training with larry osborne part-1 “leadership lids of complexity and competency”

Tag Archive - sun valley community church

training with larry osborne part-1 “leadership lids of complexity and competency”

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Like most of you I’ve been a part of churches that have invested large sums of money and time to send their staff to a conference together. I love the fact that many churches are willing to invest in their staff and I love how inspiring conferences can be! In fact I usually walk away with my thinking challenged and a few new ideas to implement. However, I’ve actually found it more economical and effective to bring an expert in to spend more intimate time with our team. The training you get is more personal, customized to your situation, and conversational (you can actually get your specific questions answered). Recently we had Larry Osborne come in to spend time with the Staff at Sun Valley. We intentionally designed for him to invest in our Executive Team, our Elders, as well as a day of training with all of our staff from all three of our campuses. By the way it was great to be able to have a couple of guys from my current Coaching Network sit in on the day of training with our staff! Below are some of my thoughts and take aways from our time together:

Ceilings of Complexity and Competency

1. Every Leader and Every Organization hits a Leadership Ceiling at some point

We outgrow our leadership skills
We outgrow our organizational structures
We can be blindsided by a major cultural shift

2. How to Recognizing Ceilings

Any ministry that has stagnant or declining attendance
Marked increase in conflict
Protecting the Past trumps Creating the Future
Revolving Door Syndrome
Long term personal spiritual stagnation
Mission Creep

3. How to Break through Ceilings

These 3 things come natural and are actually a trap:
- Effort: work harder
- Efficiency: work smarter
- Quality: work better
What happens when these 3 things don’t work?
- New Advisors:
  - You have to get outside of your tribe
  - We first go to “me” then we go to “my team” and then we go to “my tribe”
  - All of the solutions to your biggest problems are going to be found outside of your tribe
- New Expectations:
  - Expectations are really about 3 things you have to give up: Power, Prestige, and Position
- New Organizational Structures:
  - Address whatever counter productive organizational structures you have (traditions, how you make decisions, etc.)

I’ll post the rest of the notes tomorrow: Part 2 “Why Some Teams Win and Most Lose”

Posted in Leadership

imago dei community church phoenix is launching!

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

I’m thrilled to be able to announce that Imago Dei Community Church Phoenix is launching on Sunday, September 23^rd at 10:00am at the Barry Goldwater Performing Arts Center! Check out the video below!

Imago Dei is a Vision Arizona Church Plant, which is the Church Planting Network that Sun Valley Community Church is deeply involved in.

If you live in the North Phoenix area don’t miss the 23^rd!

Posted in Spiritual Formation

top 10 reasons to go to church on saturday

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

We recently began a new Saturday evening service at Sun Valley Community Church. We were previously doing one 5:00pm service on Saturdays and the new service times are 4:30pm and 6:00pm. Here are a couple of the strategic thoughts behind the shift…

Doing two back to back services allows people to come to church one hour and serve one hour. Previously there were people serving in ministry at our 5:00pm service and if they wanted to attend a worship service they actually had to come back on Sunday. That needed to be solved.

Doing away with the 5:00pm service time and adding two new service times at 4:30pm and 6:00pm forced everyone on Saturdays to pick a new service time to attend. Otherwise if we had kept the 5:00pm service and simply added another service time, getting people to shift from what they were comfortable with would have been much less effective.

Saturday has been our fastest growing service time year over year. In fact this past weekend we were up 36% (year over year).

We communicated the change every weekend in the month of July, which led up to the launch of the new service times at the beginning of August. This gave us a couple of weeks to settle into 2 Saturday services before school kicked back in and the crowds were up.

For weeks we said, “All of the smart people go to church on Saturdays.” In fact that’s when my family attends. It’s easier to navigate the parking lots, getting the kids in and out of Children’s Ministry, and we don’t have to rush or fight to get the kids ready on Sundays

The video above is one of the creative methods we’ve used to communicate and encourage people to move to Saturdays.

Posted in Creative Arts

a large multisite church in phoenix is hiring a jr. high pastor

Sunday, August 19, 2012

I’m pleased to announce a new Staff Search. Sun Valley Community Church, the church I have the honor of serving at, is beginning a national search for a Jr. High Pastor to serve on our Tempe Campus. Sun Valley began as a church plant in 1990 in Chandler, Arizona. Over the years Sun Valley has grown into a large mult-site church in the Phoenix area. Currently there are three campuses located in Gilbert, Tempe and Casa Grande with a total weekend attendance of 5,000 people. The Tempe campus was the result of a merger in October 2011 with Bethany Community Church. In the merger, Sun Valley acquired a 16-acre, 8-building campus with over 100,000 sq. ft. under roof. At present, the campus attendance is about 1,000, but when fully utilized, the campus capacity will accommodate about 7,000 people. Sun Valley was recently featured in a new book by Leadership Network about church mergers: Better Together: Making Church Mergers Work. To learn more about that story click here Part-1 and Part-2.

Interested in learning more? Continue reading below:

Posted in Staffing

is the church for christians?

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Churches all across America are stuck. In a large majority of these churches people come every week to the worship services and faithfully attend bible studies. They love being with each other, they know one another’s names and they have a good general working knowledge of the Scriptures. But they’re stuck. They’ve plateaued or they’re declining. Their best days are behind them and they consistently talk about the “good ‘ol days” and a high water mark that happened some years ago. It was an incredible moment and they should remember it, they should talk about it. After all it was a great moment. But today they’re stuck.

It’s not because they’re not faithful in their church attendance or commitment to the Scriptures. But because they have adopted an unbiblical view of what Church is all about.

What if I told you that the church was never intended to be a box that we sit in, but a movement we’re a part of? That, as a Christ Follower you can’t come to church, because you are the Church. What if I went as far as to say that the Church isn’t for Christians? Got your attention yet? The Church simply doesn’t exist FOR Christians. Because the Church IS Christians, and we don’t exist for ourselves; we exist to be on mission with God. And God’s mission is all about His people taking on the posture of a servant and thinking about others before they think of themselves.

Could it be that the reason that many Churches are stuck today, is because they’ve been sold a lie that says Church is for Christians? That’s absolute opposite direction of what God has called His people to.

Click here to check out the talk I gave at Sun Valley Community Church this past weekend where I unpack this idea even further.

So what do you think? Is the Church for Christians?

Posted in Spiritual Formation