Tag Archive - leader

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Managing the Tension between Culture and Control in a Multisite Church

Sunday, March 20, 2016

One of the greatest challenges of leading a Multisite Church is maintaining alignment across campuses. Regardless of how proven your ministry model may be, many campus leaders still desire space to make it their own. While this drive can be evidence of their leadership capacity, it can also create tension and disunity on your team. How can you keep a diverse group of leaders in different communities focused on the same mission and ministry wins?

When you break it down, there are only two core approaches to multisite alignment. You can either lead through culture or you can lead through control. Which approach is best for your multisite team? Understanding their five differences can help you decide:

1. Approach to Decision-Making

Culture: Campus leaders are developed to make decisions
Control: Centralized decisions are leveraged across campuses

In a multisite church that is led through culture, campus leaders understand how to make decisions. Values are clear and shared at every location. Each leader knows what should be considered important when they are at a decision point.

In a control-driven approach to alignment, everyone understands how decisions get made. Campus leaders regularly take issues and ideas to centralized leaders for approval.

2. Focus of Central Leaders

Culture: Driving the right questions
Control: Providing the right answers

In a culture-driven church, central leaders focus on communicating values and asking the right questions. They spend their time developing the organization’s mindset for ministry. For example, at NewPointe, I worked hard to focus campuses on one driving question: “What is the absolute best thing for the unchurched family in our community?” I knew if that was always in the minds of our leaders, we could trust them to move forward and make great decisions.

Control-driven central leaders focus more on policies and standards. They spend their time developing the right plans to get the results they desire across locations. They lead with answers more often than questions.

3. Leadership Empowerment

Culture: Empower growing leaders
Control: Equip new leaders

Culture-driven churches empower growing leaders to develop. As long as they operate within the mission, values, and strategies of the church, campuses have the opportunity to develop and implement plans. This gives them greater ownership and experiences for growth.

Control-driven churches equip new leaders with clear plans. They can more quickly involve younger ministry leaders, knowing they’ll be set up with proven approaches in every area.

4. Operational Pace

Culture: Requires slower pace
Control: Allows faster pace

Culture-driven churches require a slower pace. Because each leader has more flexibility, it takes them more time to develop and implement plans. Additionally, organization-wide decisions require greater input from campuses, leading to more conversations and meetings.

Control-driven organizations can move at a faster pace. With every campus utilizing the same plans, leaders do not spend time reinventing them. Campuses can also be launched at a faster rate because the approach is not being adjusted for each new location.

5. Rate of Innovation

Culture: Creativity at campuses
Control: Innovation at the top

Culture-driven organizations encourage creativity at the campus level. This widens the number of people trying new approaches and gives entrepreneurial leaders faster ground-level feedback. With that, innovation may take place at a faster rate.

In a control-driven church, innovation primarily takes place at the top. Central leaders develop new approaches for all campuses. This can decrease the number of new ideas and increase the amount of time it takes to get ground-level feedback. However, it also reduces the amount of staff required at each campus.

While each approach to alignment has advantages, it is critical to lean toward the one that supports your vision as well as the wisdom of the moment your church is in. If you’re trying to launch new campuses at a fast rate, control will often be required. If you’re more focused on developing your current locations, leading through culture will likely be a better fit. In either case, be clear with your campus and central leaders about how you are staying aligned. Otherwise, they will always be on different pages.

This is a guest post by Ryan Stigile. Ryan is the Director of Strategic Resources for The Unstuck Group. Previously, as Director of Expansion at NewPointe Community Church (NE Ohio), Ryan led the launch and development of new multisite campuses. With Mount Paran Church (Atlanta, GA), he guided the leadership team through a strategic change initiative to simplify and align its ministries. Ryan has a Master of Business Administration from Kennesaw State University and degrees in business administration and discipleship ministry from Lee University.

Photo Credit: kevin dooley via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

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Recent Thoughts about Church Planting from Ed Stetzer

Sunday, March 6, 2016

Last week Sun Valley Community Church (the church I have the privilege of serving at) hosted Ignite, the national church planting conference for Converge, which is one of the most successful church planting movements in the country.

