How to Set Goals as a Church Staff

It’s Tuesday, and the whirlwind of this past Sunday is still blowing through your church office. There are people to call, meetings to attend, to schedule, to prepare for, counseling to done, sermons and lessons to write.

Why?

Sunday is coming, and people have needs. They are struggling in their marriage, with finances, their kids, career direction.

For most leaders in churches, merely surviving the week is a goal.

That isn’t what we signed up to do.

There has to be a way to get your head out of the clouds, above the whirlwind and see what is happening and work on the right things. 

But how?

For our church staff, we’ve tried a variety of ways to make this happen.

We’ve created annual plans but found that it was hard to forecast a year out. We still look at a year out, as you’ll see in a minute, but we do that year out by making 90-day goals.

First, we sit down as a team and list out every area in our church. Someone around the table should have responsibility for a category you discuss. This list needs to include every area. Some examples: kids ministry, students, first impressions, worship service, social media, preaching, staff, etc.

Then, taking one at a time everyone shares what is right, wrong, missing and confusing in each area. (hat tip to a mentor of mine Brian Jones for coming up with these four categories). The right part is essential because this is a chance to brag on the person who leads it and the team involved with this, to celebrate what God is doing. If it is hard to think of what is right in an area, maybe ask, what doesn’t need to be fixed right now instead.

Once you have your list of what is missing, wrong or confused (and there will be some overlap between those lists), the person who leads that area puts dates next to them. Are these issues that need to be worked on or fixed in the next 90 days, six months or 12+ months from now?

Then, I meet with each person individually to go over them. This step is vital for a couple of reasons: the lead pastor can often see things that others can’t regarding importance. The person leading an area can see things that are important that the lead pastor can’t.

The ones that are 90-day goals, we create OKR’s for each one. So, let’s say (a common one), we need to increase our kid’s ministry volunteer team by 20 people over the next 90 days (that’s the objective). What will 3-5 key results (the KR’s) need to happen so that we increase the team by 20 people? Those KR’s need to be measurable.

Then, once those plans are in place, you share them on your church staff. You give weekly or monthly updates, which also creates accountability. Why share them in a staff meeting? Every lead pastor knows that people are more likely to fail privately to you, than publicly to a group.

Doing this every 90 days helps to clarify what needs to be accomplished in the next 90 days, what goals we are all shooting for, but also keeps in front of us, what is coming up (remember we still have the ones with 12 months next to them).

Some of you are thinking, how long does this take?

When you first start, this will be a half a day laying out what is right, wrong, missing and confused.

Those 4 hours are not only incredibly helpful but energizing. Our team laughs, cries and celebrates what God is doing. We pray together for each area and what God has in store.

Those 4 hours are worth the investment.

It especially helps your staff members who are not natural dreamers or vision casters or who don’t naturally set goals.

It also helps fight against one of the frustrations many pastors experience, and that is disunity or a loss of momentum. Many times, disunity and a loss of momentum are not intentional; it’s just that everyone works on what they think is most important.

One of the most important jobs of a lead pastor is to say what is most important right now.

