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Joshua Reich

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4 Things People Want From a Leader

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leader

According to Tom Rath in Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow, there are 4 reasons that people follow a leader, 4 needs that every follower has that a leader meets. They are:

  1. Trust: Trust is everything for a leader, but especially for a pastor. Because we are dealing with people’s lives, hearts and souls and not merchandise like a company, trust becomes the pinnacle of leadership. The moment your followers stop trusting you, stop believing you, the game is over. Character and integrity take a lifetime to build, but can be lost in a moment. This is why boundaries are so important for a leader, this is why a leader must continually make sure he is putting the needs of the organization first instead of his own empire. This is why authenticity and being the same person in private as you are in public is so important.
  2. Compassion: While compassion may not be high on the list of CEO’s, if you are a pastor, it is in your job description. To care for, love, serve, shepherd, celebrate and weep with those you lead. Pastors need to be available to those in their church, to listen, counsel, pray with and sometimes just to give a hug. People want to know that you care. This comes across in personal interactions, but also how you talk about others, especially in a sermon.
  3. Stability: If you are a church planter, stability is difficult. Even if you are an established pastor, stability can be hard, especially if you are making changes or leading your church into the future. A leader must learn how to balance leading change and keeping things stable. Followers want to feel safe, secure and that the world will not fall in on them. As we were planting Revolution six years ago, several people left at once and when I asked why their answers essentially were, “Too much is changing, we aren’t sure if we’ll make it.” Most of those people have since come back, but followers want to know something will make it.  
  4. Hope: No one likes a negative leader. Yes, it may sell books and run up blog stats if you spout out about how the world is ending or it has never been so sinful (before you say that be sure to read the book of Judges and 1 Corinthians). According to Gallup, the best leaders make their followers “feel enthusiastic about the future.” Leaders continually must be looking into the future and helping their followers see that the best is yet to come, even when it feels impossible. Not by painting rosy pictures that aren’t possible, your followers are too smart and will see through that. But to continually say, “If you follow me, if you stay with us, here’s where we’re going.”
4 reasons people follow a leader.

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Why You Aren’t Ready for What’s Next

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ready

When I was 25 I was a young, punk of a leader. I had a Master’s degree and had been a part of large, successful ministries. I was always the smartest person in the room (in my mind and I made sure others knew it). I also had had a relatively easy life up until this point.

I was sitting in an interview with a large church for a student pastor position. The interview was going well and I thought I would for sure get the job. The executive pastor was getting ready to wrap up the interview when he asked if anyone had any final questions. The lead pastor had been in the interview the entire time but hadn’t said a word. He looked at me and said, “I have one question.” I was ready to talk vision or strategy, but his question caught me off guard. He looked at me and said, “Tell me your deepest hurt.”

I was silent.

He then said, “Tell me about your deepest wound.”

I stumbled for an answer.

While I had been hurt, I had never really been abused or beaten. I wasn’t abandoned or from a broken home. My life had been easy up until this moment. I gave him a rather lame answer that I can’t even remember.

After my answer he said, “Thanks Josh, but we won’t be hiring you. I’m afraid of a leader who can’t name his deepest hurt because I don’t know if he’s past it, but I also don’t know what he’ll do when he meets it.”

Little did I know, the next 3 years after this moment, I would encounter hurts and pain I had never dreamed of.

Fast forward 10 years and I’m on the other side of the table of interviewing people. One of the questions I ask each person is, “Tell me about your deepest pain. What do you do when life hurts? When God seems silent? What you can’t connect with your spouse? When your ministry feels like a failure?”

Like that lead pastor, I’m scared of leaders who stumble through this answer.

Why?

Because they will face a desert, they will face failure, they will come up against their deepest pain at some point and I don’t know how they’ll respond.

This right here is why many people fail to move forward in life, fail to capitalize on their gifts or see the doors open to them that they wish to have open. 

