How to Leave Well

book

At some point, you will leave the role that you have and move onto something different. That something different might be staying at home with kids, a new job or retiring.

Often, especially in the church world, leaving well is not something that is done often. Pastors don’t know how to handle leaders who leave and when you leave, it can be difficult to navigate that moment. I’ve written before about how a church should handle a leader who leaves, but today I want to talk about what you should do when you are leaving.

  1. Your last day is all people will remember. Most people don’t believe this one, but your last day is largely what people remember about you. They remember how you treated someone or what you said. No matter how long you are at a church or what you did, the majority of what they will remember and talk about is what happened on your last day.
  2. Tell your immediate supervisor first. When you decide to leave, the first person you should tell at your church is the person you work under. If you’re the lead pastor, tell the elders. You should not tell a trusted friend before your supervisor. Your supervisor will be a large part of deciding how the transition goes, your severance if applicable and how it gets communicated. You want them on your side. Also, this helps the church to keep moving. Fast transitions work well in the business world, but church is all about relationships and that takes a little longer to work through and transition well.
  3. Tell them as soon as possible. This is dicey and many people will tell their supervisor after they decide to leave. I think that is shortsighted and shows a lack of trust. Now, my word of caution is every pastor does not think like this, but I think you should allow your supervisor to walk with you and pray with you through this transition as you seek to see if God is leading you somewhere else. While some will struggle to hear you think God might be calling you somewhere else, I think it shows kingdom mindedness if you pray through it together.
  4. Be honest, but make sure you are building up the church you are leaving. If you are leaving because of a disagreement, everyone doesn’t need to know. You won’t be inauthentic if you don’t tell the whole story. Remember, the first one, that’s all people remember. So, if you leave throwing rocks, that’s your legacy. When the announcement is made, it isn’t up to you what is said publicly.
  5. If it is not a good separation, stay above the fray. There is a desire whenever a parting happens, whether in a job or relationship, to get our side of the story out. To get people on our side. Church is notorious for this because ministry is so personal and working relationships are so personal. When someone leaves a church, whether a staff member or someone who simply attends, our first desire is for people to know why we are leaving and get people on our side. This is being divisive, not building up. This only gets at our desire for retribution, not reconciliation or moving forward.
  6. The moment you say you are leaving, it is no longer about you. Many times a staff member leaves a church and wants people to cry, be upset, talk about all they did. This is pride. The church is moving forward and so are you.
  7. Help people process. You are excited because God is moving you somewhere else or you are getting freed from a job you hated. Either way, you aren’t sad because you are leaving. Others are. They will miss you, it won’t be the same. Before you go there mentally, help them process it. Also, the people in your church will not be as upset as you are if the leaving isn’t mutual. They will not understand why you are leaving or the emotions you have about it. Don’t pull them into your sin.
  8. You might need the church or pastor you’re leaving. Often, when someone leaves a ministry, they say things they shouldn’t. This is human nature and often sinful. But remember, as you leave, you never know when your path might cross with this church or pastor or elder team. You may need them down the road. Be kind. Treat them as you would want to be treated.

In the end, leaving doesn’t have to be messy. It can be a celebration of all that God has done through a person or a ministry, and what God will continue to do in that ministry after they leave, but also what that person will do in their next ministry. Churches often fail at this because they take it so personally instead of seeing how they are working together and furthering the kingdom in different parts of a city or country together.

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Other People Determine Your Success

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The longer I’m in ministry and the larger Revolution gets I’m more and more convinced that those who can work well with others go farther and are more successful.

Often, the goal for many leaders or people is to show they are the smartest person in the room.

I worked at a church who had a talented graphic artist. He knew more about graphic design than anyone else in the church (and it was a large church). He also let it be known that he knew more than anyone else. He always complained to pastors about the ability or lack of ability of others. Put down what other people did, etc.

Whenever he talked about a situation he disagree with, he always made himself sound like the martyr or the only person who cared.

What was interesting about all of this was that he was not a nice person. He didn’t play well in the sandbox. Behind each ministry team he was on were a sea of bodies. All people he just couldn’t work with. People who did not understand he was smarter than they were, had more experience than they did and all around, did their job better than they did.

Why didn’t people see this? he would complain.

The reality was, people did see this. They saw how talented he was, how much experience he had, but no one cared because ministry is a team sport.

When we decide that we are smarter than the team we work with or the people around (and you may be the smartest person), you keep yourself from growing and becoming all that you could be, but you keep others from it as well.

