Does your Church need to Sacrifice something Sacred?

Tag Archive - spiritual

Does your Church need to Sacrifice something Sacred?

Sunday, November 5, 2017

Knowing when to end a ministry can be tough, taking the right approach to how to end it can be even more difficult. Starting a new ministry initiative at your church is usually fun, exciting and is often full of new engagement with new people and is typically coupled with momentum.

If your church has been around for a while you’ve probably started some new ministry initiatives over the years. The trouble is, everything you start you need to work to sustain. Then eventually that ministry runs its natural life-cycle and you’ve got to make a decision. Do you kill it or let it die a natural death?

Chances are your church has some “sacred cow” ministries that have been around for a long time, have a great history, have had a great impact in the past, but are on life support now. Does your church need to sacrifice some of these sacred cows?

The Danger Zone

The most dangerous ministry to continue to invest in at your church is a ministry that keeps insiders (people who already know Jesus) happy but doesn’t reach outsiders (new people). These ministries probably still have a lot of people engaged in them and at one point were full of new people and stories of life-change. As the ministry has reached “maturity” now the people engaged in them really enjoy the relationships they’ve built over time. They’re not necessarily bad, they just don’t reach new people. They may not have even started to show decline yet, but you know that they’ve effectually “jumped the shark.” That’s what’s so dangerous. These ministries need careful attention and skill applied to move them back over to the upward slope of the life-cycle or they’ll continue to drift towards decline and eventual death.

Foolishness

It’s possible that your church is still investing heavily in some ministries that aren’t producing many results. If we’re following the plan Jesus laid out for His Church, the results we’re chasing are life-change. However, many churches are still investing resources like staffing, finances, time, communication horsepower, and emotional energy into ministries that are producing little life-change. The book of Proverbs would call that foolishness.

New Opportunities

If you’ve got new opportunities to help new people say yes to following Jesus but you can’t fuel those new ministry initiatives because you’re still investing heavily in ministries that aren’t producing much life-change it’s probably time to kill some sacred cows. It’s surprising how often church leaders forget that that pruning is a biblical concept. You can’t follow Jesus and stay where you are personally, so why would we think that our churches can follow Jesus and stay where they are at the same time? Something needs to change.

Kill it OR let it Die?

It takes just as much skill and courage to end a ministry as it does to start one, sometimes even more. When a ministry is nearing its end, you’ve got a decision to make, do you kill it or let it die a natural death. The answer is it depends. Is it a barrier to launching and investing in the new ministry initiative you feel led to begin? Is it creating organizational drag? Are you and your team investing a disproportioned amount of time, money, volunteers, and emotional energy into it? If so, it may be time to kill it. If not, then why create unnecessary pain for yourself and everyone else, just let it die a natural death.

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation

Leadership can’t be Taught in a Classroom

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

I’ve never worked with a church that said they didn’t need more leaders. No, many churches, even healthy growing churches I’ve worked with mention two big hurdles that they feel are holding them back from accomplishing the vision God has given them; leaders and money. In fact I’ve been surprised to hear in recent conversations the amount of churches searching for an off the shelf solution that they can plug and play in their church in a hope that they will develop more leaders.

There is probably more accessible, solid leadership content available to the church leaders today than ever before. But even with the wealth of legitimately excellent leadership content available at their fingertips, it doesn’t seem like churches are producing any more leaders than they have before. One reason that is the case is that churches continue to buy into a couple of fundamental flaws when it comes to thinking about leadership development.

Leadership isn’t Information

Leadership isn’t learned in a classroom, by reading books, or by sitting around drinking coffee or whatever your beverage of choice is and pontificating about leadership ideas and principles or worse, arm chair quarterbacking other leaders. Leadership is learned by leading. It’s something you simply can’t understand until you do it, you have to exercise that muscle to develop and strengthen it. The Bible teaches us that, “knowledge puffs up while love builds up” (1 Corinthians 8:1). If information was the same thing as maturity then the most mature people walking around when Jesus was walking the Earth were the Pharisees. They knew more about the Scriptures than anyone and they ended up having Jesus crucified. Not very mature huh? Leadership is a lot like love. You can’t say you love someone and not act on it…it has to show up at some point. Or you don’t love them.

Leadership isn’t a Program

Leadership can’t be developed using an off the shelf curriculum or program that you plug and play at your church. You are the leadership development program at your church. Leaders don’t build followers they build leaders. Stop using leadership programs as a crutch and excuse because you don’t have time to do this. If you’re the leader then lead…and build other leaders.

