical training online anywhere in the world
  4. Create new, easily accessible, safe space for people to connect with other people and engage in dialogue about God and His principles

What other opportunities are you seeing or sensing that may be next for the Church to take hold of and leverage for the sake of the Gospel? I’m interested in your thoughts and ideas…leave a comment!

Posted in Leadership
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