While there Ed Stetzer, who among other things serves as the Executive Director of LifeWay Research had the following to say about church planting.

  • There is no biblical mandate to plant churches. The bible never says to plant churches. But it is implied. The whole New Testament is about church planting.
  • Most church plants don’t cross the 100-person threshold until year 4.
  • If we are not careful, church conferences can become “ministry porn” because of the unrealistic expectations it creates about reality.
  • Church planting is becoming increasingly more expensive.
  • As a church planter if your answer is “if the money doesn’t come through then I won’t plant the church,” then you probably shouldn’t plant the church if the money comes through.
  • If God calls you to do a thing you do a thing because Jesus calls you to do it.
  • Don’t be so committed to getting people out of the community you’re planting in that you forget to bless the community.
  • You need to know more about your city than anyone else…you can’t love a people if you don’t know a people
  • One of the modern dangers of church planting is that it’s possible to plant a church in a “non-relational way” today in a way you couldn’t years ago. That’s not what Jesus had in mind when He talked about the discipleship/relationship building movement He died for.
  • Plant a church that actually reflects true religion. Jesus came to serve and to save (true religion as defined in the book of James).
  • Serving the hurting is not Gospel proclamation it’s Gospel demonstration.
  • Today we are planting more churches than we are closing in the U.S.
  • I care more about Church Planters than I do about church planting.
Posted in Leadership

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10 Articles that will Help Your Church Make Better Hires

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Recruiting and hiring a new team member can be exciting! Hire the right person and the whole team benefits. When you invite the right person to join your team not only is there an infusion of new talent, but also new ideas, fresh eyes, and a new well of experiences to go to. One new hire can literally improve the performance of the entire team. On the other hand, hire the wrong person and the ministry at your church could be set back for years. Over the years I’ve written quite a bit about hiring and building staffing strategies in a church setting. Here are some of the more popular posts.

You are Who You Hire

The reason that a new hire is so powerful and pivotal is because people lead out of who they are and the organization or church always takes on the personality of the leader. In other words, you are who you hire. No matter what their skill set, abilities, experiences or personality is; people always lead through the filter of their unique identity.

You Just made a Great Hire…Now What?

Churches are notorious for racing to the finish line of a hiring process, getting the newly hired candidate in the room and breathing a collective sigh of relief. The typical church basically says, “Congratulations, you’re hired! Here are your keys. Now go figure it out.” Once the new hire is made you’re not done.

6 Reasons your Church should use a Search Firm to Make Your Next Hire

Hiring a new team member can be exciting because it means there is going to be fresh eyes on old problems and status quo ministry, new ideas, and a new well of experiences to go to. But sometimes the best move that you can make is to enlist the help of an Executive Search Firm.

5 Reasons I would Never Hire You

While at first pass this post may come off as negative, the goal I can assure you, is to be helpful. I’ve had to say no to more people than I’ve said yes to. My hope is that this post will help move you in the direction where you’d hear me, or someone else, say yes to you in the near future.

5 Common Hiring Mistakes that Churches Make

Churches are notorious for making well-intentioned bad hires. At most churches the hiring process usually goes wrong for one of the following 5 reasons.

6 Principles of Building a Staffing Strategy at your Church

Great teams don’t happen on accident. Over the past 15+ years of working with churches the best hires I’ve seen have always come through a well thought out staffing strategy. Based on that experience the following are 6 principles that I help churches think through when it comes to building a staffing strategy.

4 Steps to Making the Right Hire

Success is rarely stumbled upon, and great teams don’t just happen. They’re intentionally built with a keen understanding of where you are going, and not just what, but whom it’s going to take to get you there. That’s where making the right hire comes into play. The problem is that churches are notorious for making the wrong hire, and the usual culprit is a lack of any semblance of a hiring process.

