Tag Archive - team

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5 Articles to Help Your Church Make Vision Real

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Thank you for helping make November one of the best months ever here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! It’s great to connect with you on this blog and through social media. I’m always glad to hear that the content has been helpful. 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 8 Reasons Why People Don’t Volunteer at Your Church

I’ve never worked with a church that has said they don’t need more volunteers. But I’ve worked with a bunch of churches that have trouble getting people to volunteer and stay engaged volunteering. This is a critical issue for churches to figure out. The reason why this has to be a front-burner issue is because at the heart of it, volunteering is an essential component of the discipleship process in someone’s life. Plainly put, volunteering is discipleship. Understanding that, here are 8 reasons people aren’t volunteering in your church…and subsequently aren’t growing in their relationship with God.

#2 Early Warning Signs Your Church is in Trouble

Many churches have a tendency to measure attendance and money as their primary indicators for success, and not necessarily always in that order. There are a lot of other indicators that churches can measure to understand if they’re winning or not (baptisms, 1st time guests, and how many people are in bible studies just to name a few). Early indicators that a church is in trouble are often more difficult to detect however. Similar to the way many life threatening diseases behave a church can look healthy on the outside while wasting away on the inside. And like a life threatening disease it can be very difficult to detect. Here are a few early indicators your church should be paying attention to:

#3 3 Reasons Why Big Churches Keep Getting Bigger

Recently Leadership Network published an article in which they shared the following research about megachurches (a Protestant congregation with 2,000 or more weekly attendees – both adults and children):

  • In 1970 there were less than 25 megachurches in all of North America
  • In 1983 there were less than 100 megachurches in the United States
  • Today there are more than 1,650 megachurches in North America (roughly 1,625 in the United States and 25 in Canada)

All of that means this past weekend of those who went to a Protestant Church in North America, 1 out of 10 went to a megachurch. The megachurch phenomenon of recent history doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. In fact it seems to be growing, even outside of North America big churches are getting bigger. But why?

#4 Why Churches Refuse to Change

In the “real world,” change is normal, it’s expected, and it’s even celebrated! When your team wins the Super Bowl no one ever looks around and complains about the stadium being too full. When your business takes ground and expands no one ever complains about experiencing success. When a new child is born into a family no grandparent complains about having to buy more Christmas presents. Change like this is celebrated. So much so, that we go around and show pictures of our new grandchild to everyone, we leverage the success of our business, and we buy t-shirts and other paraphernalia from the winning football team.

In the church it’s different. Even if it means growing, reaching more people, planting a new church, taking a risk, or even simply making the right change so that the church can be more effective with it’s mission; most churches avoid change like the plague. Here are a few reasons why:

#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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Who is Your Church Competing With?

Sunday, September 29, 2013

From the earliest days of the Jr. High lunchroom (as brutal as that can be) as young adolescents try to figure out the social pecking order it’s funny how little things seem to change even as we move well into adulthood and the workplace. It even shows up when you get a bunch of pastors in the same room. The first question that comes up? It may come out a bit more sophisticated than this but what they’re all thinking is, “How big is your church compared to my church?” It’s a question rooted in simple immature Jr. High insecurity. And it is derailing the Church from its mission. Competing with other churches only makes sense if you’re going after people who already know Jesus. And there is no shortage of people who don’t know Jesus. So how do you know if your church is competing with other churches?

1. Are you Genuinely Excited to see Other Churches in your Community Take Ground?

If you don’t feel like you’re winning when other churches in your community are winning and in fact become jealous when other churches win, you’re probably competing with other churches.

2. Do you Publicly (and Privately) Speak Well of other Churches in your Community?

If you speak poorly of other pastors and other churches then you’re probably competing with other churches.

3. Do you Learn from Other Successful Churches?

If you don’t think you have much to learn from other successful churches and they, “Don’t understand your church,” you’re probably competing with other churches.

4. Are you doing events for Christians?

If your first foot forward is to lead with events to attract Christians then you’re probably competing with other churches. By the way, that’s not growing the church; it’s what we call “Swapping Saints.”

5. Does the Language you use Create Clarity or Confusion for Outsiders?

If people outside of the faith need a “Beginners Guide to Understanding Church Language” to know what’s going on at your church then you’re probably competing with other churches. Click on the following link to discover if your church is Insider focused or Outsider focused.

Friends, other churches aren’t the Enemy. The Enemy is the Enemy. We’d do well to remember the words of the Apostle Paul…

“It’s true that some here preach Christ because with me out of the way, they think they’ll step right into the spotlight. But the others do it with the best heart in the world. One group is motivated by pure love, knowing that I am here defending the Message, wanting to help. The others, now that I’m out of the picture, are merely greedy, hoping to get something out of it for themselves. Their motives are bad. They see me as their competition, and so the worse it goes for me, the better—they think—for them.So how am I to respond? I’ve decided that I really don’t care about their motives, whether mixed, bad, or indifferent. Every time one of them opens his mouth, Christ is proclaimed, so I just cheer them on!” Philippians 1:15-21 (The Message)

Posted in Leadership

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Leadership Lessons from a Family Vacation

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Like many families this summer, we did a family vacation. Lisa and I had the opportunity to take the kids (all 4 of them now) for an incredible week in the mountains! Like any leader, it’s tough for me to just “turn it off.” So…upon reminiscing, here are five leadership lessons that parallel our time together we had as a family this summer.