We like authentic people and leaders, people who have been wounded as we have but have found a way to move forward from it. Who aren’t scarred by it, they are marked by their past, but they aren’t destroyed by it.

There is something about a leader who has faced what we have faced and come out the other side. We want to be around them, we want to be like them, we want to follow them to where they are going.

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It’s Not Them, It’s You

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them

Have you noticed how people often seem to have the same problems? They get frustrated in one job, so they quit, change companies, careers and still have the same frustrations. Or, they get frustrated in one marriage or relationship so they walk into another one, only to have the same frustration.

The common factor?

The one person.

At some point, difficulties and problems in our lives need to start being our fault and not everyone else’s fault. 

We don’t like this in our culture and thinking though. We are the victim, it isn’t our fault we are the way we are. If other people hadn’t hurt us, hadn’t walked out on us, cheated on us, lied to us, we wouldn’t be the way we are. Or, if people could wise up, see the world from our perspective, understand why we are right and they are wrong, things would get easier.

This became clear to me a few years into Revolution Church. Like most church planters, I had a rough go as a student pastor, but every student pastor has a hard season. From 2004 – 2007 was brutal in my life and God took me through the ringer a few times. When we started Revolution in 2008 I used this season as an excuse to bulldoze people, get my way, not listen to critics or coaches and pressed on. I hurt people, burned people, burned myself out and missed opportunities to learn. Slowly, as the church got older and so did I, and I got further and further from that hard season of 2007, I couldn’t keep using that as a reason. The further away we get from those times, the more insecure and immature we sound when we blame it on that.

Also, if you continue to run through relationships and jobs for the exact same reasons it is time to stop and realize, you are the common factor in all of them.

It is you. Not them.

It is easier though to continue complaining, yet, this doesn’t help us have freedom.

Until I faced my hurt, my part in it, what God was trying to teach me in it, I couldn’t move forward. I was always trying to prove myself to someone from my past. I was always trying to prove I was smart enough, talented enough, good enough or worthwhile. I was trying to prove I was better. In this, I missed how God wanted to grow me and I missed the chance at some great relationships and opportunities because I was bitter, hurt, prideful and spiteful.

Those aren’t great descriptors for a pastor, but they embody many church planters and people who simply attend church.

One of the most common sins among Christians and leaders is bitterness. We don’t let go of things easily. We make people pay (those from our past and those in our present who pay for the sins others committed).

Why?

It makes us feel superior if we can blame someone else. 

At some point, healthy people are able to say, so they can move forward, “It’s not them, it’s me.”

At that moment, change becomes a possibility.

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Helpful Hints from Visiting Other Churches

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churches

I love visiting other churches. I love learning from what other churches do well, stealing ideas to improve Revolution. I love being able to worship with my wife and hear great sermons and have my heart be challenged. Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to attend some churches in Tucson and in California on vacation. Here are some things that I was reminded of for my own leadership and for Revolution:

