7 Core Issues that your Church Needs to Address in 2016

Tag Archive - leadership

7 Core Issues that your Church Needs to Address in 2016

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Recently I had the opportunity to facilitate a round table discussion for Executive Pastors of large churches. Nearly 20 large churches were represented in the discussion. We began by working through an exercise to identify the greatest pressure points that the group was experiencing at their churches and then we used those key items as our agenda for the conversation that ensued the following two days. Below are the 7 biggest items that consumed our time and energy. If you’re anything like these churches, then the following 7 Core Issues are items that the Sr. Leadership Team at your church needs to address in 2016.

#1 Multisite

According to the most recent research conducted by Leadership Network there are nearly 8,000 churches in the U.S. that have adopted a multisite model. Yet few would say that they’ve perfected it. Instead most are faced with a new set of challenges that they never anticipated. Ready to make Multisite work for your church? Don’t miss this free Multisite webinar hosted by Tony Morgan and the Unstuck Group!

#2 Volunteers

Volunteering is discipleship. It’s not just about roles that need to be filled anymore but people that need to be developed. The role of the Church Staff Member isn’t to do the ministry but to equip the church to do the ministry. While most church staff would generally agree to that statement, few are actually doing it. Want to learn more about developing an effective Volunteer Strategy at your Church? Check out these 10 Articles that will Help your Church Build a Stronger Volunteer Culture.

#3 Re-Structuring for Growth

Your church is perfectly structured for the size and results you’re getting today. But like most churches, it’s probably not structured for growth. What is the next staff re-organization that your church needs to make in order to prepare for, accommodate and even catalyze growth?

#4 Generosity

Wherever you find people who truly understand grace you’ll find people who are generous. Money can be a difficult subject for church leaders to talk about with their churches. At times it can come off as though churches want something from their people instead of something for them. Does your church have an effective generosity strategy? This post will help: “20 Ways Church Leaders can Help their Church become More Generous”

#5 Staff Development

How deep is the leadership bench at your church? Most churches are struggling to identify their up and coming young leaders. Is your church attracting, identifying, and intentionally developing young leaders? Most are hopeful that it will somehow happen, but hope isn’t a strategy. Check out these 10 Articles that will Help your Church Develop Young Leaders.

#6 Discipleship Pathway

The majority of churches in North America have no true discipleship pathway. They may have a class or a multitude of ministries that compete for time, promotion, money, and participation. But they do not have a true clear strategic pathway for people who are new to following Jesus to move towards knowing and following Him. What is the next step that you want people to take at your church to become a more fully devoted follower of Jesus?

#7 Communication Strategy

In most churches a weekend bulletin and announcements in the worship service is the extent of their communication strategy. And most of the ministries in the church are competing for “air time” on those announcements. If it’s not announced from the stage they spam people to death with constant emails, to the point that they are ignored. Interested in learning more about church communications? Check out these 10 Findings from New Research on Church Communications.

It would be worth talking about this list of Core Issues for Churches in 2016 with the Sr. Leadership Team at your church to make sure you’re all on the same page with how you’re addressing them.

Posted in Leadership

How to Gain and Sustain Momentum at your Church

Sunday, January 24, 2016

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. Momentum is the force of your organization’s forward movement toward fulfilling its mission. Take a few seconds and rate your current organizational momentum in the ministry or church you lead?

Momentum Scale

Stuck—No momentum
Losing Speed
Maintaining
Gaining Speed
Advancing (Unstoppable)

If you are 3 or below, your church or ministry needs a boost of momentum. If you ranked yourself a 4 or 5, momentum is present but you need to be sure you know how to sustain momentum. Creating and sustaining momentum requires understanding what gets people moving. Take a look at this definition.

Momentum is sustained motivation over time. There is a very real relationship between organizational momentum and personal motivation. As personal motivation goes up and to the right so does momentum. As motivation diminishes in your team, among your attenders or even within yourself, momentum loss is inevitable. It’s motivation that gets you moving. Now rate the motivation level of your team. Where do they fall on the scale below? Rate yourself? People will rarely be more motivated than their leader. How do you rank?

