3 Reasons it’s Good for Church Staff Members to Leave their Church

Tag Archive - vision

3 Reasons it’s Good for Church Staff Members to Leave their Church

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Through coaching and consulting relationships I’ve had the privilege to work with a lot of Church Staff out there in church-world. One of the more common questions I’m asked by Church Staff Members is, “How do I know when it’s time to leave my church?”

It’s not always a simple straightforward conversation, it’s complicated and often nuanced. And it’s never a decision that should be made lightly. Truth is, there are probably a lot of reasons a Church Staff Member might leave a church. Some of them are valid; some of them are not so valid. But if you’re a Church Staff Member and you’re considering leaving your church, below are three great places to start in the conversation.

Vision

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had this conversation. Someone on the church staff is frustrated due to the lack of vision at the church or they don’t agree with the vision and they feel that it’s their job to challenge the leadership and point out their flawed ways. If as a church staff member you can’t get on board with the vision of the church or there is such a lack of clarity of vision that it’s leading to a deep level of frustration then it’s time to find a leader and a vision to follow that you believe in.

God’s Call

If you’re sure that God is calling you to something else, then that’s a fantastic reason to leave a church. But before you start waving around the “God’s will card,” you better be sure that it was God’s voice you heard talking and not that pizza you had last night at 1:00am.

Loss of Trust

If for some reason you lose trust in the leaders that you’re following, or if they lose trust in you it can make it exceptionally difficult to remain on staff at that church. Trust is the fuel that leadership runs on. When it’s eroded you can forfeit the right to lead or be led. And while most will contend that trust is earned, it’s actually something that someone chooses to give.

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

10 Articles that will Help Your Church Make Vision Real

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Thank you for making August one of the best months ever here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! It’s great staying 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!

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.”

10 Signs your Church is Headed for Decline

What if there were early warning signs (flashing lights on the dashboard) that helped indicate that trouble was ahead? In my experience Coaching Church Leaders and Consulting with Churches across the country I’ve seen the following 10 indicators of an impending decline over and over again.

4 Steps to Building a Strong Organizational Culture

Vision Arizona is a church planting network located in Arizona that boasts a 90% success rate. At a recent network gathering Chad Moore who serves as the Lead Pastor at Sun Valley Community Church, the church I have the pleasure of serving at, shared some background on a church that merged with Sun Valley to become a Sun Valley campus. During the talk he shared some clear steps that pastors can take to intentionally build a great culture in their churches. Here are some of my notes and thoughts from the talk.

Leadership Summit 2015: Bill Hybels

If you missed the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit this year, no worries I’ve got you covered. I’ll be posting my notes and thoughts from each presenter next week. Until then, Willow Creek Community Church Founder and Senior Pastor Bill Hybels opened the Summit addressing The 5 Intangibles of Leadership. The following are leadership quotes and lessons from this incredible session.

8 Reasons Why People don’t Volunteer at your Church

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.

Risking Crazy

I recently had the opportunity to connect with Jason Taylor, Lead Pastor of The Vertical Church in Yuma, AZ and talk about his new book Risking Crazy. The following are highlights from the conversation. You can follow this link to get your hands on your own copy of his new book. In a world where following Jesus increasing looks crazy, Jason’s personal story of planting Vertical Church in Yuma, AZ challenges readers that following Jesus is still the best way to live life.

Why People don’t Volunteer at Church Anymore

I’ve never worked with a church that said they had enough volunteers to accomplish the vision that Jesus has given them. In fact here are some of the most common reasons why people may not be volunteering at your church:

Why Your Church Should Play More Freshmen

I recently heard Charlie Strong, the Head Coach of the Texas, Longhorns and former longtime Defensive Coordinator of the Florida, Gators say to the veteran players on the team that when it comes to position battles the tie is going to go to the freshmen. In other words, if a veteran (Sr. player and incumbent starter) is tied with a freshman when it comes to talent and performance the Freshman is going to play not the Sr. Sound harsh? There are 4 Key Lessons that the church can learn from Coach Strong when it comes to recruiting and developing young leaders. And the future of the church may depend on it.

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. It’s not uncommon in churches that I work with to hear them say, “We need to add more staff.” After all if there are problems or areas where the church is stuck then throwing staff at that problem will surely fix it…right? Well, not always. In fact the opposite may be true. In fact the most effective churches that I see have a tendency to hire fewer staff not more staff. They hire more competent team members who have the ability to turn attenders into volunteers, volunteers into leaders, and build teams. Instead of paying people to do ministry they pay people to lead others to do ministry.