  1. Signs matter. I’m blown away by how many churches have horrible signage. Most churches assume everyone knows where everything is: the front door, exit, bathroom, worship service, kids ministry, etc. If you think you have enough signs, you don’t. Someone should be able to pull onto your campus, walk in and find everything without having to ask for help.
  2. Say hi but don’t mob people. I’m an introvert so I don’t like the 15 people shaking my hand, hugging me or the 2-10 minute greeting time where we talk to people around us. I know some people do and if you do, you can skip this one. You should say hi to someone, but don’t mob them. They should receive a smile, a touch (handshake, high five) and a thanks for coming and we’ll see you next week. If people want more, they’ll get it. Extroverts have no problem getting more interaction at church.
  3. Show me, don’t point me. When a guest asks where something is, don’t give them directions. I remember visiting one church and we asked where the kids met and they said, “Go through the auditorium, out into the courtyard, look to the right, when you see a soccer goal, look beyond that to a modular trailer and it’s next to that.” And we started walking. We asked 5 people along the way to make sure we were heading in the right direction. Show a guest to something, don’t tell them directions or point. 
  4. Treat me like I don’t know what’s coming next, because, I don’t know what’s coming next. Tell me what’s next. Tell me how long I’ll be there, how long the service will last. Tell me what page the bible verse is on because I may not know and don’t want to feel stupid as I look for it.
  5. Preaching matters. Preaching takes up half of a service or more. Make sure it is good. It doesn’t have to be world class, but be prepared. Don’t stumble around. Make me care about what you are talking about. I don’t care simply because you stand up and preach. Tell me why I should care, speak to my heart and my head. And, tell me what to do with what you just told me. If I walk out with no clear next step, studies show I’ll probably forget everything you said by Wednesday.
  6. Worship matters. Worship is the other half of the service, make it count. I wrote a letter to worship leaders here that can explain what that means.
  7. Kids ministry matters. In today’s culture, if you want to reach families, kids matter. It needs to be safe and secure. If you don’t give me a tag for my kids, I won’t leave them with you. If my kids didn’t like it, I probably won’t be back next week. If you are a kids worker, when you say hi to a child, get down on their level and talk to them.
  8. Say thanks. This seems like a silly thing, seeing as the person who visited your church chose to, but they didn’t have to. They gave up their morning to be with you. Got the kids out of bed, got dressed and came. Tell them thanks. This might be a gift or words. Tell them to come back, let them know you hope to see them again.
  9. Make announcements shorter. Announcements are too long at most churches. Period. Make them shorter. Cut as much out as possible.

10 Ways to Simplify Your Life

book

I love simplicity and the idea of simplifying your life so that you can be more effective and be healthier. In fact, it is a large part of my new book. So I was really excited to read Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown.

Here are 10 things I learned in the book on how to pursue less and get more:

  1. If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will. This is so true and if you understand this, everything in your life changes. Most of us allow someone else to dictate our schedule, life, pace and purpose. It might be a boss, spouse or child, but we don’t say “no” or stop signing up for things. Most people if they are honest, when they are in a stressful, hectic, unsustainable season, it is because they didn’t prioritize their life, someone else did.
  2. Essentialists see sleep as necessary for operating at high levels of contribution more of the time. Sleep is important. Everyone knows this and yet, many live as if they can survive on small levels of it. We hear stories of the leaders who get 3-6 hours per night. Some can do that, but most of us still need 7-8 hours each night. Make it a priority and get a good night sleep.
  3. If the answer isn’t a definite yes then it should be a no. This insight has been so helpful as we are hiring new staff members right now. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve waffled on a choice and went back and forth but this idea, if it isn’t a definite yes, than it is a no. Worth the price of the book in my opinion. I’ve applied this more than any other concept in the book.
  4. When people don’t know what the end game is, they are unclear about how to win, and as a result they make up their own game and their own rules as they vie for the manager’s favor. If you are a leader, listen up to this point. This might be why your team is in shreds, never having a good debate on an issue or simply infighting. They want your attention because they think that is the win, unless you’ve given them a win.
  5. One strategic choice eliminates a universe of other options and maps a course for the next five, ten, or even twenty years of your life. Once the big decision is made, all subsequent decisions come into better focus. I’ve believed this idea since we started Revolution. Targeting 20-40 year old men has answered so many questions without having to think about them. It has shaped our logo, songs we use, ministries we do and don’t do. All of it. Most pastors struggle with this idea and their churches suffer because of it.
  6. People respect and admire those with the courage of conviction to say no. Our head tells us this isn’t right, but in our heart, we know it is true. Mostly because few people have the guts to say no. We wonder if we’ll miss something, if our kids will fall behind or their future will be in jeopardy for not doing every sport. Say no, remember #1, take control of your life or someone else will.
  7. It’s true that boundaries can come at a high price. If you’ve pulled a boundary with someone, you’ve felt the hurt of this. Things that come at a high price though are often the best things in life.
  8. Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work. At the beginning of each day, I lay out what I hope to accomplish in that day. The most important things I need to accomplish. At the end of the day, I’m able to know if I moved the ball forward based off what I felt was most important. This also helps me know if I’m doing too much, need to delegate something or take something off my plate.
  9. The Essentialist designs a routine that makes achieving what you have identified as essential the default position. We all have habits and routines and they shape how we live. That isn’t the problem. The problem is that few of us have thought through how to make routines and habits that move us forward instead of falling behind. We don’t structure our lives proactively. Effective people make routines that work, they organize their lives so they move forward.
  10. “Fewer things done better” as the most powerful mechanism for leadership. Yes, yes, yes! Pastors, stop doing everything at your church. It is diluting your mission and keeping you off target. Most churches could cut half of what they do and become 10 times more effective. Why? Because the level of excellence in those things would skyrocket. Do a few things well and let everything else go. Every company that does this is more effective and yet churches, with the mission of the taking the gospel to the nations, the gospel that saves and gives eternal life, we are diluting ourselves into thinking we can do everything and be effective. We can’t.

