Tag Archive - staff

4

2 Fatal Church Leadership Mistakes

Monday, January 21, 2019

When it comes to leading a church, there a lot of things that can go wrong that are outside of a pastor’s control. However, the other side of that coin is also true. There are a lot of wrong things that pastors do that are well within their control.

This isn’t an exhaustive list by any stretch of the imagination. There are all kinds of things I’ve seen church leaders do to sabotage themselves. But the following two mistakes are so common and so easy to solve that I couldn’t help identifying them.

Choosing Availability over Competency

Churches are notorious for choosing the available person over taking the time to search for or develop a competent person. Just because someone shows up doesn’t mean they’ll show out. I’ve seen churches choose staff too many times based on convenience. They’ll elevate a volunteer to a staff role because they’re a faithful volunteer and great at doing ministry or delivering tasks on time. I hope you don’t mishear me, I am all for developing internal talent, in fact about 75% of the staff who work at Sun Valley (the church I have the privilege of serving at) have been developed and hired internally. Unfortunately, just because someone can deliver tasks on time doesn’t mean they can build a team and lead others to do the tasks of ministry. It’s one thing to lead by doing, it’s a completely other thing to be able to delegate tasks to others or empower them to make decisions. Churches are also guilty of over promoting young talent too quickly because they see “something special” in them instead of developing that young talent. Promoting and developing aren’t the same thing. While it’s certainly more convenient to choose someone who’s already around and available it doesn’t always prove to be the right move.

Being a Discourager instead of an Encourager

When a good team member does something wrong, nine times out of ten they already know it. Every once in a while, (that 1 time in 10) you may need to point it out. You may need to check in with them to make sure you’re both seeing the same thing the same way, but good team members don’t need over coaching. They don’t need someone to be harsh with them or pick and point out every little thing they did wrong. They need encouragement. They need someone to believe in them and help lift their attitude, because when you lift someone’s attitude you lift their performance. You can’t play a good game with a bad attitude. Here’s the thing, even a mediocre performing team member doesn’t get any better when you rub their nose in a mistake they made. Taking an over critical or harsh approach discourages people, lowers their performance, and it demotivates. Do that long enough and all you’ll have left on your team are low performers. As a leader your words carry incredible power and weight. Use them to build people up and move them in the right direction.

If you’re a church leader and you struggle with either of these two pitfalls the first step you need to take is be honest with yourself, then be honest with your team and apologize to them. Own it. Then change your approach. It’s within your power to change. You can do this!

Posted in Leadership

2

5 Keys to Growing your Church in 2019

Sunday, January 6, 2019

I’ve never met a church leader that didn’t want things at their church to to change for the better. They want more people to say yes to following Jesus, they want people to become better friends with God, and they want their churches to think more about people outside of the church than those already in it.

The trouble is while most church leaders want this year to be better than the last, they don’t want to do anything different.

I’ve said this many times before, people (including you…and me) 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 better doesn’t happen by trying harder, it happens by trying different. It happens through change…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.

So, to that end, here are a couple ideas that will help you create change this year at your church…and maybe even in you.

Create Accessibility

One of the greatest changes you can make in your church to get different results is to make Jesus and His teachings more accessible to people who don’t know Him. Another way to think about this is to ask yourself or your team, “How accessible is everything at your church to people who are unfamiliar with Jesus and the Church?” How accessible is your website, signage, language, parking lot, building, kids and student ministries, worship services, and teaching to people who are unfamiliar with Jesus and His Church? Most churches simply make it too hard for people to meet and follow Jesus. They don’t do it on purpose, they’ve just forgotten what it is like to be unfamiliar with Jesus. And guess what will happen when you create more accessibility to Jesus? More people will meet Jesus…and isn’t that kinda the point?

Lean into Constraints

You probably have a list of reasons (or excuses) why you can’t grow. Barriers to the future or anchors to the past that are keeping you from getting to the future. Make a list of your top 5 constraints and figure a way through them or around them. You constraints may even be the thing that help you innovate and come up with a solution you would have never otherwise come up with on your own. To that point, one of the top 3 reasons the church I serve at went multisite 6 years ago is because the original location was nearing a point where it would be fully maximized. Today we’re reaching more people for Jesus than ever because we had a facility constraint that forced us into a new solution (multisite) that is helping us reach new people for Jesus than we ever would have or could have at that one original location. Your biggest constraints may just turn out to be your best friend.