Motivation Scale

Discouraged
Losing motivation
Maintaining
Gaining Motivation
Driven

How do your momentum and motivation scales compare? If your team is like most teams, high momentum scores go hand in hand with high motivation scores. The reverse is true as well.

So, what does it take to be motivated or to motivate someone else? There are two necessary ingredients: clarity and energy. Here is another way to say it. Motivation requires clarity of vision and energy to make it reality.

Clarity

Clear motives create real motivation. If there is confusion among your team they will be less motivated to get moving. When the vision is fuzzy few people follow. If momentum seems low, ask yourself these questions.

Have I been crystal clear about my expectations?
Have I given those I am leading really clear short term and long-term goals?
Are my values clear enough to define the behaviors of my team?
Can my team imagine and articulate your organizations preferred future?
Have I clearly defined our strategy and trained the best practices for ministry?

Energy

The other necessary ingredient of motivation is energy. You may see clearly where you want to go, but without energy you will never get there. Ask yourself what fuels your team members and what drains your team members. Become an expert in what energizes them. Here is a quick list of energy boosters.

Trust: People are energized when they follow a leader who is trustworthy, consistent, caring and competent.
Fun: Laughter lifts the spirit. Game nights, outings and fun surprises fill the tank.
Rest: How much time is your team getting to refresh? Challenge them to get real rest not just vegging out in front of the television. Model it.
Exercise: There is a clear link between physical exertion and motivation. The more motivated they are to be physically healthy the more likely they are to be motivated in other areas of life.
Relationships: Meaningful relationships in our life fill the tank. Create ways to build relationships among the staff or volunteers.
Faith: Provide opportunities for your team to grow spiritually. Coach them on how to cultivate a personal devotional life with Jesus. Again, model it.

Ask yourself this question? What can I do this month to focus and fuel my team? How do I give clarity and energy to my ministry leaders? The best way to start is to simply ask these two questions. What is currently unclear or confusing? What gives you energy?

Motivation is not created overnight, but with intentionality it will grow and so will the momentum of your organization or team.

This is a guest post by Brian LaMew who serves as the Campus Pastor at the Tempe Campus of Sun Valley Community Church. You can keep up with Brian on Twitter or Facebook.

Posted in Leadership

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

Sunday, January 10, 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.

Culture is that squishy stuff in an organization that’s hard to get your hands around and define. It’s reflected in the language of the organization, the way people who are a part of the organization dress, the filter they use to make decisions and so on. Culture has been defined as the sum total of the attitude, values and behaviors of an organization. And of course Peter Drucker, who is commonly referred to as the “father of modern management,” was famously quoted as saying the following about culture:

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast”

If that’s true, and if culture really is so important then how do you purposefully build culture in your church? Say you want to build a culture of volunteerism, generosity, outreach, or discipleship; what steps would you take? Building a purposeful culture in a church doesn’t have to remain a mystery you can do it by following the following steps. All four steps are equally important, but most pastors usually only think about the first two.

1. Preach = Inspiration & Motivation

This answers the question, “Why should I do it?”

Words build worlds. In other words language matters, it matters a lot. We do this with our kids at home you probably do too. Like most kids my kids fight from time to time and sometimes it gets a little carried away. When this happens I’ll ask my son, “Are you strong?” and he’ll respond by saying, “Yea Daddy, I’m strong!” I’ll then ask him, “Who made you strong?” and he’ll reply, “Jesus made me strong.” Next I ask, “Why did Jesus make you strong?” to which he says, “To take care of people.” Next comes the question of clarity, I’ll ask him if he used his strength to take care of his brother or his sisters (whoever the fight was with). This has become normal language in our home and as a result the culture of our home is teaching him that his gifts are from Jesus and they have been given to him for the purpose of helping others, not simply to be spent on himself.

Example: Do a teaching series on biblical community and groups. Demonstrate and inspire from the Bible why it’s unacceptable to do life alone.