Overall, this was one of my favorite books of the year. I can’t recommend it enough.

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“I Want Deep Preaching”

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healthy leaders

Here are some things that if you preach on a regular basis, you will hear at least once in your life:

  1. I love that you preach deep.
  2. I left my last church because the preaching wasn’t deep enough.
  3. I’m so glad you preach the bible at this church.
  4. I don’t like your preaching because it is too topical.
  5. I’m leaving your church because you aren’t deep enough (maybe someone said this to you yesterday).

Deep preaching is a moving target, for the simple reason: Deep preaching takes on different meanings for different people.

Usually it is a churched person that wants deep preaching and what they often mean is, “I want preaching that makes me think.” Or, “I want preaching that fills me up.” Often, the person asking for deeper preaching is actually an immature Christian who doesn’t want to read their bible for themselves. Not always true, but I’ve found that to be common thread.

I was told by someone recently, “You preach too topically for me.”

If you’ve ever said that or thought that about a pastor, here’s something to keep in mind: every preacher preaches topical messages.

Topical preaching is simply preaching on a topic. A good preacher, looks at a text, studies it, prays over, discerns what they think the author is saying, what their church needs to hear from this text and then preaches on it. Now, some preachers will simply decide on a topic and go looking for a passage that says what they want it to say. That isn’t good preaching and that isn’t always what topical preaching is, though for the people who have a disdain for topical preaching, this is what they are talking about.

“Deep preaching”  to me is when the preacher is lazy. If a pastor isn’t careful, in an effort to be deep, his sermons will simply be an information mind dump. They stand up and preach a seminary lecture or quote a bunch of commentaries or dead guys.

That isn’t preaching.

I remember doing a preaching lab with some younger preachers and one of the preachers gave no application in his sermon. When I asked him about it he said that he wanted to preach a deep sermon and that “the Holy Spirit will apply what he just preached.” While I fully believe the Holy Spirit brings the conviction and change through a sermon, this is simply being lazy. If that is your view of preaching, why are you preaching? Why not just read a text and then sit down and “let the Holy Spirit do his work?” Or better yet, we don’t even need a preacher, just have people read a passage silently and then listen to the Holy Spirit.

That would be ludicrous.

Romans 10:14 tells us we need preaching. We need preachers who will do the hard work of studying, praying, confessing their sin and applying the text to their congregation.

Which means, you will preach on a passage and not preach everything in the passage. 

This is okay, but hard for younger preachers to handle.

You feel like you are failing or not being biblical. That isn’t the case. There are times when you get to a text and something jumps out for your church, but if you were to preach that passage in a year, you might emphasize a different part of the text. Are both right and biblical? As long as you say what the author said, yes.

It also means you edit your sermon. You spend more time on an idea than another. Every preacher does this, even though the Christians looking for “Deep preaching” don’t think it happens. If it didn’t, every pastor would simply preach on one verse every week or one word just so they preached the whole text.

