Tag Archive - strategy

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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

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The 4 Phase Planning Process for Church Leaders

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Few churches have a great planning process. Most don’t even have a good planning process, if they have a process at all.

I’m not sure why this isn’t a bigger priority. Planning is certainly biblical. I don’t find many pastors who would really take aim at that fact. You’d have to throw out a lot of Proverbs, if you decided to.

Everyone likes to talk about stewardship and the stewardship of Kingdom resources, which involves a lot of wisdom and planning. So, if I have to put it in this context, learning a great planning process is good stewardship of Kingdom resources.

At the Unstuck Group we’ve been helping churches with strategic planning for quite a few years now, and we’ve seen a lot of what works and what doesn’t. We believe in the process the team at The Unstuck Group uses. We believe it’s a great planning process because it incorporates four key elements.

The 4 Phase Planning Process

4 Phase Process

Wise planning should always include:

1) Assessment – Understanding where you are now.

You should start with a good understanding of where you are now. We believe an outside perspective is always going to give you the best result. (We even bring in an outside facilitator when we do strategic planning for The Unstuck Group.) It’s also important to look at key metrics and not just rely on your opinions about the health of your church. Your opinions are heavily influenced by tradition and emotion, whether you want to believe it or not.

2) Planning – Defining where you are going and how you will get there.

Your plans should clarify and focus your vision, blending together the strategic, operational and financial aspects of your ministry. Involving ministry leaders from all of your departments brings alignment and will help you prevent ministry silos. Everyone will get on the same page about what you’re trying to accomplish, and what the wins are.

3) Structure – Determining the right form for your organization.

With a clear vision in place and core strategies outlined, you can easily see gaps in your staff team. For your plans to be realized, you will need to have the right people in the right roles. You will need a structure that creates accountability and supports the development of your staff.

4) Action  – Monitoring how you are doing and identifying what needs to change.

Plans that never see action are worthless. Your planning process needs to incorporate timelines, deadlines and evaluation. It needs to be a living, breathing thing that gets refreshed regularly as God leads your church into the future.

With a great planning process, you should be making wise decisions based on honest evaluations. You should be building the right team based on your plan. You should be making budget decisions based on your plan. You should be providing accountability for the execution of your plan. You should be routinely identifying what’s working and what isn’t.

And you shouldn’t feel stuck.

The Unstuck Group’s process walks churches through all four of these phases. And we continually receive stories from pastors who have learned this process and are seeing breakthrough. We’d love to share more about how it works with you. Follow this link to learn more about how it works.

This post was originally published on Tony Morgan’s blog. Tony serves as the Chief Strategic Officer at the Unstuck Group.  You can keep up with Tony at his blog by following this link.

Posted in Leadership

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10 Articles that will Help Your Church Make Better Hires

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Recruiting and hiring a new team member can be exciting! Hire the right person and the whole team benefits. When you invite the right person to join your team not only is there an infusion of new talent, but also new ideas, fresh eyes, and a new well of experiences to go to. One new hire can literally improve the performance of the entire team. On the other hand, hire the wrong person and the ministry at your church could be set back for years. Over the years I’ve written quite a bit about hiring and building staffing strategies in a church setting. Here are some of the more popular posts.

You are Who You Hire

The reason that a new hire is so powerful and pivotal is because people lead out of who they are and the organization or church always takes on the personality of the leader. In other words, you are who you hire. No matter what their skill set, abilities, experiences or personality is; people always lead through the filter of their unique identity.

You Just made a Great Hire…Now What?

Churches are notorious for racing to the finish line of a hiring process, getting the newly hired candidate in the room and breathing a collective sigh of relief. The typical church basically says, “Congratulations, you’re hired! Here are your keys. Now go figure it out.” Once the new hire is made you’re not done.

6 Reasons your Church should use a Search Firm to Make Your Next Hire

Hiring a new team member can be exciting because it means there is going to be fresh eyes on old problems and status quo ministry, new ideas, and a new well of experiences to go to. But sometimes the best move that you can make is to enlist the help of an Executive Search Firm.

5 Reasons I would Never Hire You

While at first pass this post may come off as negative, the goal I can assure you, is to be helpful. I’ve had to say no to more people than I’ve said yes to. My hope is that this post will help move you in the direction where you’d hear me, or someone else, say yes to you in the near future.

5 Common Hiring Mistakes that Churches Make

Churches are notorious for making well-intentioned bad hires. At most churches the hiring process usually goes wrong for one of the following 5 reasons.

6 Principles of Building a Staffing Strategy at your Church

Great teams don’t happen on accident. Over the past 15+ years of working with churches the best hires I’ve seen have always come through a well thought out staffing strategy. Based on that experience the following are 6 principles that I help churches think through when it comes to building a staffing strategy.