1. The Best Teams have Fun Together

We hiked together, rode go-carts, played miniature golf, taught the girls to play Settlers of Catan, wrestled, snuggled, roasted marshmallows on a fire…the list goes on an on. Bottom line is…we did a lot of stuff to build memories and have fun together. The best teams I’ve ever been around have those same dynamics. They work hard at the work they’re doing, but they also work hard at building memories and having fun together.

2. Spend One-on-One Time with Your Most Important Players

One of the more exciting things for me was to do some one-on-one time with each of the kids. I got to take each of the girls to the driving range and putting green (yes they’re learning to play golf, and love it…shout out to The First Tee), and then just sit and hang at Starbucks. Lincoln, he’s easy at this age, just take him out for ice cream and he’s your best friend forever. Great leaders always intentionally invest individual time in their most promising players.

3. Make Space to Work on Yourself

Each day on vacation I got to spend a little time working on me. Whether it was exercising (I don’t like it, but I need it), or reading, I made space to work on me. The best leaders I’ve ever been around build time into the rhythm of their work to invest in their own personal development and growth.

4. Remember that Sometimes Leadership is just Messy

It rained almost every afternoon on vacation. Which was perfect for getting muddy on the trails (see the picture above). The reality is leadership isn’t always as crisp and clean as everybody makes it out to be. While you can study the science of management, leadership is an art. And like any art it can be messy, it can surprise you, it can turn out beautiful, there are moments that are discouraging, and there are moments of great triumph.

 5. Build Time to just Rest

One of the most glorious things about vacation? Let’s all say these two little words together: sleeping in! Believe it or not sleeping in or taking a nap could be the most spiritual thing you do all week. Simply put, if you run your life wide open with the pedal to the metal, you won’t be running for very long.

Posted in Family, Leadership

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Embracing Conflict in the Church

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

There’s an unhealthy presupposition in a large majority of churches in America that conflict is bad and should be avoided at all costs. After all if we’re all Christians shouldn’t we all just somehow magically get along? When conflict is avoided all kinds of negative things happen. But when it’s handled well, even properly encouraged it can be a team leaders greatest asset.

Healthy Conflict is a Pathway to Intimacy

When conflict is pressed into instead of shied away from, the team learns to address issues in an honest and straightforward manner. Attacking the problem, not the person. The best ideas are allowed to surface, unhealthy behavior is corrected, and the mission of the church takes ground. The best byproduct of healthy conflict is it provides the opportunity for greater depths of trust to be built on the team. By the way if you’re looking for a healthy model for Biblical conflict check out Matthew 18.

Unhealthy Conflict is a Pathway to Dysfunction

Unhealthy conflict leads to politics, posturing, and silos. Among other things a culture of enablement is built, problems get bigger, passive aggressive behavior is more common, and rumors abound. Ultimately the unity of the team is at stake and the advancement of the mission of the church slows to a crawl at best.

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

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6 Steps to Creating a Church that High Performers Love to Work At

Sunday, July 21, 2013

In Church-World you may not have the ability to purely attract and keep high performers based on pay. While you should do your best to pay high performers what they’re worth, they aren’t just in it for the pay. Check out this link for more on how much you should be paying your staff. After spending the last 12 years on the Sr. Leadership Teams of some of the nations leading churches here are 6 observations I’ve consistently seen regarding creating a church where high performers love to work.

#1 A Healthy Organization

High performers don’t have time for politics, posturing, and organizational dysfunction. They’re looking for a strong culture that goes beyond mission, vision, values, etc. that are written on a piece of paper but rather lived out in the hallways of the organization. For more on building a healthy organization follow this link.

#2 High Challenge

It’s fun to be a part of a church that’s winning and taking ground! A place where people are meeting Jesus, lives are being changed, and there are real challenges to lead through associated with growth. If you’re not taking big enough risks, and making a real Kingdom impact it’s going to be tough to keep high performers. High performers desire big challenges and big opportunities to lead through.

#3 Incredible People

High performers want to be around other high performers. Great people naturally gravitate towards great people…you attract who you are. High performers are looking for people who have the skills to get the job done but also an environment where there is real openness and trust between team members.

#4 Buy In

One of the statements I’ve consistently heard through the years from high performers who love their churches is, “I would go to church here if I wasn’t on staff here.”

#5 God is Moving

High performers want to be where God is moving and if He’s not moving they’ll jump ship in a minute. Having a front row seat to real life change is the fuel that keeps high performers going. It’s the fruit of meaningful work.

#6 Responsibility and Authority

High performers aren’t just looking for a lot of responsibility, but authority that goes along with the responsibility. Nothing is worse than being responsible for something that you don’t have the authority to change, influence, and lead. High performers are looking for real influence and the ability to make real decisions that carry real weight. They want the ability to shape their future.

Posted in Leadership
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