5 Reasons Why Your Church Event is Leading People Nowhere

How do we get from here, to there? From where we are, to where we want to be? And how do we get people to go with us? The best process is always a one step process. As a result of that compact truth, companies and churches have been intent on pursuing the elegance of simplicity. Unfortunately what many well-meaning leaders have designed to be clear steps and bridges to move people and the organizations they lead towards a preferred destination have become roadblocks to movement and growth. Here are 5 reasons why your bridge event is leading people nowhere:

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Posted in Leadership

10 Signs your Church is Headed for Decline

Sunday, June 21, 2015

When I was young my Aunt purchased a brand new car. I didn’t have a car yet so even though it wasn’t red and it had 4 doors instead of 2 I thought it was really cool. And because she had a car and I didn’t she by default was cool too.

Everything was cool until she forgot to change the oil. Truth be told, she never changed the oil. From the day she drove the car off the lot to the day it died (which was much, much sooner than it should have), that car never experienced a single oil change. Routine maintenance wasn’t her strong suite. And most of us are just like her. We put off going to the doctor for our annual check-up, we postpone going to the dentist for our 6-month check up, and yes we put off routine maintenance on our automobiles.

We just keep going until it hurts enough that we are forced to stop and go in for a check up.

Unfortunately most church leadership teams operate the same way. They put off routine check ups and maintenance until it’s too late and decline starts to set in. What if there were early warning signs (flashing lights on the dashboard) that helped indicate that trouble was ahead? In my experience Coaching Church Leaders and Consulting with Churches across the country I’ve seen the following 10 indicators of an impending decline over and over again.

1. High Staff Turnover

When a church has trouble keeping staff, the church is in trouble. Some attrition is natural over time as the church grows, the staffing structures adjust, leaders hit lids, or vision shifts. But when turnover shifts from being a season to being the norm there is a cultural problem at play.

2. Fuzzy Vision

Without a doubt the single most life-threatening indicator that a church is in trouble is a lack of clarity. Clarity provides a church with the power to make decisions efficiently and align the organizational components of the church to move forward. If you don’t know where you’re going, and can’t state it clearly, you’ve got no chance to get there.

3. Complexity

When the church is growing it’s exciting! Staff members are hired, ministries are started, buildings are built and people are meeting Jesus! But it’s not as exciting when all of that growth and fun naturally lead to complexity. Growth naturally leads to complexity and complexity slows everything down.

4. Inward Focus

I’ve said this many times before, the most dangerous place a church can be in their life cycle is when the ministry they are doing is having a big impact with insiders (people who already know Jesus and are inside the church) but a low impact with outsiders (people who don’t know Jesus yet). It’s dangerous because it’s comfortable. It feels like things are going well and you have momentum because people are happy, they’re regularly attending, and they seem to be “all in” with what you’re doing. But if you aren’t reaching new people, your church or ministry is already moving towards unhealthiness and decline.

5. Defending the Past

When a church is busy defending the past instead of building the future it is headed for decline. When a church becomes risk averse and starts making choices based on who they are going to keep as opposed to who they are going to reach, the church is in trouble. The real danger in playing defense is that it becomes a cultural mindset that actually stands in opposition to the Gospel. You see the Gospel was never meant to be or does it need to be defended it’s intended to be unleashed.

6. No Strategic Plan

Strategy answers the question, “How are we going to get there?” It’s planning for tomorrow today. Little is more demoralizing to a church staff team than a bunch of empty inspirational talk that never materializes into real courageous action.

7. Leadership Void

There are a lot of challenges facing the modern church, but perhaps the greatest challenge is a leadership challenge. The modern church is simply an anti-leadership organization. It doesn’t attract, develop, or keep leaders. Leaders by their very nature are change agents. Because the unstated goal of most churches is to preserve the past, church leaders often times find themselves fighting the family instead of fighting the enemy.

8. No Spiritual Maturity Pathway

I’ve observed that some churches are stuck or declining not because they have a difficult time attracting or introducing new people to Jesus but because they have no plan in place to move people towards spiritual maturity or the plan they’re working is broken.

9. Policy Trumps People

Policies shrink the box of creativity. They set the standard for how we do what we do every time we do it. Policies tell everybody in the organization what they can’t do, and leaders are solution oriented not excuse or problem oriented. A church with a lot of policies will consistently find it difficult to attract and keep good leaders. It’s very possible to policy your way right into decline.

10. Volunteer Scarcity

One of the things we’ve learned through our research at the Unstuck Group is that the average church in America is mobilizing somewhere around 43% of their adult and student population in volunteer opportunities. The reason it is so critical for churches to address this and take steps to move their culture in the right direction is because volunteering is discipleship. It’s not about filling roles and getting ministry done through people. It’s not about what we want from people, but rather what we want for people. It is discipleship. Because volunteering and living an others first life is the very essence of what it means to live like Jesus.

