Tag Archive - silo

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9 Big Decisions that will Change your Church

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to sit down with a group of Executive Pastors who are serving in churches of 5,000+ and during the conversation I heard them talk about some of the best decisions they’ve made over the recent history of their churches that have made the greatest impact. I thought I’d share some of those thoughts here with you and give you the opportunity to learn from some incredible leaders that are in the trenches! Could it be that one of these decisions is the one that will make all the difference this year at your church?

1. Define our Staff Culture

Many churches have cultural values but haven’t taken the time to define what they’re looking for in a leadership or staff culture. While you can spend a lot of time and energy on this, a simple place to start is to simply make a list of your top 10 employees (regardless of role or seniority) and why they’re your top-10. That’s the culture you’re looking for. This is a great exercise to do as a Senior Leadership Team.

2. Bust up Ministry Silos

Many churches are more like a collection of different ministries operating under one roof competing for building space, staffing, volunteers, and budget resources than they are a singularly focused team aligned to take on a God-sized vision. Trying to cut through the ministry silos at your church? This blog series from my friend and teammate at the Unstuck Group, Tony Morgan, will help.

3. Participate in the “Best Christian Workplace” Survey

The Best Christian Workplaces Institute started with a question: “What makes an exceptional place to work?” Mentioned by Bill Hybles at the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit, this survey will help you diagnose and improve the organizational health of your church.

4. Hire someone to Focus on Stewardship

Hire someone to put full-time attention on finances. Not a CFO but rather someone to develop revenue. Put them in charge of developing and implementing a holistic generosity strategy at your church. Chances are they’ll pay for themselves in the first 6 months – or less.

5. Move to a Teaching Team Model

Instead of relying on just one communicator develop a teaching team. This doesn’t mean using the weekend service to develop a young communicator or experiment on your people. There are plenty of other venues in the church to do that. When done well this allows your church to hear multiple voices, personalities, and approaches to the scriptures. When working together properly they strengthen the weekly message and one guy doesn’t have to shoulder the grind of hitting a home run every week!

6. Lean into the Lead Pastor

The Lead Pastor sets the culture, plain and simple. So as a Sr. Leadership Team take the time to figure out what makes the Lead Pastor tick. What’s most important to them, what’s least important to them? What’s their approach and style? Lean into that and build on it organizationally.

7. Expand the Sr. Leadership Team

Centralizing everything through one person slows things down. While someone has to lead the Sr. Leadership Team, a team needs to be built because you can’t know everything or make every decision – or you become the lid. But then again staffing models are only as good as the people that are on the team, the personalities that are at the top, and the culture of the church. Healthy churches hold onto their organizational structure loosely – because they’re growing and they know it’s going to require flexibility.

8. Develop a Residency Program

Great churches develop leaders. Intentionally charting out a clear path to develop future leaders including a volunteer leadership pipeline, an internship program, or residency. One church built a 2 year residency for degreed pastors in training to get the practical experience they need to lead a church. Not only do they send out equipped pastors but they get the opportunity to hire people who understand their culture because they’ve been in it for 2 years!

9. Hire a Consulting Firm

Having the fresh perspective of outside professionals who know what it means to lead in the trenches of the local church and bring years of experience of working with forward moving churches to the table is one of the best decisions a Sr. Leadership Team can make. I’m not biased or anything but I know a great Consulting Group that I’d recommend. Check out the Unstuck Group!

What’s the best decision you’ve made at your church this last year that’s made the greatest impact? What decision do you need to make this year that will make the greatest impact in the future? I’d love to hear your thoughts! Leave a comment!

Photo Credit: Rusty Clark via Compfight cc


Posted in Leadership

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5 Self-Inflicted Wounds that Keep Churches Stuck

Churches get stuck for all kinds of reasons. And while no church I’ve ever worked with has ever set out with the goal of being stuck, most eventually become stuck at some point along the way. Unfortunately the majority of churches that are stuck get that way not because of some insurmountable obstacle that is put in place by the enemy, but rather they become stuck due to self-inflicted wounds.  Bad decisions that seem right in the moment, but lead to the church being stuck. Here are a few common self-inflicted wounds I’ve seen happen to churches:

1. Blended Worship Services

In an effort to make everyone happy churches often attempt blend multiple in-congruent worship styles together into one service. The result? Instead of making everyone happy, everyone is frustrated because no one really gets what they want. This has failed over and over again, and yet I still see churches try to do blended services. They simply don’t work.

