How to Staff your Church to Fulfill your Vision

Tag Archive - vision

How to Staff your Church to Fulfill your Vision

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

The Unstuck Group is partnering up with Vanderbloemen Search Group to offer a webinar on How To Staff Your Church To Fulfill Your Vision.

You need more than a clear vision for where your church is headed. You need a team of people that can lead your church to accomplish it. Join Tony Morgan, Founder and Lead Strategist at the Unstuck Group and William Vanderbloemen, Founder and CEO of the Vanderbloemen Search Group to learn 3 Key Secrets to Building a great Church Staff Team:

#1 How to get the right people in the right position on your staff

#2 How to encourage your leadership team to own the vision

#3 How to evaluate whether your team needs an internal or external hire

Thursday, June 29 at 12:00pm EST
Space is limited to the first 500 registrations
Click here to register!

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

Trying Harder Won’t Fix Your Church

Sunday, April 16, 2017

Conventional wisdom tells us that when things get difficult we just need to work harder, work smarter or somehow upgrade the quality of our work. But what do you do when trying harder doesn’t work? It may that it’s time for you to stop doing the same old thing with more effort with more efficiency or more quality. It might be time for you to stop trying harder and try different. It’s time to try something entirely new.

#1 New Vision

Vision answers the question, “Where are we going?” It’s simply the “next hill” that you’re taking. It’s the ability to understand the times, know the right direction to move, and involve and inspire people to go there with you. The problem with vision is that it needs to be refreshed every 3-5 years. Because once you’ve taken the hill you have to identify the next hill, or the church loses momentum and get’s stuck.

#2 New Structures

Your church is perfectly structured to get the results you’re getting right now. However it’s not uncommon that a church outgrows a structure that served you well in a particular season and size. That same structure can become a lid to future growth. As a church grows the need to restructure can occur multiple times in the life of a church. The way the church board is structured, the way the staff team is structured, the polity of a church, and the structure of the church budget can all become lids to growth if they don’t change over time as the church changes. Don’t like the results you’re getting? It might be time to build a new structure.

#3 New Systems

Systems help us answer the question, “How are we going to reproduce this?” It could be reproducing disciples, leaders, church plants, new multisite campuses, or a consistent weekend worship experience at your church. Systems are made up of complex independent parts working together to perform a function (for example think skeletal system or solar system). For our purposes building a system is the art of connecting the Core Values, Structures, Strategies, Goals, and Vision to work in alignment that builds a culture that leans towards fulfilling the Mission. It may be the reason your church has become stuck is that you’ve outgrown some of your systems.

#4 New Voices

When things get difficult we usually start with ourselves for the solution, “What can I do to fix it?” If we can’t solve it on our own we usually turn our attention to our coworkers, friends and finally our networks. What if the solutions to your biggest problems are outside of your normal relational web? What if it was time to get new voices at the table, get outside your industry and tribe to look for new solutions? If you’re ready for a new voice to help your church get new new solutions I’d recommend you take a step and connect with the Unstuck Group.

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation, Staffing

10 Articles that will Help Your Church Make Vision Real

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Thank you for making March another great month here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! It’s fun to stay connected with you through social media and hearing that these articles have been helpful. So, thank you for connecting with me through the content on this blog! You made these the top posts from this last month. If you missed out on any of them, here they are all in one place for your convenience!

7 Things All Growing Churches Have in Common

Once a month at Sun Valley Community Church (the church I have the privilege of serving at) we gather all of our staff from all of our campuses to have some fun, celebrate wins, keep everybody on the same page and often times do some leadership development training. Last week Chad Moore, who serves as the Lead Pastor at Sun Valley shared 7 Things that All Growing Churches have in Common…I thought these may be helpful to you in your local church context…

10 Insider Focused Ministry Names

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.

How Many People Should Your Church Have on Staff?

Before you buy into the idea that you need another staff person at your church, think again. That just may be the worst decision you make at your church this year.

Why Leading by Example doesn’t Work

Leading by example sounds like the right thing to do, doesn’t it? After all thousands of pages written on leadership, by leadership experts can’t be wrong can they? The problem is you can’t lead by example. Your example may inspire others, it may set behavioral standards for others, your example may even be a prerequisite for authentic leadership, but your example doesn’t actually lead others anywhere. Instead great leaders set the example and then hold the team accountable to the standard. The secret is in the accountability…not the example.

7 Indicators You’ve Found the Ideal Ministry Spouse

In ministry your spouse can make you or break you. It may be cliché but it’s true, behind every great Ministry Staff Member is a great ministry spouse…and you can’t have one without the other. So whether you’re already married or you’re still searching for the right person, here are a couple traits you should be looking for in the ideal ministry spouse.

8 Ministry Staff Recruiting Red Flags

As staff recruiting in ministry world continues to evolve and become more competitive and sophisticated in recent years, churches and recruiting firms have developed a keen sense of red flags during the recruiting process that relate to whether a candidate is a good fit for your church or not. Those red flags may be a bit different from church to church but there are many red flags that are fairly consistent across the board.

Avoidance: The Silent Killer of a Team

Most teams aren’t great teams. Most teams don’t have the courage to be that honest with one another. Most teams would rather talk about one another than talk to one another. They avoid conflict, and in so doing, they quietly kill their team.