It would probably be worth some time discussing this list with the Sr. Leadership Team at your church and evaluate where your church measures up in each of these 10 areas of health.

What can we do about it? Engage the Unstuck Group in a Ministry Health Assessment. Discover islands of strength to build on and areas of opportunity to work on before they become serious and decline sets in.

By the way…leave a comment; I’d love to hear about what you’d add to the list!

Posted in Leadership

The Difference between a Church Planter & a Campus Pastor

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

I’ve written previously about the newest Staff role in church-world, the Campus Pastor. Ever since the multisite movement has begun to gain momentum, churches across the nation have been searching high and low to find their next Campus Pastor. I’ve heard some church leaders even blame the multisite movement for an apparent increased difficulty in finding Church Planters. Essentially stating that instead of Church Planting, up and coming church leaders are opting to become a Campus Pastor instead of planting a church.

I’m not really buying it though. When it comes to recruiting a Church Planter or a Campus Pastor you’re looking for two very different people with two different sets of gifts.

Campus Pastor:

1. Developer: They’re great at developing people. They know how to identify potential in people and enjoy spending their time investing in others. People respond to their coaching and their performance improves because of it.

2. Leader: They know how to lead from here to there. They can position the staff to succeed, meet goals, and integrate calendars, budgets, and the ministries on their Campus in a manner that moves the Campus towards the vision.

3. Implementer: Great Campus Pastors makes things happen. They may not come up with the idea, but they can execute the idea. They know how to see ideas through from concept to completion.

Church Planter:

1. Calling: Great Church Planters possess a distinct calling from God to go and start something new. It’s not merely a career opportunity but deep sense of spiritual direction from God that they tenaciously grab hold of.

2. Visionary: They’re not simply a dreamer. Yes, they can see a preferred future, but at the same time they are wise enough to leverage the current moment to move people towards that future.

3. Entrepreneur: They are wired up to start new things. They are opportunity oriented, embrace risk, and are comfortable with the amount of ambiguity that comes with starting something new.

What other unique differences have you observed when it comes to Campus Pastors and Church Planters?

Photo Credit: kevin dooley via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership

7 Articles that will Help your Church Make Vision Real

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Thank you for making April an incredible month here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! It’s great staying 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 7 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 Reasons Churches don’t Grow

Thom Rainer, President and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources has stated in his research that: “Eight out of ten of the approximately 400,000 churches in the United States are declining or have plateaued.” While there are all kinds of reasons that churches end up stuck, at the Unstuck Group we’ve identified 5 key contributors that lead to churches being stuck. Through working with churches across America we’ve observed these contributors over and over and over again. You can click on the headings in this post to learn more about each of the 5 key reasons that churches get stuck.

#2 A Large Multisite Church in Phoenix is Hiring a Children’s Pastor

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 Children’s Pastor to serve on our Tempe Campus.

#3 5 Mistakes that Fast Growing Churches Make

If you’ve been in ministry for any length of time you know that momentum won’t always be on your side, growth won’t always be taking place, and things won’t always be up and to the right. Often momentum is lost when things are at their best because churches don’t know how to behave when things are going well. In fact below are the 5 biggest mistakes I’ve seen fast growing churches make.

#4 Why Structure is Not the Goal

If you’ve ever experienced a season of ministry like this you know how fun it can be. Churches during this phase of growth often hear people say things like, “There’s just something about this place.” They’re experiencing success, they’re just not exactly sure why. Even staff members sit back and watch it at moments hoping to ride the wave of momentum and not get in the way and mess it up.

Inevitably someone comes along and identifies the fact that we can’t operate like a “Mom & Pop” organization anymore. It could be the Board, the Pastor, or a trusted senior level Staff Member. But eventually someone will say something like; “We need to set up the proper structures to help us move past the chaos and into the future.”

#5 10 Insider Focused Ministry Names

#6 Stop Paying People to do Ministry

As they grow, many churches eagerly anticipate the moment when they’re finally big enough that they can afford to hire more staff and offer more ministry options for people. For example I’ve heard churches say they can’t wait to hire a Men’s Ministry Pastor. Nothing against Men’s Ministry per se, but that’s an expensive model. If you run it out to its logical end you’re going to have a lot of people on your payroll. Paying people to “do” ministry instead of “lead” ministry is an expensive mistake that many churches fall into. Here are 3 principles that will help you focus the Staffing & Volunteer philosophy at your church.