4 Steps to Making the Right Hire

Success is rarely stumbled upon, and great teams don’t just happen. They’re intentionally built with a keen understanding of where you are going, and not just what, but whom it’s going to take to get you there. That’s where making the right hire comes into play. The problem is that churches are notorious for making the wrong hire, and the usual culprit is a lack of any semblance of a hiring process.

When a Volunteer should become a Staff Member at your Church

In growing churches it’s not uncommon for high capacity volunteers to serve as and function like paid ministry staff members. Instead of paid staff members I’ve seen volunteers oversee entire ministry segments in a church even attending weekly staff meetings and staff retreats. But when is the right time to hire that person and move them from a volunteer to a paid staff member?

When to Hire from the Outside

In making your next hire the best place to begin is by looking for existing talent that is already inside the church or organization first. For more on that, check out part-1 of this post “When to Hire from the Inside.” But an inside hire may not always be the best hire. In fact here are three overarching principles that will help you understand when it’s time to go outside to make your next hire.

Why Hires go Wrong

When a hire goes right it fosters synergy, movement, and momentum. But when a hire goes wrong there are setbacks, losses, and ultimately the mission suffers. Below are the 2 most common mistakes made by churches, which lead them to making the wrong hires.

This next post is a little extra bonus to follow up on that last one: “What a Hire Gone Wrong will Cost You”

Posted in Staffing

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Would you Rather have the Right People or the Right Structure?

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

It’s a simple question. If you could choose only one, would you rather have the right people on your team or have the right organizational structure to operate in? Both people and structure are two common reasons that churches become stuck. But if you could only “fix” one which one would you choose?

Structure

Your church is perfectly structured to get the results you’re currently getting. At the Unstuck Group we’ve found that it’s not uncommon to see a particular structure that has worked in the past eventually becomes a lid for growth. If you want different results then it may be time to restructure things at your church. As a church grows the need to restructure can occur multiple times in the life of a church. The way the church board operates, the way the staff operates, the polity of a church, and the way a church budgets can all become lids to growth if they don’t change over time as the church changes.

People

In church-world we’re quicker to place blame for a church being stuck at the feet of a particular person. It’s easier to see and diagnose. It’s clear that people (a leader) can become a lid to the growth of a church. It’s a rare leader who can lead a church through sustained growth over a long period of time. Few leaders are sober minded enough to build a team that compliments their gifting, continue to develop as a leader over time, or understand that the church needs something different from the leader in various seasons and sizes.

If it were up to me I’d choose the right people every time. If you get the people right everything else seems to follow suit. The right people will make the right decisions and build the right structures. After all, the Sabbath was made for man not the other way around.

Posted in Leadership

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5 Indicators that your Church is Financially Overextended

Sunday, November 29, 2015

Earlier this fall in a post entitled “Breaking Through your Capacity Lid,” I wrote that financial shortfalls at churches can limit opportunities. I suggested that there are two sides to finances in a church setting. One is building a culture of generosity in your church and then the other is managing that generosity so you position yourself organizationally to say yes to Jesus when He provides clear vision and opportunity

Immature organizations over extend themselves financially and self impose artificial lids as a result.

In a time of year where most churches are finalizing budgets I thought it might be helpful to share some indicators that I’ve observed in churches that are financially overextended.

#1 Your Staff Salaries are not Competitive

If you’re not able to be competitive with your salaries you’re not going to able to attract and keep the talent you’re hoping to have on your team. This is an indicator that you’re financially overreaching somewhere. Not sure how much you should be paying your staff? This post will help.

#2 You’re spending more that 50% of your income of Staff Salaries

As strange as it may seem, if more than 50% of your income is being spent on Staff salaries then you’re staffing costs are beginning to constrict other ministry areas of the church.

#3 Low Cash Reserves

In my work with churches across the country I’ve discovered that if you have less than 8 weeks of undesignated cash reserves available at any given time you probably have too little financial margin to deal with unforeseen obstacles and set backs.

#4 High Debt Levels

Again, in my work with churches through the Unstuck Group I’ve discovered that if your church is carrying more than 2x your annual budget in debt than your debt load is beginning to constrict ministry opportunities.

#5 You Can’t Say Yes to the Opportunity Jesus is Giving You

If you can’t say yes to the vision Jesus has given you then your church is financially overextended. The bottom line is fairly simple. If Jesus has given you a clear vision to lead the church towards then part of your responsibility as a steward of that vision is to build (or enlist others to help you build) a financial strategy that will get you to that vision.

Posted in Leadership
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