How do I know?

I used to be this way and still struggle to fight against it.

Here are a few ways to know if you are hindering yourself:

1. You are the only one that cares. People with this elevated sense of themselves are the only ones who care. They are the only ones who are passionate. You may never say this, but your body language or attitude communicate to everyone else, “you don’t care as much as I do.” When a team or volunteers sense this, they check out. Why? Because they do care. As much as you? Maybe not, but they care. Your job as a leader is to help them care. Also, if you are on a ministry team at a church and not the leader, your leader cares even though you might think you are more passionate than they are.

2. No one does it as well as you do so you can’t let go. This is a struggle every leader has. Sometimes, this is a struggle people on a team have because they think (or they know) they are more talented than the leader. It takes humility to be on a team and be more talented than the leader. It takes humility on the part of the leader to have people on their team who are more talented than the leader. If you are a leader and someone can do something 70% as well as you can (or better), give it away. Stop holding them back, stop holding yourself back and stop holding your team back. If you are on a team and you can do something better than your leader, don’t passive aggressively tell them, be honest with them.

3. You think others are ruining the ministry or your work. Unless a law is broken, one incident or weekend at a church will not destroy all the work you’ve done. Often though, the smartest person in the room (which is the person we’re talking about, who thinks they can get by on talent, hard work and knowledge) thinks others are ruining things by what they do. Yet, they aren’t. They are simply doing things differently. This is one reason most churches stay small, they are led by people who are not willing to allow others to use their passions and gifts.

4. You find yourself bouncing from one job or ministry role to the next. Often, when someone doesn’t work well with others, they have a history of changing teams, ministries, churches and jobs. It is always “the other people” or “the situation.” You’ll hear things like, “They didn’t appreciate me.” “I wasn’t challenged, I was bored.” “They didn’t understand me.” You’ll hear about office politics that kept them from advancing or how someone was jealous of them. You’ll hear a lot about the fault of other people and nothing about what they did to leave a trail of short stay’s in jobs. At some point if you are this person, you have to admit that it isn’t them, it’s you that’s the problem and the unhealthy one.

5. The same problems follow you. What is amazing about life, jobs and teams is that a problem that you have on one team has a miraculous way of following you to your next team because, wait for it. You’re there. I knew one leader who changed teams and jobs numerous times in a short period of time and was so frustrated, yet she couldn’t see that she was the consistent piece in every situation. Each team she was on it was the same story, she couldn’t get along with anyone and she never understood why she kept running into the same problems. If you find yourself running into the same problems wherever you go, look in the mirror and see what is there.

In many ways, this blog post is are the lessons I’ve learned over the last 10-12 years of leadership. I was the guy in all of these points. I thought I was the smartest person in every room I entered and I made sure people knew it. I thought I cared more than others, that I could get by with my knowledge, talent and hard work and that would lead to success, but that is a lonely way to live because eventually you get passed over for promotions or leadership opportunities and no one wants to work with you.

In their book Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization, the authors use a phrase for healthy leaders and healthy groups (they call them tribes): I am because we are. For you or your team or church to reach its potential, you must be able to work and play well with others. You must grow in your “relational intelligence.”

But I’m an introvert, or I’m a strong personality you might say. Doesn’t matter. If you want to be all that God has called you to be, you must grow in this. Or else, you’ll never get as far as you could.

The Tension of Leadership

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Leaders and pastors live with a tension that everyone experiences in life, but is different on an organizational level.

It is the tension of the in between. Leaders lead and live in the now of the organization, but also with what could be, their vision for the future and where things are going or where they’d like them to be.

This is hard.

A leader knows what is coming, the changes that are going to be made, the momentum that can be had because of those steps, but often has to wait. It might be waiting on a new hire, waiting for things to settle down at a church or for the summer season to end so you can get started.

As a leader, right now you are stuck with this tension. And it won’t go away. It will simply shift to something new. Six months from now, you will be waiting on something different to happen.