The Difference between Preparation and Planning

Do great organizations prepare for the future or do they plan for it? The answer is, “yes.” To be clear preparation and planning are not the same thing, and great organizations become great by doing both.

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.

6 Keys to Motivating Millennial Church Leaders

Millennials can, will, and are doing some amazing ministry. Like it or not they are coming into their own in church leadership, and they’re the ones that are going to lead the church forward. So instead of complaining about them we might as well help them. Try these 6 approaches to motivate the millennial leaders on your church staff.

Photo Credit: justin fain via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation, Staffing

7 Things All Growing Churches Have in Common

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Church is not a building that you come to it’s a movement that you choose to be a part of to help people meet know and follow Jesus.
You can’t come to church because you are the church.
To get the right answers about church you have to ask the right questions.
The book of acts is all about how the early church acted

1. Passionate and Proficient leaders

The starting point for any movement is highly competent leaders who are deeply committed leaders to the cause. Without highly competent leaders the church will prematurely hit a leadership capacity lid. Without deeply committed leaders the church will be stunted due to leadership turnover when things get too difficult.

2. Clearly Defined Vision and Goals

Jesus gave the early Church a clear vision to get this movement going in Acts 1:8, we don’t have to make up the mission (why we exist) of the church. But we do get to lean into the vision (where we are going next) of the church. Most churches just say things like, “We are just going to follow the Spirit.” Which sounds really spiritual but is usually code for, “We don’t know where we’re going or what we’re doing.” Most churches forget that planning is spiritual, Proverbs is in the Bible too and God has a plan…He’s not just winging it. Hope is not a strategy; if you don’t have a target you’ll hit it every time.

3. Culture that Supports the Vision and Strategy

Culture is the soft squishy stuff that most organizations have a difficult time clearly defining. Culture is how the people in the organization think, feel, what they value, and how they actually behave. Regardless of what’s written on the wall, it’s what’s happening down the hall. Of all the things that a leader does the most important is what the leader does to protect and fuel the culture.

4. A Strong Communicating Leader (cultural architect)

The early church had Peter and Paul (among others). Contrary to popular belief in church-world; teaching on the weekends is not the most important thing we’re doing. The most important thing we’re doing is building culture and we’re using the Bible to reinforce and build this movement called the church. The primary purpose of the pulpit is not teaching, it’s leading.

5. Generous, Consistent Giving

When I first started giving I was nervous to do it, now I’m nervous not to do it. 2 common barriers that hold back the movement of the church are leaders and money. It is the leaders responsibility to not just develop leaders but also develop generosity in the heart of the church to fuel the vision.

6. Passionate and Proficient Next Step Leaders

Growing churches must have people on the team who are great at helping people take their next step with Jesus. The ministry of Jesus can be broken down into 4 categories:

Come & See: The woman at the well (John 4)…”come and see a man who knew all about me, could He be the Messiah”
Follow Me: This is a line in the sand (John 6)…you’re either going to follow Jesus or you’re not
Be with Me: Up close and over time…this is Jesus and the disciples
Remain in Me: This person knows the Bible, can read it and apply it on his or her own and lead others (John 15)

Preaching can only do the first two. Next Steps are the next two. The first two are message and mission. The last two are relationship and responsibility.

7. Unapologetic Focus on Evangelism

At the end of the day the church is all about helping people meet Jesus. Growing churches make decisions based on whom they are trying to reach, not whom they are trying to keep.

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation

How to keep Big Dog Leaders on your Church Staff

Sunday, February 12, 2017

There are all kinds of different leaders, but big dog leaders are a different breed altogether. And they need to be treated differently. On the team I lead there are multiple team members who have served as Executive Pastors at other large churches, on Sr. Leadership Teams of large churches, and even as a Sr. Pastor of a church of 1,000 in weekly attendance. So how do you keep that many strong leaders working together on one team?

1. Give them a Seat at the Big Kids Table

Big dog leaders need a seat on the Sr. Leadership Team. They need to be able to influence the direction of the organization not just a segment of the ministry. They need to be given real responsibility and the resources needed to produce real results. Big dog leaders want to get stuff done.

2. Big Vision

Vision answers the question, “Where are we going?” If the next hill you’re taking isn’t big enough and compelling enough to give their life to, big dog leaders will go somewhere else. Big dog leaders only hang around for big vision.

3. Provide Clarity

Clarity isn’t everything, but it changes everything. Big dog leaders don’t stay around in churches where there is confusion, because confusion creates drag on the entire organization and slows things down. If you don’t clear up confusion, big dog leaders will go somewhere else.

4. Turn them Loose

At the end of the day the best way to keep big dog leaders around is to turn them loose and let them lead. They were made to lead and when you don’t let them, they’ll go somewhere else where they can.

5. Listen to Them

Big dog leaders don’t want to just be given tasks and be told what to do. They have ideas that they need to express and they need their voice to be heard. To lead big dog leaders you have to actually believe that you don’t have all the answers. You have to believe in your team, and you have to listen to them. Because, if you don’t listen to them someone else will.

6. Pay Them

This may sound shallow, but if you don’t pay big dog leaders what they’re worth, someone else will. That’s just reality.

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

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