Recently I read Gridiron Genius: A Master Class in Winning Championships and Building Dynasties in the NFL and it is fascinating. I love anything to do with leadership and football, so this book was highly enjoyable and had so many leadership and business nuggets that I had to share my top 7.
1. The ingredients of any successful business. According to Lombardi, “any successful business (church or team) will have a sound culture, a realistic plan, strong leadership, and a talented workforce.” Think for a moment about your church, business or team. Do you have these things? Are working towards them?
Without one of them, you will find yourself not reaching your full potential, and you will be frustrated and frustrate those on the team. Quickly, discouragement will set in, and it will be hard to move forward.
2. Vision, philosophy, and strategy first. Most pastors and churches planters get this wrong, and it brings a lot of harm and frustration. Start with your vision and strategy and then build your team. Too many churches have hired people that don’t fit their vision and strategy, and it is disastrous.
And pastors don’t miss this; people don’t usually leave your church because of doctrine, they often leave your church because of strategy.
This is why it is so important to have clear values as a church, a clear strategy that you talk about often and evaluate people on that before adding them to your team and giving them leadership roles.
3. Functioning as a team is more important than stars. Bill Belichick said, “It’s not the strength of the individual players; it’s the strength of how they function together.” Go to any church planting or pastors conference, and you hear pastors talking about looking for stars. When a church looks to hire any staff member, especially a lead pastor, their job description starts with “we’re looking for Jesus.”
But you aren’t going to hire Jesus, and you may not need a star. The strongest teams I’ve been on haven’t always been made up of the best people at their role but people who worked together incredibly well and made up for what the other person lacked.
4. Making a decision requires firmness, fairness, and fast. These are the 3 F’s of decision making from legendary coach Bill Walsh. If you’ve been in church any length of time, you know that firmness, fairness and fast are not what churches and pastors are known for when it comes to making a decision.
Yes, you want to make wise decisions and take the time you need, but often, churches could cut in half the time it takes and make a sound decision.
Most leaders suffer from cost sunk bias or fear of missing out on something and so we miss opportunities. Meaning, don’t necessarily think about what you’ve spent so far on a decision as that will cloud your thinking the right choice. Will you miss out on something? Probably but that’s okay.
5. Never squander an opportunity. Churches are not often thinking about possibilities. They are thinking about reacting to things. Do you spend time looking ahead? Do you know when the big days are of your church’s and community’s calendar year? Do you know when people are likely to be sick, on vacation, etc.? When you think about your preaching calendar, do you think about when the best time of a year to start a series is? For example, people think about specific topics in January, February, at the start of school, at the holidays, etc. Do you know what they are? Are you crafting a preaching calendar and events around those things?
If you aren’t, you’re squandering an opportunity.
6. Mimicking success rarely earns success. I’m guilty of this. So is every other pastor and church.
We go to a conference, hear about a successful ministry, how one pastor does small groups, preaching, worship services, kids ministry and come back and copy it and wonder, “why didn’t that work?”
Because we overlooked a whole host of things, that was someone else’s dream or vision. It fit their personality, context, and timing.
For example, I love so much about what missional communities do in churches and for a while we copied it and tried to make it work, but it didn’t fit me and the context of our city.
The last part is the timing of the church. This gets overlooked all the time in church circles.
Timing matters a great deal when it comes to churches growing. Many church plants survive and die based on timing, timing that has nothing to do with them.
7. The value of special teamers. This one is super important for a lead pastor to remember.
Special teamers on an NFL team are guys who are just trying to make the team. They aren’t starters but will do anything to make the team. They will run down punts and kicks, which is the most dangerous play in the football.
These are the people in yoru church who will do anything for your church. They are dedicated, serve, invite, pray and give, but they aren’t necessarily leading anything. Your church cannot survive without them.