Wednesday Afternoon Mind Dump…

  • It’s been a long time since I had an emotional roller coaster ride of a weekend like the one I just had.
  • I spent all weekend in the hospital with my dad because they discovered blood clots in his leg and lungs and they planned to do surgery yesterday, but then decided to go the treatment route and discharge him.
  • Definitely not how I expected my weekend to unfold.
  • Thankful that we had a video sermon already planned at Revolution.
  • I love that our church got to engage in the Ask It series from Andy Stanley.
  • It is helpful and uncomfortable all at the same time, which is a great sermon series.
  • So excited to kick off our brand new series Difference Maker on the book of Nehemiah this Sunday.
  • Nehemiah is by far, one of my favorite books of the Bible.
  • It is weird in some ways working on a sermon after not preaching for 5 weeks, but I can’t wait.
  • Our church is also going back to 2 services on Sunday.
  • Got to read some great leadership books and novels on my break.
  • Trying out a new thing on my facebook page each week, just answering common questions I get on marriage, preaching, leadership, parenting, and health.
  • Click here to see the first one on how to do date night at home.
  • We had a meeting last night with all of our group leaders to share with them some of the new things we have planned for our groups to improve them.
  • I can’t wait to roll them out in January 2019.
  • I think our groups are about to become the best they’ve ever been.
  • Our big audacious goal is to go from 8 groups (what we had this past year) and launch 20 in January 2019.
  • Would love your prayers to that end.
  • Started reading The Practice of Adaptive Leadership last night and wish I would’ve read that book a decade ago.
  • I loved the other books by the authors but this one is a new level of greatness when it comes to a leadership book.
  • I have had a hard time fathoming that we will have a teenager in the house next week.
  • Here’s one thing I do each year for our kids.
  • We recently did a new planning process with our staff at Revolution Church, a total revamping to how we do yearly planning and quarterly goals.
  • I’ll share more about it next week, but I love it!

Be Indispensable (How to Stand Out in Your Career)

I remember in my early 20’s I was frustrated in my job. I was convinced (as all leaders in their 20’s are) that I was better and smarter than other people thought of me. I knew I should have more influence and responsibility than my boss was giving me. I was being held back because they were intimidated by me, didn’t want to lose their power and influence.

Maybe you’ve felt the same way.

Why isn’t my platform like that person? Why don’t I get to lead that? Why am I still in the second, third or fourth chair instead of the first chair?

When will they notice me? How do you make yourself stand out in a company, church or industry?

I remember telling a mentor this, and he gave me the best advice I’ve ever got.

Make yourself indispensable. 

At first, this seems counterintuitive (but the best advice normally is).

Being indispensable means a couple of things: working hard in the area you are in, being on time, completing a task given to you, being a great team member, picking up things that are outside of your area because somebody needs to do them.

Leaders love to assign tasks to people who can be trusted, not people who are looking to hoard influence or power.

Another way to make yourself indispensable (and I’ll say this as a lead pastor now) is not to create headaches for your boss. I wish I knew that as a 23-year-old, but the more relaxed you can make your boss’s life, the more critical you become. The more your boss will go out on a limb for you and give you opportunities.

Healthy Church Systems

Many leaders and couples get into church planting or leading in a church because we care about people and want to see their lives changed; marriages healed, past hurts redeemed, addictions broken. This is why we labor, pray, vision cast, have meetings, preach sermons and sacrifice like we do.

But how does that happen?

The work of the Holy Spirit is one, but the other part of that is through relationships and systems.

God is a God of systems and relationships.

We see in Genesis 1 both of these.

God creates man and woman in His image, and we see the relational aspect of God in the Trinity.

We also see that he organized the universe with systems. Time is measured through a system. Think of your body, it is a series of systems: respiratory, digestive, nervous, just to name a few. And Paul when he talked about the church, talked about it as a body, a system.

For many church plants though, they don’t build systems.

At least not intentionally.

Many times, when I talk to church leaders about assimilation. They’ll say things like, well I know who the guests are, I meet with them for coffee and help them get plugged in. This is a system (not a good one), but a system. It will break down the moment you go on vacation or when you start to average 5, 10 and 20+ guests a week.

In the 1950’s, the Japanese auto industry was transformed by one man, an American named Edward Deming. Deming went to Japan and after researching their industry for a decade told them, “Your system is designed to give you exactly what it is giving you.”

If you don’t like the results you are getting, it’s time to revisit your system.

Nelson Searcy, was a mentor of mine that introduced me to church systems (I use many of his titles below) when we planted our church, said, “A system is an ongoing process that Saves You Stress, Time, Energy, and Money.”