2. Quick Hires

Quick hires are usually hires based on convenience not mission. Every new hire you make either moves you closer to your mission or further away. It either helps you become more of who God wants you to be and further galvanizes your culture or erodes it. Sure, fire quickly. But hire slowly, because you put your culture at stake every time you make a new hire.

3. Departmentalizing Ministries

Occasionally I’ve been asked this question by a well-meaning church attender, “How much money does the church give to missions?” My reply is always the same, “100%., the whole thing is missions.” They quickly clarify that what they’re really asking, “Is how much money is sent overseas?” I could write a couple of posts on this subject, so I’ll spare you. Suffice to say, those of you who know me, understand how much the nations, not just our neighbors, mean to me. But ultimately that question leads to departmentalization. Churches get stuck when they create a missions department, discipleship department, or worship department etc. The whole thing is evangelism. The whole thing is discipleship. The whole thing is worship. This kind of thinking leads to silos and competing systems…and ultimately being stuck. Like I said…I can get rambling on that one.

4. Keeping Christians Happy

Many churches have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the church is for. Instead of being for people who have not yet said yes to following Jesus, many churches fall into the trap of believing they exist to provide nice safe programing for Christians for the purpose of biblical education. They eventually become insider focused and begin making decisions based on who they want to keep instead of who they want to reach. By the way I’m not sure God’s as interested in the happiness of his people as He is their holiness.

5. Feeding the Past

Ministry programs that experienced success in the past should be celebrated, just not fed. Everything drifts from the future to the past. Ministry that once reached outsiders eventually drifts towards impacting insiders and needs to be reinvented or it will ultimately become obsolete.

 Is your church stuck in one of these or another area? The Unstuck Group, the consulting firm I’m a part of specializes in helping church get unstuck. We’d be happy to help you move from where you are, to where God wants you to be. Let’s talk!


Posted in Leadership

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It’s Not My Job

“It’s not my job,” is more than an excuse. It’s one of the most destructive cultural statements you’ll ever hear in any church or organization. Whenever you hear this phrase popping up you’re sure to find the following destructive behaviors lurking beneath the surface:

1. Turf wars and Competition

Competition can be healthy when it drives new ideas, innovation, improvement, and pushes the organization forward. But competition can go south when it turns into turf wars, jealousy and undermining the progress and overall good of the organization. Team members need to remember when one person or department wins the whole organization wins. It’s not my job.

2. Silos

When each ministry in the church is looking out for its own interests, you’ve got silos. They go beyond just a lack of communication and collaboration around a centralized vision. Silos show up most predominately in the approach ministries take to staffing, time allocation, ministry budgets, calendaring, communication strategies, and facility or resource usage. It’s not my job.

3. Politics

Organizational politics are at play when the vision and goals of a church or organization begin to take a back seat to the goals and agenda of an individual or particular department. This turns into manipulation, triangulation, end rounds, and all kinds of ugly destructive behaviors.  It’s not my job.

 4. Laziness

Often times this phrase is simply an excuse to get out of work. There’s a difficult conversation to be had or a difficult task to be accomplished. And instead of shouldering responsibility and getting things done many people shrink back and make excuses. It’s not my job.

5. Lack of Buy-in to the Vision

When you start to hear this phrase thrown around you can bet that you’ve got a team full of employees not owners, followers not leaders. At the end of the day if you’re the lowest level employee in an organization or the Sr. Leader in the organization your job is the vision. No job should be below you…or above you…because the vision is your job. It’s not my job.

“It’s not my job,” is a passive aggressive shift of responsibility that people make in a vain attempt to somehow protect themselves from consequences.

You’ll never hear the phrase, “It’s not my job,” come out of the mouth of a leader. Because the very nature of a leader is to run into the gap, into the fray, make things happen and get on the solution side of things. Leaders accept responsibility and move things forward.


Posted in Leadership
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