Tag Archive - succession

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An Interview with William Vanderbloemen on Pastoral Succession

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with William Vanderbloemen, the founder and CEO of the Vanderbloemen Search Firm, to discuss his new book, “Next: Pastoral Succession that Works.” Every pastor is an interim pastor and succession planning is one of the most critical issues facing the church in America over the next decade. In partnership with Co-author Warren Bird, Director of Research at Leadership Network, William has brought the experience and the research together to provide churches and pastors with an incredible resource to help them navigate succession planning!  You can follow this link to get your own copy of this newly released book! Check out the interview below!

Free Resource: The First 5 Commandments of Pastoral Succession Planning

 


Posted in Leadership, Staffing

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5 Articles to Help You Make Vision Real

Thank you for helping make December a great month here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! It’s fun to be a part of the interaction on social media and hear about how helpful the content has been. So, thank you for connecting with me through the content on this blog! You made these the top 5 Posts from this last month. If you missed out on any of them, here they are all in one place for your convenience!

#1 “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:

#2 “Multisite Church Fast Facts”

This past week Jim Tomberlin the founder of MultiSite Solutions stopped by my current Coaching Network to spend some time talking all things Multisite and Mergers. He shared about how the multisite movement that originally began as a “band-aid” solution for megachurches that were out of space has quickly turned into a growth strategy for all kinds and sizes of churches. Below are 15 incredible facts that Jim in partnership with Leadership Network have discovered about the multisite church movement:

#3 “Top Posts of 2013: #1 10 Insider Focused Ministry Names”

This post generated the most traffic on Helping Churches Make Vision Real this year. Mainly because church-people did a Google search for ministry names and stumbled across this post. I sure bet they were surprised. The language we choose to use is important because it both reflects and builds culture at the same time.  And one of the most obvious ways to tell if a church is insider focused or outsider focused is the language that they choose to use. It either says that the church is “inclusive” or “exclusive.” In helping churches get unstuck and make vision real I’ve run across a number of insider focused ministry names. In fact here’s a link to a post with a free tool that you can use as you begin to evaluate your own ministry names and language you’re using in your church. Remember it’s always more important to be clear than clever. Here’s a quick list of 10 insider focused ministry names to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.

#4 “7 Traits of Churches That Experience Repeat Success”

It’s one thing to experience success; it’s another thing altogether to repeat success over, and over, and over again. Many churches experience moments of success, but few experience repeat success. Fewer still, understand why they were successful in the first place and intentionally create behaviors in the organization of the church to make success become the norm. Below are 7 traits of churches that experience repeat success:

#5 “How to Keep Your Team When the Game is Changing”

In any growing church or organization there are going to be moments where the team that got you where you are, will not have the ability to get you where you need to go. This usually becomes an incredibly painful and difficult moment. In fact many churches get stuck here because they refuse to address the issue in an appropriate manner. What do you do when staff members begin to hit a leadership lid? Do you have any other course of action to take besides replacing them? How do you navigate these moments? The options below should help:


Posted in Leadership

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global leadership summit 2012: geoffrey canada

Geoffrey Canada is a social activist and educator. Since 1990, Canada has been president and CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone in Harlem, New York

  • We usually think in terms of, “What is the shortest amount of time and the least amount of money we can invest to make a permanent change?”
  • There is no time in a child’s life that you can’t be a great parent
  • You can’t take a vacation from parenting
  • It’s not exceptional to meet people’s needs it’s exceptional that people don’t think they can or should do it
  • One of the most difficult things you can do is fail and fail publicly
  • Sometimes not taking the money from a donor is the smartest thing you can do, particularly when the gift is given with the hope of it being given to something that will take you off mission
  • The day I walked into my job there was a succession plan
  • There is no plan for the company to go worse upon my departure than when I am here.
  • If you love your organization then you have to leave when it is going up so that way when the next person comes in they don’t come in at a bad time getting wrongly compared to you.
  • It’s easy to have faith when everything is going great; the real test of faith is when you’re faced with something that your faith in God is the only thing that will keep you going

Posted in Leadership

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global leadership summit 2012: bill hybels opening session

Bill Hybels opened the Global Leadership Summit. Hybels is the founder and Senior Pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, IL. He also the founded The Global Leadership Summit, now in over 200 U.S. sites and over 260 cities worldwide including 85 countries.

  • Leaders build teams because we don’t know what were doing most of the time. We are typically hoping that someone else will make us look better than we really are (tongue & cheek)
  • Growth is valuable because everyone wins when a leader gets better
  • Growth takes humility you can’t learn from someone who you think you’re better than
  • I hate cats…Bill’s not a cat person
  • How many people in your community even know you’re there? With a 75% rejection rate of the gospel it means sowing more seeds (Luke 8)
  • Whether you like it or not your whole organization takes its seed sowing queue’s from you
  • Leaders must stay, curious, courageous, and experimental
  • Entropy will not occur on our watch
  • We must insist on nonstop experiments that force learning and sow more seeds
  • We must become indecent tinkerers
  • You are the most difficult person you will ever lead
  • The leaders greatest asset isn’t time but their energizing capabilities: to energize other leaders, new ideas, the organization they lead, and themselves
  • Deliberately disregard second tier activities
  • God didn’t make you a leader to respond to stuff all day god made you a leader to move stuff ahead
  • Figure out the top things that need to be done and then energize them
  • Succession planning should not be rushed
  • Phases of Succession planning: phase one: every idea needs to be surfaced, who makes what decision, time frame, honor the pastor leaving…lots of questions need to be surfaced and answered / phase two: try and find an internal person who can succeed, if you can’t do it then go outside / phase three: the last phase is the actual transition…18 months transition of responsibilities
  • The whole world is going to have a front row seat to succession of leaders the next few years
  • Sr. Pastors don’t hang on too long, do the right thing for your church, set your church up to be led well after you leave, set the next leaders up to succeed.
  • When is the vision the most vulnerable: it’s in the middle…not the beginning because it’s exciting, not the end because you see the finish line, it’s in the middle because you can’t see either
  • What a privilege it is to be a leader…when was the last time you thanked God that he has put you in a position to lead

 


Posted in Leadership
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