When a Volunteer should become a Staff Member at your Church

In growing churches it’s not uncommon for high capacity volunteers to serve as and function like paid ministry staff members. Instead of paid staff members I’ve seen volunteers oversee entire ministry segments in a church even attending weekly staff meetings and staff retreats. But when is the right time to hire that person and move them from a volunteer to a paid staff member?

When to Hire from the Outside

In making your next hire the best place to begin is by looking for existing talent that is already inside the church or organization first. For more on that, check out part-1 of this post “When to Hire from the Inside.” But an inside hire may not always be the best hire. In fact here are three overarching principles that will help you understand when it’s time to go outside to make your next hire.

Why Hires go Wrong

When a hire goes right it fosters synergy, movement, and momentum. But when a hire goes wrong there are setbacks, losses, and ultimately the mission suffers. Below are the 2 most common mistakes made by churches, which lead them to making the wrong hires.

This next post is a little extra bonus to follow up on that last one: “What a Hire Gone Wrong will Cost You”

Posted in Staffing

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10 Articles that will Help Your Church Make Vision Real

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Thank you for making January a 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!

5 Reasons People Don’t Sing at your Church

We all want people engaging in worship, but what is really in our control and how can we help people connect through the music? Here is a list of factors that contribute to how people respond and engage during worship in our churches.

A Large Multisite Church in Phoenix is Hiring Worship Leaders/Pastors!

I’m pleased to announce a new Staff Search. Sun Valley Community Church, the church I have the honor of serving at, is beginning a national search for two new full-time Worship Leaders/Pastors.

How Many People should your Church have on Staff?

Before you buy into the idea that you need another staff person at your church, think again. That just may be the worst decision you make at your church this year.

4 Steps to Building an Intentional Culture in your Church in 2016

Building an intentional “culture” at your church is something a lot of people are talking these days but few people are actually doing. Truth is every church already has a culture, but most of them are built on accident.

When to Add Another Worship Service at your Church

Thinking about adding another worship service at your church? Here are five strategic concepts to consider before you do.

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.

5 Reasons Why the Church is an Anti-Leadership Organization

There are all kinds of threats and challenges facing the church these days. But underlying them all is one common denominator. The greatest crisis facing the modern day church is a crisis of leadership. Churches don’t naturally attract, develop, or keep leaders. But why?

How to Gain and Sustain Momentum at your Church

There is one resource that every organization needs and smart leaders seek out. It is a resource that cannot be purchased, borrowed or copied from someone else. Churches and organizations that have it, experience far greater wins than those that do not. Teams that have it perform at their best, without it they almost always flounder. It is a key determining factor in whether a church or ministry thrives or dies. It’s a single word. Momentum.

Stop Paying People to do Ministry

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.

6 Children’s Ministry Trends

Hear 6 Children’s Ministry trends directly from two very successful Children’s Ministry Leaders.

Photo Credit: justin fain via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership

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Ready to Make Multisite Work for Your Church?

Sunday, January 31, 2016

 

Join Tony Morgan and The Unstuck Group for a Free Webinar on Feb. 17

Is your church leadership team considering multisite as a part of your vision for the future? Or, are you already experiencing the unique challenges that come with being one church in multiple locations?

On February 17, we’re hosting a free webinar on Making Multisite Work.
There, we’ll be sharing the following:

  • 5 Factors That Distinguish Successful Multisite Churches
  • How to Know When Your Church is “Big Enough” for Multisite
  • How Multisite Churches Structure for Decision-Making
  • What to Look for When Selecting a Campus Pastor

Plus, additional research from surveying over 100 multisite leaders.

This webinar will be hosted by Tony Morgan along with members of The Unstuck Group. This is a group that believes multisite churches have the potential to lead more people in more places into a relationship with Jesus. That passion is built on a combined 40 years of leadership experience in several of the nations largest multisite churches.

Will you join us as we discuss how you can make multisite work for your own church?

Follow this link to register and join us for this exciting conversation on February 17, 1:00pm EST.

Posted in Leadership
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