Here are 5 ways to survive this tension:

    1. Enjoy where you are. This is hard for leaders because we are wired to keep moving, but you are in a certain season. Your church is a certain size, enjoy it. I’ve enjoyed all the sizes of Revolution for different reasons and sometimes have looked back on how easy something was when we were smaller. But I didn’t enjoy it like I could.
    2. Make sure things are in place for what is next. Many pastors by nature are not strong planners. They often fly by their seat, spend a lot of time focused on people and find themselves behind the curve on something. This is why it is so important to make time to work on your church, not just in it. If you are growing, do you have enough groups for people? Are you prepared to add classes for kids? What about parking spaces?
    3. Start looking past what is next. At some point, you need to start preparing for what comes after what is next. Meaning, you just grew your church plant to 100 and people and are on your way to 200, you need to begin thinking about what your church will be like at 400. Why? There’s a good chance you will do something at 200 to keep you from growing to 400.
    4. Listen to the fears that people have. As you are making plans and getting key leaders on board for what is next, you will run into someone who is not excited about what is next and may even hold you back. This person is not the enemy, although you will think they are. They may be crucial to slowing you down (which might be good), they might be God’s way of helping you grow as a leader, you might be God’s way of helping them grow through their fears, or they may be divisive and need to move on. Each person and situation is different, but don’t disregard someone who is not as excited as you are about what is next. You should always be more excited than everyone else, you’re the leader.
    5. Plan for what is next. All growth means change. If your church gets larger, changes are coming. You will hand things off to people, leaders that worked well in a church of 100 won’t be the leaders you need at 200. Your schedule will be busier, which will make sermon prep, meeting with people and strategizing harder because you will need to plan better. Everything is different at each stage of your church. Many leaders blindly walk into the next season, get busier and burn out because they haven’t planned for what is next.

Leadership Paradox: Going Slow is Often Better Than Speed

If there is one thing leaders love it is speed. They want to see things get done, churches and teams be more effective.

If there is one thing that followers love, it is the opposite of speed. It is sameness, normalcy, sometimes status quo, but something they are familiar with.

Here’s a leadership paradox I’ve been learning recently: going slow is often better than speed. 

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This hard for leaders, especially church planters or younger leaders when they lead a change.

The reason is simple. Leaders see the preferred future, they have an idea where things are going and they want to get there.

They also have spent so much time researching it, thinking about it, praying about it, reading books that by the time they announce something, they have some times been thinking about a change for weeks, months or years.

The problem?

All your followers, team members, or employees just heard about it.

Part of the reason many young leaders aren’t willing to take changes slower is they aren’t planning to be there for a long time.

When you make a commitment to an organization or a church for more than 3 years, you have more of a willingness to take the long view on the speed of new things.

As the leader, you struggle with patience. I get it. It is one thing that makes you a strong leader. Yet, if you aren’t able to slow down, keep everyone with you, you will end up at your destination alone.

Are there times to speed up? Yes. Sometimes things are taking too long.

Sometimes, a decision simply has to be made. A lot of times we are moving slow not out of wisdom, but fear of what will happen if we decide, if people will be mad or leave. If that’s the case, be a leader and make a choice.

Just because people don’t seem like they are on board, doesn’t mean they are being divisive or unhelpful. Sometimes they don’t understand or you are moving too fast.

How do you know the difference in all these situations?

You don’t.

That’s what makes you the leader.

 

Pick a Church

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When I spoke at Exponential on the topic of how to transition a church from small groups to missional communities, the question of attending two churches came up. This happens a lot in church planting circles. It goes like this, “Can I or someone attend a church on Sunday, but then attend a small group or missional community at another church?”

The reasons people do this are many, but the answer to the question is simple.

No.

Many times, someone will attend a larger church on Sunday or a service they like and then attend a group at a smaller church because “it is easier to get connected and cared for at the smaller church.”

This creates a weird tension for people in the group or MC.

At a church like Revolution, where we discuss the sermon, if you don’t hear the sermon you won’t be able to add to the discussion. So, now you are silent attendee. The other aspect that is incredibly important and this is the real reason people do this (even though they would never tell you this). Attending a church and an MC at another church keeps a person from having accountability in their life or having to submit to authority. They are able to skirt it at both churches, get what they want and go home.

No one holds them accountable, gives them pushback for not serving (because they aren’t), not giving (because they usually aren’t because their heart isn’t at either church) and ultimately, they are simply being a consumer at two places and taking it all in instead of giving to anyone through care and serving.

On a larger level, this keeps the church who has the MC they attend from growing their church. The consumer getting the best of both churches is taking up a needed seat for someone to get connected at the church.

I know what you will say, “But they want to be there. They need to be connected. This is uncaring.”

I would say, “It is uncaring to say no to someone who wants to be in an MC at the church they attend that you can’t because we don’t have room because of this person who doesn’t attend our church, doesn’t want to attend our church but wants to be in an MC.” It is uncaring to the person waffling because they are missing the crucial element of accountability that is so important to relationships and community because they go to this place on Sunday and then to our place on Thursday.