Editing is one thing that separates a good sermon from a great sermon.

It is getting to what is most important in the text for your church to hear in that sermon.

We don’t need more “deep preaching” in our churches. We need more preachers who will do the hard work during the week so that when they preach, they are laser focused on the heart, so that we see the transformation we long for in our churches and in our society.

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How to Lead in Good & Bad Times

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book

Peacetime CEO knows that proper protocol leads to winning. Wartime CEO violates protocol in order to win.

Peacetime CEO focuses on the big picture and empowers her people to make detailed decisions. Wartime CEO cares about a speck of dust on a gnat’s ass if it interferes with the prime directive.

Peacetime CEO builds scalable, high-volume recruiting machines. Wartime CEO does that, but also builds HR organizations that can execute layoffs.

Peacetime CEO spends time defining the culture. Wartime CEO lets the war define the culture.

Peacetime CEO always has a contingency plan. Wartime CEO knows that sometimes you gotta roll a hard six.

Peacetime CEO knows what to do with a big advantage. Wartime CEO is paranoid.

Peacetime CEO strives not to use profanity. Wartime CEO sometimes uses profanity purposefully.

Peacetime CEO thinks of the competition as other ships in a big ocean that may never engage. Wartime CEO thinks the competition is sneaking into her house and trying to kidnap her children.

Peacetime CEO aims to expand the market. Wartime CEO aims to win the market.

Peacetime CEO strives to tolerate deviations from the plan when coupled with effort and creativity. Wartime CEO is completely intolerant.

Peacetime CEO does not raise her voice. Wartime CEO rarely speaks in a normal tone.

Peacetime CEO works to minimize conflict. Wartime CEO heightens the contradictions.

Peacetime CEO strives for broad-based buy-in. Wartime CEO neither indulges consensus building nor tolerates disagreements.

Peacetime CEO sets big, hairy, audacious goals. Wartime CEO is too busy fighting the enemy to read management books written by consultants who have never managed a fruit stand.

Peacetime CEO trains her employees to ensure satisfaction and career development. Wartime CEO trains her employees so they don’t get their asses shot off in the battle.

Peacetime CEO has rules like “We’re going to exit all businesses where we’re not number one or two.” Wartime CEO often has no businesses that are number one or two and therefore does not have the luxury of following that rule.

From The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz

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What is Holding Your Church Back

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church

I’m not sure where I read it, but Nelson Searcy said, “Your church is not realizing as much of its potential as it could.” This can be off putting depending on your view of the church and your view of leadership. If pastors and church members are honest, most churches are not realizing their potential. They are not doing all that God is calling them to, they are not as healthy as they could be and they are not seeing the growth in people that they could.

Often, it isn’t intentional, they are just allowing church to happen to them. They are working in the church.

In his book Seven Practices of Effective Ministry, Andy Stanley says one of the most important things for a pastor to do is work on the church. This is different than working in the church.

Work on it means that to maintain your relevance, your sanity, and your effectiveness, you must carve out time in your schedule to step back and evaluate what you are doing and how you are doing it.

Many churches do this on Monday when they look back on the weekend and evaluate things based off what is the win for them. How they evaluate it will vary. Some questions I ask myself are:

  • What did God do that we can celebrate?
  • Was it Christ centered?
  • Was everything clear? Would someone without a church background know what we were doing at all times?
  • Was it relevant to everyone who came?
  • Did we help people take their next step? Was that next step obvious?
  • Did everyone who was on stage, taught, led and volunteered, did they bring their best?

This is helpful and something that should be done weekly.

One area that many pastors fail to work on their church is the bigger picture. This is why a summer preaching break is so helpful. The summer is the ideal time for this as you get ready to head into the fall ministry season, hit the holidays and then roll into the new year. The summer is a reset time in many ways.