Besides helping your church steward time, money and energy better; systems also bring clarity to your church,

This is important because, most of the time in church, we decide if things are going well based off how we feel. Think about how you talk about a service; you ask people how they felt? Or that’s how people answer if you ask what they think. I felt ___ from your sermon or that song. But that isn’t always accurate. How many people showed up for VBS or that event? Many times people will say, “It felt full.” Feeling full and being full are two different things, just like feeling like people are growing in their relationship with Jesus in your groups and growing are two different things.

Lastly, systems are how you serve your people and help them grow into the people God created them to be.

Sam Chand in his book on systems Bigger Faster Leadership said, “The size and speed of an organization are controlled by its systems and structures.”

System 1: The Strategic System

The Strategic System sits above the other seven systems and serves as the foundation of all the other ones.

Let’s be honest; people rarely leave your church because of vision or theology. Sometimes they do, but what I’ve found is people the #1 reason people leave your church is that they disagree with your strategy. This is how you preach, the kind of worship you have, how you do discipleship and community, kids ministry, etc. This has to be clear.

Before you get depressed, this is also the #1 reason people love your church and come back (although they can’t articulate that).

For our church, we are a simple church that does Sunday morning and groups. Sunday is our front door; we target 20 – 40-year-old men, all to help people take their next step with God. Growth and community happen in the context of relationships in groups (“Circles are better than rows.”). That’s our strategy. Notice something in that: It defines what needs we are trying to meet, who our audience is and what our definition of success is.

Nine times out of 10, people leave our church because you don’t like this strategy and that’s okay.

System 2: The Worship Planning System

Think about the service or gathering. Sunday is a stressful day, especially if you are a portable church like we are. Who is your target on a Sunday morning? The answer to this question determines the elements you use, the language you use. It determines what you preach on, what songs you sing and prayers your pray.

To evaluate your worship planning system, after determining what lens you are looking at Sunday morning though, you can ask questions like What was missing? What was confusing? How can we do things better?

System 3: The Evangelism System

This system asks, “How do we attract people to our church? How do people find us?” Ultimately God sends people to churches, but why do some reach more than others?

How many first time guests have you seen in the last year? How many should you have? If you average 100 adults on a Sunday, your goal according to consultants is to average 100 first time guests a year.

How does this happen?

This can be through social media, Facebook ads, google adwords, direct mail, invite cards, servant evangelism, creating big days around Easter, mothers day (which is our second biggest day).

This comes through training your people in evangelism, you sharing your faith with people.

System 4: The Assimilation System

This system is your plan for taking people from their first visit to being fully-developing members of your church.

How does that happen?

By having a plan for how someone would do that. Often, our system for this is a hope and a prayer.

Here are some questions to ask your team about this:

  • What questions does a guest have when they show up?
  • What does a guest feel when they walk into our church?
  • When was the last time you filled out your connection card? There are so many useless things on a connection card.
  • What is your next step from a Sunday morning? Is it obvious? Clear? Is it too big of a step? If small groups are the only step from a Sunday morning for a guest, that is too big.
  • What words do people use to describe their first impression? You need to get info from guests to know how you’re doing because every church describes themselves as friendly.
  • How do guests who don’t know Jesus feel in your service? Can they connect? Know what’s going on?

System 5: The Volunteer System

This system determines how you mobilize people for a significant ministry at your church.

We used to see groups as the step before this, but we’ve found it easier and less intimidating for our target, remember system 1, to get onto a team before getting into a group.

Here are some questions:

  • Who in your church serves exactly how you wish everyone did? How do you duplicate that person? What experiences did they have that got them that way?
  • What are you doing to make people want to serve?
  • How do people find out about serving opportunities in your church? Is it stage announcements, fairs or one-on-one recruiting. You should utilize everyone, but the reality is, do you know the #1 way people start serving? Someone asks them.
  • What does the first serve look like for someone?

System 6: The Small Groups System

You should know how many adults are in your small group system and how many adults you hope to have. If you don’t have a goal, you don’t know how you’re doing.