Leadership Skills can be Acquired

Even if you don’t have a leadership gift you can develop, practice, and perfect leadership skills. You can acquire new skills…even leadership skills.

A Leadership Gift can be Developed

According to the Bible, leadership is actually a spiritual gift (Romans 12:6-8). A gift not given to everyone, and to those it is given to, it’s not given in equal measure. But that gift no matter how great or small can be developed and grown.

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation, Staffing

Leadership Is Not What You Think It Is

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Leadership isn’t what you think it is. It isn’t a title, power, influence or being in charge. Just because you have it doesn’t mean you’ll be respected or honored for it. It isn’t a position on an organizational chart and it can’t be taught in a classroom. Contrary to popular belief in a majority of churches being a great communicator doesn’t make you a great leader. It’s more than simply having the insight to know what the next right step to take is.

It’s something you either have…or you don’t. And just because you have it doesn’t mean you have as much of it as another leader. In Romans 12:6-8 the Bible defines leadership as a spiritual gift.

“We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.”

If I don’t have the gift of giving does that mean I don’t have to be generous? If I don’t have the gift of mercy does that mean I don’t have a responsibility to act mercifully? If I don’t have the gift of encouragement does that mean I have an excuse for not encouraging others? If I don’t have the gift of serving does that mean I don’t need to put others before myself and serve them?

Of course not…

If you are in a position of leadership you have the responsibility to develop your leadership skills even if you do not have a significant leadership gift.

Is everybody a leader? No. Not according to the Bible. But everyone can learn leadership skills and become a better leader. And when leaders get better, everything around them gets better.

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation

Leadership Summit 2016: Danielle Strickland

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Danielle Strickland who serves as an Officer in the Salvation Army, an Advocate and author provided Summit attenders an incredible challenge to provide spiritual leadership to followers not just leadership skills that you’ve picked up along the way.

There’s a difference between spiritual leadership and good regular leadership

“True peace is not the absence of conflict it’s the presence of justice” Martin Luther King Jr.
The world is crying out for “rightness” for all of the wrong things to be made right
Draw a horizontal line – label it “true humility” – one end of that line is insecurity the other end is arrogance
True humility = agreeing with God about who you are
Go in the strength you already have – you already are who you are – the leader’s job is to call people into who they already are
God wants you for who you are
Draw a vertical line – label it “true dependency” – the top is self sufficiency the bottom is co-dependency
This is agreeing with God about who He is
Most of us live our lives in such a self-sufficient manner that we don’t need God to show up except for a good parking space
Agree with God about who you are and who He is and take that peace you find into all the world

Posted in Leadership

Is your Church Overthinking Discipleship?

Sunday, May 29, 2016

At the Unstuck Group we’ve discovered an alarming trend in churches across America. When we lead a church through our strategic planning process we help them discover several “core issues” that that are holding them back from being the church that God has called them to be. In a study that we conducted more than any other issue churches identified creating a solid discipleship strategy as the most pressing issue they are facing.

It’s a concerning trend, especially given the final commission given by Jesus to His followers before He left Earth. Over the years sermons have been preached, consultants have been hired, volumes have been written, para-church organizations have been built and churches have hired any number of staff members to solve the discipleship problem that churches identify. With all of that I wonder if we haven’t just over-complicated discipleship. Could we be overthinking this? Let me offer up a simpler definition of discipleship…

Discipleship is simply helping people become better friends with God.

Most churches have a tendency to over-complicate discipleship. They turn it into a class, information to acquire, or behaviors to somehow try really, really, really hard to imitate. Stuff you need to stop doing and other stuff you need to start doing. The Apostle Paul writes the following in Romans 5:9-11

“And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.”

Jesus Himself used the concept of friendship to describe what He’s looking for from us in John 15:14-16

“No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”

And all of that behavioral modification stuff. The fruit of the Spirit? The Bible teaches us that you become who you hang out with. The people who you’re closest with is who you end up looking like. So you want to look like Jesus? Become good friends with Him. The Bible says it this way in Proverbs 13:20

“Walk with the wise and become wise; associate with fools and get in trouble.”

Maybe the reason that our churches have so few “disciples” in them is because people don’t know how to walk in friendship with each other and God. To come out of hiding and simply share the real you with God and others. It takes courage, it takes humility. But they’re kind of the same thing aren’t’ they? So is your church overthinking discipleship?

Interested in learning more? Check out these 10 Articles that will Help your Church Make more Disciples

Posted in Spiritual Formation