Posted on

Highlights from Rethink Leadership on Strategy

by

leadership

I’m at Rethink Leadership Conference in Atlanta, which has been like drinking from a fire hose of leadership wisdom. The first session was on strategy, which was incredibly stretching. Here are some highlights:

Reggie Joiner
  • It isn’t the vision that determines our success at a church, it’s your strategy.
  • A strategy is a plan of action with an end in mind.
  • You don’t have to work at getting misaligned as a team or organization.
  • Questions to ask: What do we want someone to become? If you could only get the people who come to your church for one thing, what would that one thing be?
Carey Neiuwhof
  • Is vision as important as we think it is?
  • The reason vision isn’t as important as we think is almost every church has the same vision.
  • Your problem as a leader isn’t a vision problem, it’s a strategy problem.
  • Mission and vision determines intention, but strategy determines direction. -Andy Stanley
  • Strategy initially divides, but ultimately unites, every organization.
Leonce Crump
  • Forms and functions change, but convictions never should.
  • How do you change your strategy without losing your core:
    • Can you measure your core? Do you know who your core is? Make sure they know your core convictions.
    • Vision is taught, culture is felt. What do people feel in our church?
    • Every person wants consistency out of their leaders more than anything else in the world. Do you know who you are and can you consistently communicate who you are?
Posted on

Monday Mind Dump…

by

mind dump

  • Some days after preaching you have this high that you can’t explain.
  • Some days, you feel like you trudged through the mud of a passage and came out on the other side only to see the next verse waiting for you.
  • Today, I feel like the second one.
  • If you missed yesterday on “Do good people go to heaven?” you can listen to it here.
  • Romans 1 – 3 is an amazing set of verses that sets up the amazing truths that await in the rest of Romans, but they are hard passage to preach through.
  • Grateful for a church that wants to know what the whole bible says and sit under hard passages like ones on God’s wrath and judgment.
  • Those are humbling topics.
  • Got to celebrate with someone who kept inviting someone who finally came.
  • There’s nothing better than hearing someone say, “I have prayed and asked for years and they’re coming today.”
  • It’s a reminder that every Sunday is someone’s first Sunday. 
  • Since moving to our new location I feel like we have been doing a lot of work behind the scenes of our church to strengthen our discipleship and leadership development systems.
  • Right now, our staff is working through the leadership pipeline material from lifeway.
  • Such solid stuff.
  • Can’t wait to roll this out across all our ministries this year and how it will help people move on a path to use their gifts and talents.
  • Started reading You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit by James K.A. Smith.
  • The book is not at all what I thought it would be about.
  • Not sure if that’s ever happened to you.
  • But I’m loving it despite that.
  • So there you go.
  • Took our kids to the fair last week.
  • Spent too much money on rides but made a ton of memories.
  • Went to see Zootopia with our kids and 4 of their friends yesterday, so yes, we took 9 kids to the movies.
  • Got some funny looks.
  • All in all, a good movie. Always interesting processing with our kids the messages of a movie and it was interesting the timeliness of the zootopia message about being anything you want to be as it relates to our culture.
  • I’m predicting some fun conversations at dinner tonight about it.
  • If you’re like me, you are excited about the NFL draft this Thursday.
  • If you’re not, you just found out the NFL draft starts on Thursday.
  • I love watching the draft.
  • Yes, I’m that guy.
  • I’ll be on a plane Thursday night so I’m hoping the airplane wifi is better than the usual airplane wifi.
  • Got a lot to do today.
  • Tons of follow up.
  • Back at it…
Posted on

10 Ways to Beat Stress & 5 Other Ideas To Help You Grow as a Leader

by

leader

Here are 6 posts I came across this week that challenged my thinking or helped me as a leader, husband and father (and athlete this week). I hope they help you too:

  1. 10 Rules for Beating Stress by Travis Bradberry
  2. 10 Rules for Upping Your Speaking Game by Nick Morgan
  3. What Happened When I Stopped Using Screens after 11 p.m. by Alex Cavoulacos
  4. 8 Ways to Slow Down & De-Stress Your Busy Life by John Rampton
  5. 5 Things Great Leaders Know about Emotions by Carey Nieuwhof
  6. 5 Reasons Church Announcements Cause Problems by Thom Rainer
Posted on

Should I Leave my Current Ministry Position?

by

ministry

Too many pastors work at churches they would not attend if they didn’t get paid to be there. Think about this: If you work at a church, would you attend it if you didn’t get paid to be there?