Here are some questions to ask for your organization:

  • Are we doing anything that does not help us accomplish our vision?
  • What size are we right now? If we doubled in the next year, what would we stop doing? What will we start doing when we reach twice our size?
  • What things are keeping us from growing?
  • What systems need to be changed or fixed to maintain health as we grow?
  • How can the preaching calendar help us take the next step as a church?
  • Do we need to replace any leaders as we grow because we have reached their lids? What can do to help expand their leadership lids?

Working on the church is not just about evaluating the organization and ministry of the church. Pastors and leaders also need to spend some time looking at their own hearts, leadership abilities and lives.

Here are some personal questions to ask:

  • How is my energy level? How do I recharge before the fall season?
  • What do I need to put into place so that I don’t burnout in the next year?
  • What areas do I need to grow as a leader so that I can help lead the church in this next season (each year I focus on an area of my job that I want to grow in and read or get coaching in that area)?
  • Is God calling our church to anything new in the coming year?
  • Am I wasting my energy or time in any area of my life?
  • Am I keeping appropriate boundaries with social media?
  • Where do my deepest frustrations come from? What can I do immediately about them?
  • What is the single most important thing to do or decide to do right now to achieve my life vision and the vision for our church?
  • How am I failing to give my best time and energy to my family? What changes do I need to make immediately about this?
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How to Know Your Vision is Clear

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If you are a leader, you might wonder if your vision as a church is clear. How do you know if you are accomplishing it? Often, leaders can be so hard charging they never stop to ask the question of whether they are hitting their target. Or, they are so complacent that they don’t care.

Here’s a simple way to know if your vision is clear: Are people coming to your church and leaving your church because of it. 

vision

Is anyone attending your church because of your vision?

You will know this is true by talking to new people at your church. What drew them to your church? What excites them the most about your church? Why did they get plugged into a missional community, small group or serving team?

Listen to the stories people tell about your church, what they say when they baptized.

Are you seeing new people attend? New people stick?

If what people say is not part of your vision, you either have the wrong vision or it is not very clear.

Has anyone left your church because of your vision?

This will sound unloving and I understand.

As a pastor, you want as many people as possible to attend your church. I want everyone in Tucson to come to Revolution Church, love it and stay. I want them to be on board with our vision, our target and what we feel like God has called us to.

Everyone won’t though.

As much as that hurts, it is okay.

Every city needs lots of churches to reach all of the people in it.

Recently, I talked with two families that left our church and as I talked with them about the reasons why one of them articulated, “We just don’t agree with the vision.” When I asked him to clarify. He told me, “Revolution focuses too much on people who don’t know Jesus.”

He’s right. That is our vision.

If no one has left your church in the past year because they don’t agree with the vision of your church, it is either not clear, not bold enough or you aren’t actually doing your vision.

People don’t leave passive churches because of the vision.

People don’t leave visionless churches because of the vision.

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What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done by Matt Perman

book I am a big fan of being more productive, organizing your life for effectiveness and I’m always on the lookout for a helpful book in this area. What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done by Matt Perman is one of the best books on this topic. What sets this book apart from others on productivity:

  1. Its emphasis on understanding how the gospel impacts productivity.
  2. How the gospel frees us to be productive.
  3. It also brings together some of the best ideas from other books on productivity to show a better system that combines the strengths of different systems.

If I had one criticism about the book, it would be how much time he spent convincing the reader that it is biblical to be productive. I know why he did this and the reasoning is sad: Christians seem to think productivity, organization or systems are unbiblical and have no place in the church. Sadly, this is why most churches are ineffective and why business leaders often feel like they don’t fit in churches. One of the best reminders I took from this book and it immediately changed my stress level was planning my day in advance. I tried doing this the night before, but I then laid in bed thinking about the coming day. I now spend my first 5-10 minutes each morning at my desk, praying through and thinking through what I need to accomplish and list what is most important and remove everything else from my calendar or to-do list for that day. If productivity is a struggle for you, or if you want to take your productivity to the next level, I’d highly recommend checking out this book. You won’t regret it. [Image]

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