2. Teach = Instruction & Application

This answers the question, “How should I do it?”

Teaching is all about offering and training very specific steps that you want people to take that will move them towards the activities you want them to be involved in and the attitudes and behaviors you want them to demonstrate.

Example: Create a clear step that people can take to get into a Small Group.

3. Model = Illustration & Examples

This answers the question, “Are you buying what you’re selling?”

In other words are you authentic? Do you use your own product? This is a simple issue of leading with moral authority.

Example: All of our Staff are in groups and we’re leading the way, join us and get in a group too.

4. Celebrate = Celebration & Reinforcement

This answers the question, “What do you value?”

What gets celebrated gets repeated. What you cheer on and value in your church builds culture in your church. This may sound elementary, but if you’re a parent you’ll get what I’m about to say. There’s a reason you reward a kid when you’re potty training them with an M&M and cheer them on when they use the toilet. At no other time in your life will people cheer you on when you use the toilet. But when you’re training someone to do something for the first time, what you celebrate gets repeated.

Example: Publicly make “heroes” of and celebrate stories of people who got involved in a group and how their life was impacted and changed through biblical community.

Posted in Leadership

Attitude: The Unspoken Asset of Leadership

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

One of the greatest moments in the history of the NASA space program began with the statement, “Houston, we have a problem.” An oxygen tank on the spacecraft Apollo 13, piloted by John Swigert, had just exploded. The Director of NASA quipped that this could be the worst disaster in the history of NASA. Gene Kranz, the Flight Director, quickly interrupted the Director by stating, “With all due respect Sir, I think this is going to be our finest hour.” He then clearly, firmly, yet calmly belted out to the staff that was franticly scurrying around, “Work the problem!”

That room was full of very intelligent, very experienced, and very capable people. But what made the difference that day was attitude. When facing a problem, success or failure has more to do with our attitude than our ability.

The greatest moments of any individual or organization always come through our greatest obstacles. And when those obstacles come along, the best leaders always live on the solution side of every issue.

This isn’t just some cute pithy idea that’s been ripped off from the Business World. This is straight out of God’s Word. The book of Proverbs is littered with comments about attitude and the Apostle Paul hits this topic multiple times in the book of Philippians. In Ephesians he writes…

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience – among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ”
Ephesians 2:1-10

…in other words…
God made your biggest problem His biggest problem, and then He solved it.

4 Ways Church Leaders Approach Problems

1. Victims: Avoid Problems

These leaders focus on the problem not the solution. Instead of dealing with the problem they ignore it hoping it will magically go away. You’ll often find them complaining and venting. They’re pretty sure that the problem they find themselves in is something that happened to them and they can’t do anything about it.

Move from a Victim to an Owner by taking Personal Responsibility

2. Owners: Own the Problem

These leaders not only identify the problem and what’s not working, but they begin to diagnose why it’s not working even taking ownership for what they’ve done to contribute to the problem by intention or neglect. They’re still not coming up with solutions but they understand the problem. By the way if you’ve been in a ministry for more than 3 years and don’t like what you’ve got then look in the mirror. If you’ve been there less than 3 years, go ahead and blame your predecessor.

Move from an Owner to a Solver by Working the Problem

3. Solvers: Solve the Problem

These leaders not only accurately diagnose problems but they come up with great solutions. They’re not afraid to involve others in the process because they believe the team outperforms the individual.

Move from a Solver to a Creative by Viewing Problems as Opportunities.

4. Creatives: Leverage the Problem

These leaders actually leverage problems because they understand that every problem is an opportunity to build and reinforce the culture that they’re trying to build. They know that big problems breed innovation, resourcefulness, and tenacity in a team. The best leaders actually intentionally create crisis (problems) if things are going too well to keep the organization from drifting towards complacency.

Your attitude matters because it catches. Is your attitude worth catching?

Posted in Leadership

Page 40 of 87« First...10 20 30 «38 394041 42 »50 60 70...Last »