Would you attend the church you work at if you didn’t get paid to be there?

Click To Tweet

The answer to that question will tell you a lot about your church and whether you should be working there. I talk to so many pastors who would not attend the church they work at. Bottom line, maybe they shouldn’t work there.

Over time your church will attract people who are like the people in leadership and on stage. So when you are planting a church or pastoring a church, do it with the mindset of, “Would I come to this church?” The easiest way to be passionate about your church and what is happening is if you want to be there.

I get asked a lot if I am really as excited about Revolution as I seem on Twitter and my blog. Yes. I love my church and what God is doing there. I can’t wait to get there on Sundays.

The question I started with, “Would you attend the church you work at if you didn’t get paid to be there?” was the impetus for us to leave the church we worked at in Wisconsin and move to Tucson to eventually start Revolution. The answer to that question says a lot. It is a scary question to ask and even scarier to look that answer in the face, but I wonder if more churches would be healthier and more effective if pastors and staff wanted to be there.

Should I leave my current ministry?

Click To Tweet

Posted on

In Recruiting, Don’t Say No for Someone

by

recruiting

One thing I have noticed in the lives of pastors and those who are on church staff is a fear when it comes to volunteers and delegation. I understand where it comes from and appreciate it (because I used to feel the same way), but there is also a lot of danger in it and a robbing of our churches.

It goes something like this. A leader in a church has a need, a role that needs to be filled. They have someone in mind who could fill it and do it very well, but they don’t ask them. It might be because they think the person is too busy, that they will say no or that they won’t want to do it. (Most leaders normally feel this way because we assume that if we don’t like to do something every person on the planet also dislikes doing those things.)

How do you get high capacity, talented people to serve at your church?

Click To Tweet

What happens then is the leader says no for the person without giving them a chance to say yes or no. Would that person say no? I have no idea and neither do you.

I hear from many pastors, though, who feel guilty for asking people to give their time in building the kingdom. I understand this sentiment as people are incredibly busy. But I think this also says something about our theology. If all Christians are given spiritual gifts and will one day make an account to God for how they stewarded those gifts, it is our job as leaders to help them develop those gifts and use them (Ephesians 4). When we don’t challenge people, make the big ask of them to step up, we are robbing them of becoming all that God wants them to become, and we are keeping them from using all the gifts and talents that God gave to them.

So what do you do? “Don’t ever say no for someone.”

Don’t say no for someone.

Click To Tweet

So I started letting people tell me no instead of doing it for them. What it has done is require me to trust God more when it comes to leaders and the holes that our church has, and it has forced me to make some big asks of people and cast vision to people. But God has also had people step up in ways that I didn’t expect them to do because, “I didn’t say no for them.”

So, pick up the phone, ask that person for coffee and cast a huge vision to them and let them decide. You never what might happen.

Posted on

What Makes Leadership so Hard?

by

leadership

The other day I asked a friend why he thought leadership and being a leader is so hard. He looked at me and said, “That’s why only a few people aspire to it and only a few people ever do it.”

To cast a vision. To stand against a tide. To say that you are moving forward to a place that no one has ever been and you don’t know how you will get there, but you know you are going. That is hard.

To challenge people to become all that they can be. To withstand the criticism that comes with leadership and the misunderstanding that comes with being confident and purposeful. That is hard.

Romans 12:8 says if you have the gift of leadership you should lead with all diligence. Diligence means, “A zealous and careful nature in one’s work, a decisive work ethic, budgeting one’s time, to guard against laziness, putting forth full concentration in one’s work.”

That is leadership. That is what makes it hard. Leadership challenges. Leadership and vision divide because they say, “This is where we are going and this is what the win is, and consequently, that over there is not where we are going and that is not the win.”