As you think through this system, you need to ask if the goal is for this to be the primary vehicle for discipleship in your church. If it is, are there things that are barriers to this?

Your strategy will have an enormous impact on what your groups look like.

System 7: The Stewardship System

I remember an older mentor asking me one time, “Josh, how much ministry can you do with $100?” I didn’t understand the question, so I shrugged. He said, “$100 worth.”

We don’t like to talk about money in church, but the reality is, it’s needed for your church to survive. Giving is a spiritual gift, and this is crucial, in our culture, stewardship is a major battleground.

When it comes to stewardship, teaching and modeling is the most important combination.

Here are a couple of ideas to raise the value of stewardship in your church and onboard new givers:

  • At least a series each year on stewardship. This topic is so broad and not just financial.
  • Do 2 90 day giving challenges each year.
  • Do 3 – 4 special offerings each year.
  • Tell stories in your monthly financial update on how the generosity of your church is moving the gospel forward and changing lives.

System 8: The Leadership System

If you want to see a healthy, growing church, you will see a clear plan to develop leaders. Sam Chand said, “Many churches measure the number of people as a benchmark of success, but the true mark of success is the size and strength of the core of leaders who shoulder the burden and spread the joy of God throughout the ministry of the church.”

If you’re a leader at your church, your main responsibility is to attract, recruit, place, train and nurture as many volunteers and leaders as possible.

Here are some questions to consider:

  • How many leaders have you developed? When was the last time you invested in developing new leaders?
  • How are you developing the leaders and staff that you have?

Systems & Relationships

Do you see the connection between systems and relationships? If you have bad people/teams and bad systems, your church will close at some point; your business will run out of steam. If you have a good system but don’t have good people or teams, you will get results. If you have good people but a bad system, you will get a lot of frustration, which is where I think a lot of churches sit.

But, if you have good systems and good people & teams, a lot of flourishing happens in that space.

The 1 Thing Most Christians Miss

When you think about God, do you think of God’s love for you or God’s disappointment in you?

Stop and think about it for a moment.

If you’re like most people and me, you don’t have to think very long to decide the answer; it’s God’s disappointment, his anger.

I’m becoming more and more convinced that Christians would live differently, our culture and churches would be different if we understood God’s love for us.

We read passages like Romans 8 and how nothing can separate us from the love of God and shrug. Then when we sin, we feel far from God and wonder why we don’t feel close.

We read how God sings over us in delight in Zephaniah but aren’t sure what that means or even how that would feel.

I had a conversation with a friend recently who gave me some pushback on my preaching. He told me that I spent too much time talking about God’s love and not enough time talking about God’s wrath. In his words, the gospel is what we have been saved from and what we are saved to, and I spent the majority of my time in a sermon on what God has saved us to.

The reality for many (especially in the reformed tribe) is to focus solely on God’s wrath and make little mention of his love. The Bible doesn’t say God is wrath. It says “God is love.”

I want to return to the question at the top. Is there a verse in the Bible that says God is disappointed in you?

Most people live like there is, but there isn’t.

Now, the Bible has plenty to say about life apart from God, sinful desires, giving into temptations and not letting go of past hurts. The Bible has plenty to say about shame, regret and other sins and negative emotions.

But it doesn’t say that God is disappointed in you.

Make no mistake, if you think God is disappointed in you, that will drastically impact your life.

If God’s love or God’s wrath is prominent in your mind, that determines so much of your life.

Back to my friend.

The reality is that I do spend more time on God’s love for us and what we have been saved to.

For a couple of reasons:

1. Jesus spent a lot of time on that. Many times, Jesus would talk with someone and end by saying, “Go and sin no more.” That is future-oriented.

2. The Bible is full of hope, and that’s what people walk into a church looking for. Every Sunday people walk into a church looking for hope and help. They may not say that, but that is what brought them there. The beautiful thing about this is that is precisely what the Bible has for us.