Allow Hope to Die

Stop hoping things are going to change at your church. Hope doesn’t change or produce new results at your church. Action does. Specifically, new action. Hope is not a strategy. Too many church boards and church leaders are sitting around praying and hoping that Jesus would do something new and powerful in their church this year when He already did something new and powerful 2,000 years ago on the cross. He’s simply waiting for those same church boards and church leaders to have the same kind of courage He did and lead things forward. 

Draft some new Players

If you want new results at your church, then it may be time to shake up the team a bit. New team members bring new experiences, expertise, ideas, and questions with them that aren’t currently on your team. You become who you hire and sometimes one or two new team members can help shift the entire locker room on a team.

Listen to 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.

Taking new and different action will get you different results. And if you need a little help getting unstuck then connect with us at the Unstuck Group, we can help this next year be the best year of ministry you’ve ever experienced!

Posted in Leadership

3

8 Characteristics of a Great Campus Pastor

Sunday, September 23, 2018

I wrote my first article about multisite churches eight years ago, it was entitled, “Why 20 Churches Went, Didn’t Go, and Still Might Go Multisite.” The article was based on a conversation with a group of Executive Pastors from large churches across America that I had been asked to facilitate. Since that time, I’ve written over 40 articles about multisite churches and I’ve learned a few things along the way from leading in a multisite church and making mistakes, finding success, as well as learning from other great multisite churches.

There’s a lot that goes into building a successful approach to multisite. However, in my experience there’s one thing that stands out above all the conversations and arguments that take place over the next location, financial and staffing strategies, live verses video teaching, branding, culture, decision rights, and what ministries you should replicate at each new location. The Campus Pastor. That’s because people make decisions and replicate culture. That’s something structures, policies or even systems can never do. Policies, structures and systems may institutionalize or support your culture, but people build and replicate it. Get the right people and the right people will lead you to the right solutions.

So with that in mind, here are eight characteristics that you need to be looking for in your next Campus Pastor.

#1 Culture: They fit your organizational “DNA.” They embody and champion the mission, vision and values of your team.

#2 Communication: Depending on your teaching model, they don’t necessarily need to be able to teach from the stage, but they do need to be a good communicator. They need to be able to speak with your church’s “voice” and have the capacity to inspire people and motivate movement.

#3 Relationships: They’ve got to have great relational skills. This may sound shallow, but people need to like them. If they don’t like them then they won’t like your church. This means they have to have a pretty high E.Q. and be good with people.

#4 Leadership: To be a Campus Pastor they not only have to be a gifted leader, but they need to have a proven leadership track record of building and leading teams. They need to be able to show how they’ve led through others by not only delegating tasks but empowering decision making.

#5 Driven: Being a Campus Pastor isn’t always rainbows and unicorns. If you’ve ever wanted to be a Campus Pastor, be careful what you wish for, because you might get it. Campus Pastors need to be mentally tough and have a certain amount of grit to lead through the tensions of moving people from where they are to where they need to be. They need to be able to execute and deliver, not just pontificate about ideas.

#6 Start Date: They’ve got to be able to join your team at least 6 to 12 months prior to the launch of the new location. It’s going to take that long for them to be a part of building the core team, staff team and deal with launch details. I’d encourage you to give them an even longer onramp if they’re being hired in from the outside and need to learn and embrace your culture.

#7 Community: They’ve got to be willing to live in and/or engage the community where the new campus is going to be.

#8 Second-Chair: Great Campus Pastors are wired to serve as a second-chair leader. They don’t need to be the vision caster but they need to believe in and be a vision carrier.

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

0

How to Coach the Best Performance out of your Team

Sunday, September 16, 2018

I wish coaching could solve every staff performance issue. I wish a little post game conversation would always turn into great results. I wish getting some team members a few more, “game like reps,” would improve their performance. I wish.

Unfortunately, coaching isn’t always the solution. There are some team members who can’t or won’t receive coaching and need to be coached out instead of being coached up. But how do you know how to respond to each unique team member?

High Performers

Some high performers not only produce great results, but they welcome and respond to coaching. They’re always looking for ways to grow and improve their game. They have the talent required to perform at a high level and the character necessary to receive coaching and respond well. These team members are fun to coach. They’re the kind of people who do a lot with what you give them, and then ask for more. These people just need you to empower them and keep coaching them up.