Posted on

What Should the Culture think about Christians?

by

christians

When I read through the gospels, I am blown away by the conversations Jesus had with people. There is a difference in the way Jesus talked to them and his expectations for people outside of Christianity compared with today.

It always strikes me as interesting when Christians talk about the culture, politics or current issues and are surprised when people who don’t follow Jesus act like they don’t follow Jesus.

Why are we surprised?

If Christians believe that the gospel changes us (which we do), then we should expect someone who has been changed by that truth to live and act a certain way. The New Testament writers did. That’s what all the NT letters are about, how to live and act as the body of Christ. Paul did it one way in 1 Corinthians, a different way in Philippians, and James and Peter added their own takes to it.

5 things to remember when you talk to someone you disagree with.

Click To Tweet

Here are a couple of ideas on how to interact with the culture in light of this:

1. If you are a follower of Jesus, live like it. One of the best ways to move the gospel forward is to live like the gospel has changed you. Too many people who attend church every week do not live, think or feel any different from those who claim to not follow Jesus. As I said once in a sermon, a follower of Jesus should be obvious because they will have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22 – 23).

2. Give space for those exploring Jesus to explore. Your church, community group and missional community should be places where those who don’t know Jesus feel comfortable asking questions and exploring Jesus. You should be the kind of person those who don’t know Jesus feel comfortable being around. Too many Christians don’t know how to be friends with people who don’t know Jesus, let alone share their faith with them. Be a good friend. Be someone who can be counted on, trusted, respected. This goes a long way in sharing the gospel.

3. Have a community/life that is attractive to those who don’t know Jesus. Same thing as above. If you are a pastor, how many people who don’t know Jesus do you see coming through your doors each week? How many people are getting baptized? Following Jesus? If the answer is low, you do not have an attractive community for the gospel.

4. Lovingly confront sin. If you are around humans, you will need to learn how to lovingly confront sin. The NT calls us to do this. Over and over community is to pull people aside and confront the sin in their lives with the truth of the gospel. Christians are good at shouting about the truth but terrible at doing this in a loving way. Don’t be passive aggressive. Remember how broken you are when confronting someone, and confront them the way you would want to be confronted.

5. Lovingly confront Christians who are unloving to those who don’t know Jesus. When you hear about Christians pointing their fingers, turning up their noses, or expecting not yet Christians in your church to act like Christians, lovingly confront them. Tell them how great it is that someone felt comfortable to put their cigarette out in the parking lot; at least they are there. Roll the red carpet out for not yet Christians by teaching Christians to love.

What people should think of Christians.

Click To Tweet

Posted on

8 Ideas That Challenged me as a Leader This Week

by

leader

Here are 8 posts I came across this week that challenged my thinking or helped me as a leader, husband and father this week. I hope they help you too:

  1. How to Know if ‘Kids Sports’ has Become an Idol? by Jim Elliff
  2. 10 Confessions of a Millennial to Older Leaders by Zach Yentzer
  3. 6 Reasons Church Offerings are Struggling by Thom Rainer
  4. Creating a Path to Healthy Church Growth by Tony Morgan
  5. 6 Habits of the Best Conversationalists by Stephanie Vozza
  6. 3 Morning Habits to Boost Brain Power by Charles Stone
  7. 5 Key Differences between Church Shoppes & the Unchurched by Carey Nieuwhof
  8. The 7 Keys to Public Speaking by Nick Morgan
Posted on

The Benefit of a Church Crisis

by

church crisis

That title may startle some, the benefit of a church crisis. Nobody likes a crisis. No one likes bad news or being disappointed or being uncomfortable. We like when things work, when things are easy, when things go our way.

Yet if you are a leader, at some point you will walk through a crisis with your church.

It could be financial, you may struggle with where you are meeting, it might be relational with another leader or someone in your church. It might involve your sin or the sin of another leader. It might be that you have someone on your staff who does something stupid, and you have to pick up the pieces of that situation.

4 responses to a church crisis.

Click To Tweet

In that moment you have some options as a leader:

1. You can run. Many pastors when they hit a crisis run from it. While no one likes conflict, relational conflict in a church can be especially painful. We put off conversations we should have, we avoid people we need to run into. Or, many pastors leave when a crisis hits. I heard one pastor say that an average church has a crisis every 18 months, and the average stay for a pastor at a church is 18 – 24 months.

