The Leadership Secret Every Navy SEAL Knows

by: VRcurator

0

Tweet

What can my church learn from the mission-focused leadership of the United States Navy SEALs?

A clear, executable mission is the key to success for every branch of the military. An outstanding attention to teamwork and training make the United States Navy SEALs the most formidable fighting force on the planet. Leadership is just as important to each SEAL Team as it is to your church.

THE QUICK SUMMARY – Extreme Ownership, by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

Sent to the most violent battlefield in Iraq, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin’s SEAL task unit faced a seemingly impossible mission: help U.S. forces secure Ramadi, a city deemed “all but lost.” In gripping firsthand accounts of heroism, tragic loss, and hard-won victories in SEAL Team Three’s Task Unit Bruiser, they learned that leadership―at every level―is the most important factor in whether a team succeeds or fails.

Willink and Babin returned home from deployment and instituted SEAL leadership training that helped forge the next generation of SEAL leaders. After departing the SEAL Teams, they launched Echelon Front, a company that teaches these same leadership principles to businesses and organizations. From promising startups to Fortune 500 companies, Babin and Willink have helped scores of clients across a broad range of industries build their own high-performance teams and dominate their battlefields.

Now, detailing the mind-set and principles that enable SEAL units to accomplish the most difficult missions in combat, Extreme Ownership shows how to apply them to any team, family, or organization. Each chapter focuses on a specific topic such as Cover and Move, Decentralized Command, and Leading Up the Chain, explaining what they are, why they are important, and how to implement them in any leadership environment.

A compelling narrative with powerful instruction and direct application, Extreme Ownership revolutionizes business management and challenges leaders everywhere to fulfill their ultimate purpose: lead and win.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

Today’s Naval Special Warfare operators – SEALs, for Sea, Air, and Land – can trace their origins to the Scouts and Raiders, Naval Combat Demolition Units, Underwater Demolition Teams, and Motor Torpedo Boat Squadrons of World War II. Their pioneering efforts in unconventional warfare are mirrored in the missions and professionalism of the present Naval Special Warfare teams.

The principles critical to SEAL success on the battlefield – how SEALS train and prepare their leaders, how they mold and develop high-performance teams, and how they lead in combat – are directly applicable in any group, organization, corporation, or business.

For SEAL teams, the beginning and foundational leadership principle is this: the leader is truly and ultimately responsible for everything.

The best leaders don’t just take responsibility for their job. They take Extreme Ownership of everything that impacts their mission.

This fundamental core concept enables SEAL leaders to lead high-performing teams in extraordinary circumstances and win. But Extreme Ownership isn’t a principle whose application is limited to the battlefield. This concept is the number-one characteristic of any high-performance winning team, in any military unit, organization, sports team or business team in any industry.

When subordinates are not doing what they should, leaders that exercise Extreme Ownership cannot blame the subordinates. They must first look in the mirror at themselves. The leader bears full responsibility for explaining the strategic mission, developing the tactics, and securing the training and resources to enable the team to properly and successfully execute.

Extreme Ownership requires leaders to look at an organization’s problems through the objective lens of reality, without emotional attachments to agendas or plans. It mandates that a leader set ego aside, accept responsibility for failures, attaché weakness, and consistently work to build a better and more effective team.

Such a leader does not take credit for his or her team’s successes, but bestows that honor upon his subordinate leaders and team members. When a leader sets such an example and expects this from junior leaders within the team, the mindset develops into the team’s culture at every level.

Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, Extreme Ownership

A NEXT STEP

As the senior leader of a staff team, or as a staff member leading a ministry team, the principle of Extreme Ownership means that you have the responsibility for everything that occurs with your team – everything.

To begin utilizing the concept of Extreme Ownership, select a recent ministry activity that did not go as well as you had planned. On a chart tablet, write the activity and date at the top.

On the chart tablet, review the development of the activity, by listing the genesis of the idea, discussion and planning prior to the activity itself, and all individuals along with their specific responsibilities in carrying out the activity. In addition, list any external factors that may have impacted the result of the activity.

Go over the chart tablet in detail with the following questions in mind:

1. What leadership support did I provide in the genesis of the activity?
2. How did my words and actions affect the initial planning of the activity?
3. How involved was I through direct or indirect decision-making in the initial planning?
4. Once initial planning had begun, did I connect on a regular basis with the leaders of specific tasks?
5. If so, did I encourage them, offering additional training or insights as needed?
6. Did I pull all the leaders together regularly to briefly review their individual progress toward the common goal?
7. If so, did I help them understand how their individual and team success would lead to the success of the overall goal?
8. On the day before the activity, did the team meet to verbally run through the activity’s main actions?
9. If so, what was your level of participation? Did you verbally support and affirm your subordinate’s plans or critically suggest other options?
10. At the activity itself, what was your role?
11. How often did you circulate around during the activity and speak to your subordinates?
12. How did you “take notes” during the activity for later discussions?
13. Did you realize during the activity that it had not met your expectations?
14. At the conclusion of the activity, how did you thank everyone for his or her involvement?
15. Did you have a preplanned “debrief” of the activity, or was it only after you realized things didn’t go as planned?