You can’t have it all and by trying to have it all (attending a church service and an MC at a different church), you actually end up missing the thing you are trying to get.

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Why Church Ministries Should Take a Summer Break

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One day at lunch I was talking with some other leaders about how we do communities at our church and what others were learning and I mentioned in passing (because it is so much a part of our culture now) that the communities at Revolution change their rhythm in the summer (June and July).

Everything at lunch stopped moving.

One of the problems I have with missional communities is that they never stop meeting. They do this, because they want to live out the identity of being a family, and families never stop meeting together. And, the mission never ends.

Revolution used to be this way. Having our groups meet til they multiplied or until Jesus came back.

Then something happened.

I found myself at two events with a lot of pastors whose churches were organized around missional communities. In total, there were probably 75 pastors at each of these events. At each one, over 50% of the pastors were either on sabbatical, going on sabbatical or just coming off of sabbatical. As I pressed into this, I learned they were all tired. I also started to hear stories of burnout among missional community leaders at churches as a leader approached year 3 of leading an MC.

This was frightening to me as our church had just done the hard work of transitioning from small groups to MC’s.

So, we made a choice.

One that would alter our church and the health and longevity of our leaders.

We instituted a summer break for our MC’s. Required it.

When we brought this change up 3 years ago, many of the MC leaders at Revolution reacted as leaders do when you propose a change to something they love. They pushed back.

Yet, after the first break, every leader who was hesitant about it told me, “That was the best thing we could’ve done.”

Here’s why:

  1. Understanding the city you are in. Tucson is on a year round school calendar, which means one of the main school districts our families come from have a 6 week summer break and the other one has 7. This means, in those 6-7 weeks, people are at camps, on trips, escaping the heat in California, visiting families, etc. It is different if you have a 3 month summer break, but for us we had to understand what the rhythm of our city is, which is what good missionaries do.
  2. Leadership is tiring. The leaders who become MC leaders work tirelessly. They love their MC, serve them, disciple them, develop leaders, host them in their home, lead them in studies, open their lives to them. This is all encompassing and can be exhausting. A break helps leaders stay fresh. I know people will say that MC leaders should take breaks with their MC during the season. I’m not sure how realistic that is. Taking a break is a way we as a church serve our MC leaders and help them stay healthy.
  3. A break gives you a kick off. We launch new MC’s in August and January. We make everyone in our church sign-up again. You have the freedom to switch MC’s if your schedule has changed. This creates a sense of excitement in our church as MC’s launch. New people feel more comfortable joining because everyone is starting on week 1.
  4. A break gives you an end date. Our culture, and men in particular, like end dates. We want to know how long a semester is, how long soccer season is. We want to know this before committing. This is a good thing and one that churches often miss. I think one of the main reasons people aren’t engaged in community in their church is because they don’t know the end date for that group. Many will say this is an idol that we need to confront and that may be true, it also might be true that we are used to things have a start and an end and that is how it works.
  5. A change of pace. During the summer, our MC’s still get together but they spend more time playing together and resting together. They don’t meet every week and each MC is different depending on the needs. One summer my MC didn’t meet at all because almost all of them were college students and they all left Tucson. This is a reminder that life is a series of seasons, our lives were meant to live in those seasons and when we work against them, it leads to burnout and disaster.

Ultimately, this is a choice for health. Health for the church, MC’s and the leaders. Recently a new guy at Revolution who has attended church most of his life told me this when he heard we change our rhythm in the summer, “I’ve never heard of a church caring about their leaders and volunteers not burning out.”

10 Lessons for the Church from Pixar

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I recently read the new book Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull on the story of Pixar and the culture of that company. The lessons churches and pastors can learn from them are numerous. There were so many, I’m actually going to share the lessons in multiple blog posts. Here are the first 10:

  1. If we made something that we wanted to see, others would want to see it too. This was the standard in how they decided on when they made Toy Story and has stuck with Pixar as they have made other movies. This is crucial for churches. Pastors need to lead churches they would want to attend and we need to create churches we want to go to. Otherwise, no one will bring anyone. Also, when a guest comes, they will feel our lack of excitement and enthusiasm. It is like going on a trip with someone who doesn’t want to be there.  
  2. Leaders of companies that go off the rails focus on the competition, not looking at themselves. Churches are notorious for this. We complain about culture, how no one cares about church anymore, the culture is shut off and hardened toward the gospel, there is more competing against church attendance today, on and on we go. We try to out market the church down the road. When we put up road signs for our church in front of where we meet, the megachurch 1/4 mile down the road put signs up near ours. Churches tend to fight and target the Christians. Instead of being the best, most healthy church God has called them to be, we settle for something less because of a focus on the wrong things.
  3. Protect the culture of Pixar. One of the most important roles of a leader of a church or ministry is keeping it focused on the main thing. The lead pastor is the primary vision caster and primary vision protector. It cannot be delegated, it cannot be relegated to the back burner. If it is not protected, anything can happen, anything can be important, anything can be the win.
  4. Pixar starts from the presumption that our people are talented and want to contribute. Too many pastors think they are more committed than their people or other leaders. A church planter can easily get distracted and fearful of another talented leader and keep them from leading. A lot changes when a pastor believes everyone is bought in and wants to contribute.
  5. Turn down opportunities that are a diversion from your goal. 
  6. Devote your life to a goal. For Ed Catmull, his life goal was to create an animated movie strictly with computer technology. Too many leaders and churches do not have a goal they are devoted to. They give credence to the great commission, but their budget and actions do not back up their supposed passion for this. For me and Revolution, we dream of planting churches so that everyone in Tucson lives within 10 miles of a church we’ve planted. I pray I see that before I die.
  7. Have total confidence in the people you hire and let them do what you hired them to do. Many pastors are micromanagers, church planters can be even worse. I understand the tension: you started the church, put your livelihood on the line, you have the most skin in the game. Consequently, you don’t trust others, you have a hard time believing someone can do something as well as you can, let alone better than you. This thinking though is shortsighted and keeps a church from growing and keeps people from using their gifts to their full potential.
  8. Fear is groundless. Christians are fearful people. We are afraid of culture, afraid of what politicians are doing, the left-wing lobby, Satan, the economy, you name it. Yet, we serve a God who conquered sin and death. Pastors are fearful of elder boards, powerful lay leaders and influential church members. We don’t say what we should, we don’t preach what we should, we don’t take the risks that we should, all because we fear failure or make a god out of someone else. Fear is groundless, it has not power over you because of the God you serve.
  9. Hire people smarter than you. This is closely related to #7 and if you don’t believe #7, you won’t hire smart people. I am blown away at the caliber of leaders that God has assembled at Revolution. All of them are smarter than me at something. I’m good at a few things, but need others who are great at many things for us to reach the goals God has given to us.
  10. Any hard problem should have many good minds simultaneously trying to solve it. In many Christian circles, the leaders attend conferences, read books, visit churches, follow blogs of people they agree with. This is shortsighted. You should read people who don’t think like you. Read business books, if you preach, read books by vocal coaches. In theology, you should be pushing yourself in your reading. Look outside of your camp for good ideas. Be willing to learn from anybody on how to do church the best way you can.

I’ll share more lessons as I continue working my way through the book. Highly recommend it so far.

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How to Handle Someone who is Not on Board with a Change

book

Recently, I had the opportunity to speak at Exponential on the topic of transitioning a church with small groups to a church with Missional Communities. A few asked for some notes on it and thought I’d do a few blog posts on it.

The first step in this process is to start with why and the win of this transition. The second step is to get essential leaders on board.

The moment you begin to get essential leaders on board with any change or transition is the point of no return for a leader, they have now gone public.

I would say this is one of the most crucial moments of a change because of this. It is also when leaders derail themselves without realizing it and it is because they don’t handle someone who is not on board correctly. 

Think of this scenario: a leader has spent weeks, months and some times years thinking about a vision or a dream, a way forward. They begin sharing this dream with leaders and decision makers. Most people are excited because they love the leader or the direction or both.

Then, something happens: they meet someone who is not excited.

They ask questions, give pushback and generally do not seem excited about what the leader is proposing. The leader, because they are the leader starts to get defensive, pushes back even harder and both people sit across the table and dig their heels in.

Who is right in this situation?

Possibly both people.

Leaders will look at this person, whether they met in person or heard through the grapevine that someone isn’t on board and they will see a person who is being divisive or not submitting to authority.

Leaders forget that they have had the opportunity to process a change of direction or new initiative or ministry for a long time, this person just heard about it and has not had as long. It isn’t that they aren’t supportive, wanting to be on mission or not submitting, they are just reacting to a change and almost always are first reaction to a change is to be defensive.