Do you run from or towards a crisis?

Click To Tweet

A crisis is where leaders have the opportunity to shine. It is the moment they are needed the most.

2. You can pretend it isn’t happening. Many people in their personal relationships act like a crisis isn’t happening. Couples pretend they aren’t hurt by the other or that they aren’t angry. Many pastors, when a crisis hits, pretend nothing is going on. Instead of looking at hard numbers (i.e., our attendance is dropping, less people are serving, less people are joining small groups, giving is going down, we aren’t seeing people come to faith), they simply keep doing business as usual.

Another sign of this is making it everyone else’s fault. The culture is hard, people aren’t dedicated anymore, no one is listening. So the blame game continues to get passed.

The reality is: numbers are your friend. Numbers may be painful and reveal some truths you don’t want to look at or want to pretend aren’t real. But numbers are your friend.

3. You can outlast the crisis. Hopefully you are picking up a theme in this post.

Leaders shine in a crisis. Leaders don’t shine when things are going well because they aren’t needed as much. They are needed, but a crisis is when it shouts for leadership.

Leaders outlast the crisis. Does this mean that people who leave aren’t leaders? I would say yes.

No one said leadership is easy; simply look through history. It is filled with people who rose to the occasion in spite of great difficulties.

A crisis is when a leader shines.

Click To Tweet

4. You can learn from it. Never waste a crisis.

Never waste a crisis.

Click To Tweet

As soon as possible, begin learning from the crisis:

  • Could we have seen this coming?
  • Did we do something to make this happen?
  • Did we overlook something?
  • Is there a system that is broken?
  • Did we miss something when we hired someone?
  • Did we extend ourselves too far financially?

Make no mistake, a crisis is when leaders shine. A church crisis in many ways is a wake up call to a church. It is God’s grace to a church. It causes a church and its leaders to see what is most important.

It can also cause leaders to take a step of faith they should have taken but maybe were too afraid to take. Many times in my leadership a crisis has pushed me and our church out of our comfort zone. That is hard and painful, but it’s also good.

Don’t waste a church crisis.

Click To Tweet

Posted on

Monday Mind Dump…

by

mind dump

  • What a weekend.
  • I realize every pastor is supposed to say that after Easter, but it felt that way in our new space.
  • One of my favorite things this weekend was watching people who have never done the stations of the cross go through it for the first time and seeing their reaction.
  • So cool.
  • It was awesome hearing the stories of change during baptism.
  • I love that those who got baptized yesterday became Christians at our church in the last 10 weeks!
  • It was awesome kicking off our series in the book of Romans.
  • I’ve been thinking about preaching through Romans for the last several years but never felt like it was the right time.
  • With where our church is, now is the right time to walk through this book of the Bible.
  • If you missed yesterday, you can watch or listen to it here.
  • It was cool yesterday to see so many people come from GTX, the crossfit box that Katie and I go to.
  • I started reading The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert and her story is incredible.
  • I think it is easy for Christians to think about conversion in very sanitary ways, but meeting Jesus (when we are truly changed) wrecks us.
  • It’s been challenging me as I get ready to preach on the end of Romans 1 and God’s heart towards sexuality and homosexuality.
  • Those verse are bigger than homosexuality.
  • I also started reading In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin just to get a change of pace.
  • I try to read novels throughout the year just to give my brain a break and thought I’d try reading something historical for a change.
  • Katie and I watched Spotlight on Saturday night.
  • It was incredible and heartbreaking.
  • The abuse of power is gut wrenching.
  • I’m really excited for our first membership class to happen on April 16th.
  • We tried membership before at Revolution and I’m not sure we knew what we were doing, so we took it away until we could figure out how to make it more than signing a piece of paper.
  • I think it has been a missing piece at our church.
  • We’re assessing a new church planter to join Acts 29 this week in AZ.
  • Love that our network is growing in our state.
  • I also get to train some leaders in Phoenix this week on leadership and marriage.
  • Always love talking about those topics and the chance to help other leaders.
  • Well, time to get back at it…