To successfully complete an activity, or lead change, or to challenge people to accomplish a difficult or complex task, you can’t make people deliver the result you envision. You have to lead them.

Extreme Ownership is a mind-set and attitude. When leaders practice Extreme Ownership and develop a culture of Extreme Ownership within their teams, the rest will begin to fall in place.

Taken from SUMS Remix 41-1, published May 2016

This is part of a weekly series posting content from one of the most innovative content sources in the church world: SUMS Remix Book Summaries for church leaders. SUMS Remix takes a practical problem in the church and looks at it with three solutions; and each solution is taken from a different book. As a church leader you get to scan relevant books based on practical tools and solutions to real ministry problems, not just by the cover of the book. Each post will have the edition number which shows the year and what number it is in the overall sequence. (SUMS provides 26 issues per year, delivered every other week to your inbox). 

> Subscribe to SUMS Remix <<

Tags: Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willin, Leadership, Leadership Secret, Leif Babin, SUMS Remix

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Leadership >

Engaging People with FOMO *Fear of Missing Out

by: Rich Birch

0

Tweet

Supply and demand is not only a fundamental economic principle, but a cultural assumption. When the supply of a product or service becomes scarce, it becomes more valuable. If there is an unlimited availability, it simply remains worthless for people. Is it possible to leverage scarcity to drive engagement at your church?

Engagement continues to be a critical factor that many churches are looking to increase impact. We want more people to engage in our services, on our service teams and in our mid-week groups. Scarcity is a powerful tool to help drive engagement and, ultimately, growth at your church. With “Sunday always coming” we give the perception that there is no scarcity to our activities, however, here are five ways to position our ministry to drive more engagement using scarcity:

• Seating in Auditorium // Church works better full. It’s just true. Church leaders love Easter and Christmas because their auditoriums are fuller than normal. The feeling of only a few empty seats creates a positive vibe in the church. What if your church reduced the seating capacity at some “non-prime time” services to help create that sort of buzz every week? I’ve seen this done at some of the fastest growing churches in the country. They will offer a multiple service times but in the “off prime” services they will remove seats to compress the audience together. This could be done by either removing the seats or using “pipe and drape” to block off a section or two.
• Group Start Up Windows // A common strategy for churches encouraging people to get into a mid-week group is by limiting the windows people can join. In the beginning, this seems counter-intuitive because it would appear that allowing people to join whenever they are ready is a better strategy. However, churches that limit the window for people to join have found that there is a focused energy on joining before the window closes which helps move people into a group. Our friends at North Point Church use an event called GroupLink to help encourage people to attend. They’ve been employing this strategy for almost two decades and have seen consistent growth in their group attendance.
• Discount Cliffs for Sign Ups // Is your youth group heading out on a retreat in the coming season? Are you tired of everyone signing up in the last week to go? By providing a financial incentive to sign up early you’ll move some of your families to register sooner to get the lower price. The best practice is to have 3 different prices with a cost spread of about 15% for the lowest price which is the “super early bird” rate. Not only will this move your registrations earlier and help you plan better for the event but over time as you repeat this strategy you’ll notice a change in the registration trends and be better at predicting registrations. This strategy can be employed with any event where you need people to pay a fee to register.
• Free Ticketing for Big Days // Christmas Eve and Easter continue to be critical times for churches to reach out into their community. Many leading churches will use some form of free tickets for these big days to encourage people to register ahead of time for the event. The scarcity of tickets “selling out” encourages the community to invite their friends early so that they can get their desired service time. It also helps if your church members ask their friends for a confirmed commitment as the scarcity of the tickets means that they need to actually register their intent. Free ticketing also results in the church gaining the contact information of every registrant before the event occurs. You can use this contact information to plan your follow up with guests before the event even happens.
• Series Preaching // Prevailing churches package up their content into 4-8 week “series” that help provide a framework on what the church is discussing. Rather than just having one sermon after another, series preaching allowing the communicator to have a “story arch” that goes from one week to the other. This adds scarcity to our Sunday mornings as each series has a “beginning, middle & end” which encourages people to attend. Expanding churches use a collection of approximately 4-week long series on average which means they get 12 opportunities a year to engage with their community with a “limited time offer” on their sermons.

Connect with an Auxano Navigator to learn more about engaging people in your church.

> Read more from Rich.

