Tag Archive - plan

0

8 Keys to Changing your Church in 2017

Most church leaders I’ve talked with want things to change for the better, they want this year to be better than last year, but they don’t want to do anything different. People always want to change their circumstances, but they never want to change their lives. But everything gets better when we get better. Families get better when fathers and mothers get better. Students get better when educators get better. Organizations get better when leaders get better. And churches get better when church leaders get better. But change is painful. Don’t let anyone tell you any different. It’s always easier and more comfortable to stay where you are than to change and move forward. But if you want to grow at some point you’ve got to stop doing what’s easy and start doing what’s right. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind as you lead your church through change in 2017.

1. Get the Brutal Facts

The first place to start with change is where you are. You have to define reality and clearly understand what reality is today and why you’re here. Not what you think reality is or why you think you’re here. This takes courage to ask difficult questions and then listen more than talk and it usually comes with a pretty healthy dose of humility. If you don’t start here you’re likely to solve the wrong problems, take the wrong steps, or repeat the past.

2. Take Personal Responsibility

Often times churches don’t change because they mistakenly think that change is something that happens to them instead of something that happens in them. The change that you want to see happen in your life and in your church is no one’s responsibility but your own. You get to choose if you are going to grow and change or not. If you’ve been at your church for more than 3 years then stop blaming the prior administration and start leading.

3. Provide Clarity

If you don’t like where things are at in your church is right now, the good news is it doesn’t have to stay that way. You can change it. But change doesn’t come without clarity and it’s the leaders responsibility to provide clarity on what needs to change and what the preferred future looks like. The greater clarity the church has the faster you can make decisions and the more effectively you can move towards your future.

4. Don’t Overreach

Too much change can be the enemy of change. In fact if you reach further than you have the ability to execute you can actually cripple the church for years to come. You didn’t get where you are in a moment but a series of moments. You’re not going to get to you’re preferred future in a moment either. Instead, plan your work and work your plan.

5. Find a Coach

Leaders aren’t going around looking for someone to mentor or coach; they’re too busy leading. If you want a mentor or coach then you’ve got to chase after someone who has something you want until you catch them. Leaders press into people who press into them. You need to grow as a leader for your church to grow. Maybe it’s time to enlist a coach.

6. Rework your Team

Show me the top 5 decision makers at your church and I’ll show you what your church is going to look like in 5 years. Sometimes reworking your team is the right next step to take. Don’t be afraid to make personnel changes this year. But be careful and do this wisely. We’re not building widgets, we’re making disciples. The staff at your church aren’t cogs in a machine that can easily be replaced, they’re people to be developed and deployed.

7. Stop Hoping for things to Change

A majority of churches make the mistake of sitting around hoping for their “ship to come in,” some pivotal magic moment that’s going to change everything. What’s missed in all of this waiting and hoping is that the secret of growing and changing is doing a little every day. Long-term change is determined by your daily agenda. Hope is not a strategy. Take some advice from legendary basketball coach John Wooden that said, “You make the choice and then the choice makes you.”

8. Get some Fresh Eyes

Sometimes you simply need fresh eyes, someone from the outside to help you see things differently. Sometimes you need an outside voice to say some things that you want to say but can’t. And sometimes you’re just stuck and need help. If that’s your church then maybe the best step you can take to change things at your church is to engage the Unstuck Group. We help churches grow their impact through church consulting and coaching experiences designed to focus vision, strategy and action.


Posted in Leadership

2

Hope is Not a Strategy

Hoping things will get better at your church won’t help things actually get better at your church. In fact the opposite may actually be true. The Bible says this about hope in Proverbs 13:12

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”

In other words when we place our hope in something that doesn’t come through it makes our hearts sick. Faith isn’t magic. It won’t automatically make your church everything you and Jesus want it to be.

But putting your faith and hope in a well executed plan that will help you your church take steps of obedience in becoming what Jesus wants His Church to be, that’s a different story. That brings fulfillment to peoples hearts and builds trust between church leaders and their congregations.

Plans Don’t Self-Execute

Nothing works until you do. It doesn’t matter how great your plan is, no plan self executes. Every great ministry started as a great idea, but not every great idea turns into a great ministry. Some of the key reasons why things fall apart when it comes time to actually execute the strategy is a lack of simple good old fashion work ethic, effort, follow through and accountability. Nothing works until you do.

You Get What You Tolerate

If you don’t like the way things are in your church today and you’ve been a part of the leadership team for more than 3 years (less than that and you can blame the prior administration) than most likely it’s because you’ve allowed it to be what it is. You’ve tolerated bad or sloppy behavior and it’s become institutionalized in the culture of the church.

The Best Predictor of Future Performance is Past Behavior

If you really want to know what the future holds for your church, if things are really going to get better or not, then start looking at the current and past behaviors and decisions of the leadership team. If you are hoping to get different results with the same tactics and decisions you’ve made before, then your hope is probably misplaced. The best way to predict a better future is to create it with different strategies and actions than you’ve taken before.