There are some team members who are insanely talented and have the capacity to deliver great results but lack the character necessary to receive and respond well to coaching. They may be a great talent but have really poor chemistry with the rest of the team. These are the kind of team members that you need to intervene with quickly and keep on a very short leash. They need to be provided with clear and quick consequences or they can mess up the entire chemistry of the team. No amount of competency can overcome a fatal flaw in character.

Low Performers

Not every low performer needs to be coached out. There are many factors that impact poor performance. They may not have been given the right resources to succeed, they may have been placed in a role that doesn’t play to their strengths, or they may simply be young and inexperienced. If they have the character it takes to receive and respond well to coaching and have good chemistry with the team then coach them up instead of coaching them out.

Sometimes you can’t avoid coaching a team member off of your team. It’s part of your responsibility as the coach or leader to not allow low performers to remain low performers. If a team member is constantly shifting blame to other people or circumstances for their poor performance, if they have a poor attitude, if there is poor chemistry with the team, if there is a character problem, if they don’t respond well and respond quickly to coaching it’s probably time to coach them out instead of coaching them up.

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

0

10 Articles that will Help your Church Make Vision Real

Monday, September 3, 2018

Each month I curate the top 10 most popular blog posts I’ve shared recently. These are the articles that got had the greatest engagement in the past month. They were the most visited, shared, helpful or disagreed with. At any rate, thanks for staying in contact with me through engaging in the content on this site, I hope it’s been helpful to you! In case you missed any of them here they are all in one nice tidy place for you!

10 Insider Focused Ministry Names

I wrote this post 5 years ago. It came out of a conversation that I had with a Leadership Coaching Group I was facilitating for Church Staff and it’s remained a fan favorite.

How Many People should your Church have on Staff?

It’s a big question that most churches are asking. The answer may surprise you.

What do you do When you Don’t Agree with your Pastor?

If you work on staff at a church, chances are at some point you’re going to disagree with your pastor. That’s okay, you’re human, it would be naive to think you’re always going to agree with your pastor. But what you do with that disagreement is where things can get really messy. Messy for you, and messy for the church.

It’s Time for the Church to take a Different Approach to Leadership Development 

There are three prevailing thoughts about leadership development that I’ve been noticing in churches across the country and I’m not sure any of them are really going to work the way we think they will.

How do you know When it’s Time to Leave your Church?

Most people don’t stay at one place of employment their entire lives. If you work at a church, chances are you probably won’t work at that church the rest of your life. Most likely at some point you’re going to leave to go and start or work at another church. There are all kinds of reasons why church staff leave the church they work at to go work another church. Some of those reasons are solid and make a lot of sense. Some of them as you could guess, not so much.

Changing the Culture at your Church

“Culture” is the latest buzz word in church world. Everyone seems to be talking about how to build a healthy culture and avoid a toxic one. But how do you know what your church culture actually is and how can you change it if you don’t like it?

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.

11 Questions to Ask Yourself about Soul Care and Personal Fulfillment

People perform at their best when they are in a role that plays to their personality and gifting. They have more fun, experience greater fulfillment, and produce better results. The soul is actually at greater rest when it finds the rhythm it was designed for. But it requires a tremendous amount of sober-mindedness. That is, knowing who you are, knowing who you’re not and doing what’s best for the whole. This means, among other things, being willing to play the part you were designed to play instead of striving for the top spot on the team. So how do you get a healthy dose of sober-mindedness in your life without experiencing a bunch of pain? Honestly taking a few moments to answer the following questions is a great start!

How the Lead Pastor and Executive Pastor Roles Work Together

The relationship between the Lead Pastor and Executive Pastor can make or break a church staff team and has profound impact upon the overall ministry of the church. Get this right and you’ll end up getting a lot right. Get it wrong, and well, it’s going to be tough sledding.

How to Choose the Next Board Members at your Church

If you’ve led in a church for any length of time you can probably tell some stories of experiences you’ve had with dysfunctional Church Boards. Church Board become dysfunctional for a variety of reasons and there are some basic steps you can take to avoid a dysfunctional Board. The first step is to avoid inviting the wrong people to the Board. In writing this post I’m assuming that you’re already vetting potential Board Members based on the letters the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy and Titus about selecting church leaders. 

Posted in Leadership
Page 2 of 24«12345»1020...Last »