If the leader fails here, most changes get derailed. For the simple reason that the person who seems unsupportive usually wields greater influence than the leader.

As a leader, here are some ways to handle this person:

  1. Stay humble. Do you need this person to make this change? Who knows. But God has placed you as the leader to shepherd this person through this change, so care for them. Stay humble, otherwise, God will oppose you and that will be worse than this person opposing you.
  2. Ask questions. Ask what their fears are, why aren’t they excited about this. Often, it is the loss of something that makes us defensive about a change, not because we don’t love the possibilities of something new, it is that we are mourning what we are losing.
  3. Listen. Don’t get defensive or seek to win. 
  4. Have resources for them to listen to or read. Have something to give them. Pick the thing that pushed you over the edge, the most influential piece to give to them and say, “This helped me. Before you decide, would you listen to this or read this and consider the possibilities?”
  5. Ask them to pray about it. They may or may not actually pray about it, but ask them to. If they do, give the Holy Spirit the opportunity to do what only the Holy Spirit can do, change them.

In the end, if God wants whatever change you are making to come to pass, it will. The person who seems the most against something at the beginning can often be the biggest supporter of it by the end if they are led well.

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Why You Aren’t a Leader

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I meet a lot of people in their 20’s and 30’s who are really smart. The reason I know they are smart is because they tell me. Typically, in your 20’s, you are always the smartest person in the room, especially as it relates to churches. I get it. I was the same way. I’ve had to since apologize to some people I worked under for my arrogance.

If you are in your 20’s and 30’s, there is also a sense of people should just hand things to you.

I remember a couple of years ago being asked by some people at Revolution why we weren’t supporting a church plant in Tucson (sadly, this church plant no longer exists). My response was, “they never asked.” Now, the people asking knew the planter and asked why we didn’t just give money to them without them asking.

Answer: leaders cast a vision. Leaders make the ask. Leaders make it known what is needed. Leaders sit across the table from influencers, givers, and others leaders, cast a vision and say, “I want you to be involved and here’s how _____.”

Leaders do not wait for someone to give them something.

If you are a church planter or pastor and don’t have the volunteers you need, the money you need, the people you need. You have either not asked or you are not casting a compelling vision for people to join.

Don’t miss this: people are not looking for something else to give to or something else to do. 

They are looking for something worth their time, money and effort.

This is hard to do and this one reason is why so few dreamers ever reach their full potential. Here are 3 ways to ask:

  1. Don’t say no for someone. You have a need and you know the perfect person to fill that need, except they are really busy. Many pastors will not ask that person, they will ask someone less qualified. Don’t. Don’t say no for someone. Let them say no for themselves. They might be too busy. They might cut something out of their life to do what you ask them to do.
  2. Know what you are asking for. If you are asking them to give to something, know how much you are asking for. If it is serving, know for how long and how much time it will take. The more specific you are in what you are asking for, the higher the chance they will say yes.
  3. Know why you are asking. This is where many leaders miss the boat. They know “what” and “how” for their church plant, team, ministry, etc. but they don’t know why. Why should this person do this? What will it gain? Why is it worth their time or money? I once talked to a campus minister and all he told me in our hour meeting was what he would do on campus. I already knew that. I wanted to know why, I wanted to hear his heart, I wanted to hear his passion and why it drove him to give his life to it.
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One of My Hopes for the Church

plant a church

Can I tell you one of my dreams for Revolution Church and your church?

I preached on our vision and some dreams on Sunday. Here’s how I closed:

I want people to know that we stand against sin in our world, that we want to see people rescued from it and live the life God has called them to live.

I also want them to know that we are incredibly broken, more broken than we ever realized. But, that we have been rescued and it is greater than we thought possible and we will not quit until everyone knows.

I also want them to know, that even if we disagree with them, if they have a need we can meet, we will be there. I long for people to look at people who are part of our church and say, “I don’t agree with everything they believe, but when I needed a friend, when I needed a shoulder to cry on, when I needed food, when I needed help financially, when I needed a ride home because I was too drunk to drive, when I needed to be picked up off the ground because my life hit rock bottom, someone from Revolution was there.”

And that through serving, through loving, through walking with them, you will be given an opportunity to talk about Jesus with them and that through your serving and loving, they will be open. Because, they will begin to look around their life and see the brokenness and see that you are the only friend still there and wonder what is so different about you.

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