Now, to be clear before I get emails. When the text calls for it, talking about God’s wrath is something we do at our church (we spent almost a whole year in Romans once). It is in the Bible.

I’ve learned though that regardless of whether or not you have a church background, believing in God’s wrath is not difficult. Believing in His love is.

The Opportunity of Desperation

One event sticks out in my mind from when I was 21.

I was sitting at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit and Bill Hybels was talking about church finances and prayer. He said that they get requests form church planters all the time to ask for $25,000 or $50,o00 because Willow’s budget is a multi-million dollar budget. The application goes, “You have so much  money, you won’t even miss it.”

As a young leader, who would eventually plant a church, I can appreciate the request made by these leaders.

Hybels response surprised me though.

He said, “Why would I rob them of the opportunity of desperation?”

Now, it’s easy for someone like Hybels to say that, but when you stop and think about it, desperation is essential in the life of a leader or a person who does great things.

Desperation is the point of deciding, do I believe in this? Do I believe in going back to school? Getting out of debt? Fixing my marriage? Do I believe in starting this church or that company?

Desperation is the crossroads where you either quit or take one more step to your breakthrough.

Right now, where has God brought you to a place of desperation?

That is where he wants you to rely on Him.

This is a great opportunity.

Throughout Scripture and church history, God brought people to a place of desperation so they can rely on Him, rest in Him, trust in Him.

Summer Break!

A little later than normal, but my summer break is here!

My elders are gracious each year to make sure my family and I get some time to rest and recharge. I’ll be posting many of our adventures on Instagram.

Also, if you’re a part of Revolution, be ready for July 15th. That is the first day that our brand new worship pastor, Jerry Tipton will be leading worship.

Can’t wait!

I often get asked what I’m reading over the summer, so here are a few of the books I’m most excited about (remember leaders, on your vacation, read books that benefit you personally):

No, I won’t read all of these and I won’t feel bad about it!

In the meantime, here are some of the most recent top posts on my blog to keep you company until I get back:

Healthy Marriage

Healthy Church

Healthy Leadership

Healthy Faith

Healthy Preaching

3 Ways to Figure Out God’s Will

Have you ever been in a situation and you knew the right thing to do, but that was the last thing you wanted to do? It may have been a huge decision, a situation that could alter your life forever (cheating, adultery, stealing).

It might be a simple situation like a relationship. Someone asked for help and you knew you should give it, but you didn’t. A child asked to stay up just a little longer, a spouse asks for your attention, but you gave an excuse, pulled out your phone and were selfish.

Many times, we know exactly what we should do, what we should say in a situation, what God wants us to do with our lives or a situation, but we don’t.

Why?

Honestly, it usually comes down to comfort and ease.

The right thing usually hurts in some way, will make us stand out or will make our life more difficult.

It’s easy to lie or tell a half-truth. It’s easier to look at porn than pursue your spouse or purity. It’s easier to push your kids to the side for your career (after all you’re doing all that you do for them).

Ironically, in the midst of ignoring these situations or people, we ignore God.

Think about it. If you’re married and you ignore what God has to say about purity, you ignore your spouse but you close yourself off to God and what He is doing in your world as well.

If you are dishonest at work, you not only close yourself off to opportunities at work: promotions, projects, leadership; but you also close yourself off to God and the work He wants to do at your job through you.

Then, and here’s the important part.

When we close ourselves off from God in these situations, we find ourselves wondering why God isn’t speaking to us. Why His will for our lives isn’t as clear as we’d like.

Have you noticed that when unconfessed sin in your life rises, God’s voice tends to quiet?

Many times, we are resisting God in ways we don’t see or expect. It’s not that we are actively trying to, it’s that we aren’t actively trying not to.