Things are Supposed to get Worse

Don’t forget that Jesus Himself described that things would get worse before He came back to make everything right. Things don’t drift towards unity, completion, discipline, success, health, growth, or whatever your picture of “better” is. Things naturally fall apart, grow old, and die. It’s the nature of things post-fall. Left alone, things drift towards failure.

Photo Credit: DieselDemon via Compfight cc


Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation, Staffing

0

10 Articles that will Help your Church Make Vision Real

Thank you for making July 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!

If it’s not on a Screen it’s not Multisite

It may be multi-congregational or even a family of churches, but it’s not a multisite church.

How many Staff 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 Bad Habits that Young Church Leaders Need to Break

Before you read this, please understand that I love and am for young leaders. After all, I was one once. But there are some really bad habits that young church leaders are exhibiting that need to be broken if they have any hope or chance of having the deep and broad Kingdom impact that they’re dreaming of.

Vision is a Destination NOT a Statement

Vision is a destination, not a statement. Many churches spend an incredible amount of time wordsmithing pithy vision statements instead of providing a clear picture of where they’re going. What a majority of churches view as their vision statement is usually a mission statement.

9 Reasons I’m Still Married after 20 Years

Lisa and I recently celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. And while sitting on a white sand beach under an umbrella overlooking the ocean (don’t hate) we talked about these 9 reasons why we’re still married, and legitimately enjoying our marriage more than ever, after 20 years.

How to Develop the Young Talent on your Church Staff

A lot of people are talking about a leadership crisis facing the church. Where are the next generation leaders going to come from to pick up the mantle of this movement called the church? While many are fretting and talking about it few are doing much about it.

How to Speed up Decision Making at your Church

After working with over 25 churches across the country this past year, I realized there is a common challenge that growing churches face. It’s a challenge that frustrates leaders, slows progress in critical areas, and causes an undercurrent of strain between teammates. This challenge is lack of clarity around decision making. When churches are small, and there are a few leaders who lead the church, it’s pretty clear who makes what calls. But as churches grow and more leaders are added to the team, it’s not long before confusion sets in around “Who gets to make what decisions”. Often all decisions start to feel like we have to have total consensus to move on anything. Did I mention frustration sets in?

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.

Why the Key to Flexibility in Leadership is Planning

A good plan that can’t be changed is a bad plan. If you’re inflexible you’re going to find executing a plan to be nearly impossible.

Managing the Tension between Culture and Control in a Multisite Church

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.

Photo Credit: justin fain via Compfight cc


Posted in Leadership

3

Where there’s a Huddle there’s a Team

How do you know if the volunteer teams at your church are really working? I don’t mean are they getting stuff done and meeting objectives, I mean are they developing people. After all the point of building volunteer teams at your church isn’t just to use people to accomplish objectives but rather to create opportunities and relationships to develop people.

Team huddles are one of the most overlooked opportunities by many church staff, and yet they are one of the easiest tactics to implement and they bear a disproportionate amount of fruit.

Simply put where there’s a team there’s a huddle. No huddle…no team. So go looking for huddles at your church. If you don’t see any you may be using people instead of developing them.

Team huddles are evidence of…

Leadership

When you see a team huddle that means someone is leading. Someone is getting the team together and calling the plays.

Planning

When you see a team huddle you can rest assured that someone is doing some planning. They’re sharing that plan with the team and helping everyone know how they’re going to accomplish what they’re going to accomplish that day.

Coordination

When you see a team huddle you can know that people are working together in a coordinated fashion. Yes someone has planed the plays and called the plays but it takes everyone blocking the right scheme, picking up their individual assignments, running the right routes, and putting the ball where it needs to go at the right time for the team to win. That’s called coordination.

Development

You know people are being developed when you see a team huddle. Tasks are being delegated and people are being empowerment to make decisions. Responsibility is being shared and young growing leaders are learning to build trust.

Encouragement

You can know that people are being encouraged when you see team huddles. People are celebrating what was accomplished on the last play and individuals on the team are being called out and honored for doing a great job.

If your church isn’t using team huddles try having each volunteer team start and end with a huddle using the tactics above. Try it for 30 days…you may be surprised by the results.


Posted in Leadership, Volunteers

0

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.

Great organizations prepare for opportunity. Preparation is all about positioning. Making decisions today that position you for opportunities that may come tomorrow. The Roman philosopher Seneca is credited with saying, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” In other words luck favors the prepared. Lucky organizations are prepared organizations.

Great organizations plan for the future. In fact they plan their work and then they work their plan. Planning is all about inflicting your will on the future, and the best way to have a preferred future is to plan for a preferred future. Great organizations have an uncanny ability to build a clear strategy and exercise laser focused discipline as they execute the strategy.

So what is your church doing today to prepare for opportunities that may come your way tomorrow? What are you uniquely doing to position yourself to be able to say yes to opportunities that Jesus brings your way? At the same time what is your church doing to build a clear strategy that, coupled with disciplined execution, moves you towards the vision that Jesus has given you for the church you’re leading?

Fortunately the Unstuck Group has experience helping churches build a clear strategy that aligns the church and provides steps to move you towards the vision Jesus has called you to. You should really check it out!


Posted in Leadership
Page 2 of 4«1234»