Here are some simple ways to begin seeing God speak and move in your life and stop resisting His voice:

1. Listen to the Bible and close friends you trust (who are spiritually mature). God’s will for your life is not a mystery, in fact, it’s all over the pages of the Bible. He tells us how to be married, how to be friends, a parent, have integrity, honor leaders and government and bosses, how to pray, how to fast, worship and be a good steward of our treasure, time and talents.

I believe, if we do these consistently and wholeheartedly, we will very rarely wonder what God’s will for our lives are.

Why?

Because we will be doing what He called us to do, what He designed us to do.

On top of that, ask trusted friends and mentors who you consider to be spiritually mature.

What do they do? How do they live? What do they say about the questions you ask or the struggles you have?

Listen to them.

Does what they have to say line up with Scripture?

If so, that’s a clue you are heading in the right direction.

2. Live out what the Bible and those friends tell you. 

Here comes the part that many of us get off the ride.

Living it out.

It is one thing to say you are going to get up and read your bible or exercise, and another thing to do it.

It’s one thing to say you are going to be more patient with your kids and another thing to actually show them patience and grace.

Life is filled with regrets, missed opportunities and a laundry lists of should’s and could’s.

3. When you feel like God is speaking…act. 

Which leads to the last part.

Act.

Do it.

Don’t’ stand on the sideline.

Have you ever noticed that God is on the move in the lives of people who act? I don’t know if He speaks more to them, but they seem to listen more and act more.

At this point, it is time to move on what God has said and not look back. .

Favorite Posts I Read This Week for Leaders

It’s the weekend…finally. Hopefully, you’re enjoying the beginning of summer break with your kids (if you have any). And hopefully, you can grab some coffee and find some quiet to read some great articles that I hope help you as a leader.

Before diving into those, in case you missed them this week. Here are the top 3 posts on my blog this week that I hope you find helpful:

Also, if you’re looking for a fascinating and helpful book to read this summer, be sure to check out the last one I read: When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing.

Now, onto the posts I enjoyed that I hope will help you:

Rich Birch has some great ideas (as always) on how to help make the summer great in your church and experiment with some new ideas that will help in the fall. The idea of tag team announcements is one that sounded really fun to me.

If you feel stuck in your church or need to figure out how to lead into 2019, Brian Jones has a unique but genius idea on replanting your church in 2019.

Shari Thomas has a great post on what it is like to be a pastor’s wife. I’ve written on this before as well, as it is a complex role to fill. If you’re a pastor, a pastor’s wife or attend a church, I’d encourage you to read her post.

What matters most in discipleship? Do some things move the needle more than other things? The answer is yes, some things move the need more than other things in discipleship. What are they? Eric Geiger shares 5 things from a 10-year research project.

How to Talk About Money in Your Church

Many church leaders struggle with talking about money in their church or loathe the offering time. However, this fear can be alleviated by making a shift in their perspective about money. The topic of money is not about money per se. The Kingdom of God and helping people to live as disciples of Christ is the true aim of money. In the words of Peter Greer, “Money is a vehicle, not the ultimate objective.”

The reality for pastors is that money is important. It is needed when it comes to ministry and money is one of the biggest struggles and stresses of the people who sit in your church.

Here are 5 things to keep in mind for the next time you preach on money:

1. People genuinely are interested in what the Bible has to say on money. People come to your church to hear what the Bible has to say. They drove there, probably looked at your website, they drove past a sign that said church, so they are expecting for you to open the Bible and read it. I think people want to know what God thinks about a whole host of things, money included.

Why?

Because very few people have strong financial knowledge. There are so many takes on it, ideas on what you should do, how to get out of debt, where you should invest that it becomes overwhelming and then people stick their head in the sand. Telling them what the Bible has to say is incredibly helpful and refreshing to them because it says more than “you should give to the church.”

As well, most couples are fighting over money. Most people are laying in bed at night stressing over money. Talking about it hits them where they live and answers some of their most burning questions.

To read the other 4, click here.