Tags: Engagement, Engaging people, FOMO, Rich Birch

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Execution >

You Can Not Multiply if You Will Not Mobilize

by: Ed Stetzer

0

Tweet

Ministry where a few people are doing the work and the church is expecting them to keep doing it can be terribly frustrating.

How do we mobilize people in the rows of our congregations to action, to ministry, to mission? Here are three things that need to happen to mobilize your people.

Create an Atmosphere of Expectation

Increasing expectations is key to mobilizing people out of the pews. Paul helps us to know our role as pastor in Ephesians 4.

And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 equipping the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness. 14 Then we will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit. 15 But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head ​— ​Christ. 16 From him the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building up itself in love by the proper working of each individual part. (Eph 4:11-16, CSB)

Pastors must lead their churches to fulfill this God-ordained mission by equipping the saints for the “work of ministry.” Some churches set expectations before people can serve in ministry like finishing a membership class, being baptized, and signing a membership covenant. Other churches have their people finish a process to discover their gifts.

Churches that people join tend to have clear expectations from the beginning, recruit workers one-to-one, provide entry level ministry for new workers, and so on. There’s a helpful chart from Chuck Lawless in chapter 7 of Comeback Churches for more on this.

Instead of burning out a few who do all the work in a church, the goal is to maximize the number working in ministry. People need to be taught that the pastoral leadership of the church is there to equip them for the work of ministry. It’s their responsibility to do the work. They are the church.

Create an Atmosphere of Equipping

The local church must have a strategy not only to get as many as possible into ministry, but also a strategy, or process, to equip people for ministry. You start with gift-discovery and a placement process. Then you continue by working to create enough entry level ministry positions, face-to-face recruiting, recognition and affirmation, etc. You can’t just have a position, but the means to train them for the position.

Get people involved quickly, exploring different ministries, and recognizing where they excel and have leadership potential. And make sure they aren’t just sustaining the church building. Get everyone involved in evangelism!

Create an Atmosphere of Empowerment

You need people to feel empowered and enabled for ministry. Don’t just expect people to “get it.” Preach, teach, and train your congregation. It can take time to empower the people for ministry, especially if they don’t have a good understanding of their gifting. We tend to overestimate what we can do in a year and underestimate what we can do in three years. It has to be communicated in different ways at different times for it to sink in over time.

Structure breeds confidence. When there is a well thought through process, it helps people feel led and empowered.

Empowering people requires giving them authority along with responsibility. They need ownership that it’s their job to get done.

And people need affirmation. They need to be appreciated for their ministry activity and involvement. Give them a quick “thank you” note. Let them know their effort didn’t go unnoticed.

It’s not enough that you as a leader feel empowered for your ministry, you have to empower others.

Learn more about mobilizing your congregation – connect with an Auxano Navigator.

> Read more from Ed.

Tags: Ed Stetzer, Mobilize, Multiply

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Execution >

Three Battles Inside Every Leader

by: Dan Reiland

0

Tweet

Leaders who are fully engaged in their mission fight battles.

There is no way to avoid battles if you want to make progress consistently.

New territory is never easy, and it always comes at a price.

Life never grants a free ride, and leaders don’t receive a “get out of jail free” card when it comes to solving serious problems.

The good news is that we don’t fight alone. God brings His presence, power, and favor to the mix, but He never removes the human element.

The realities of our humanity require us to face a variety of problems such as financial pressures, staff issues, misalignment of vision and values, and the list goes on. These are very real issues, but they all occur in the outward realm.

The most common battles we face are inner battles. Sometimes they are about everyday stuff and easily conquered. If left untended for long periods of time, however, they can take a leader out.

It’s best to identify it and devote intentional effort to defeat it through wise counsel, prayer and practical steps of action.

Here are the Top 3 Inner Battles, not listed in any specific order:

1) Distraction

It’s not uncommon to become distracted in ministry. Leaders are often pulled in a number of directions at one time. If we are not centered, focused and intentional in our work it’s easy to get pulled away from the most productive priorities.

It’s best to first identify the source of distraction. It can come in a number of forms from things such as health issues, lack of intentional focus and discipline, family struggles, feeling overwhelmed and even sometimes boredom. Yes, leaders can be busy but be under-challenged and bored.

It may seem counter-intuitive to put more time into the issue of distraction, but as long as you are focused on a positive solution, that’s the best way to beat it.

2) Discouragement

I don’t think I’ve met a church leader who hasn’t experienced discouragement. Candidly the Enemy loves this one the most. If he can get leaders discouraged, and convince them that God isn’t with them, he can strike a huge blow to the church.

Discouragement often comes when you are overtired and overwhelmed. Discouragement often finds its mark when your perspective becomes skewed. When you think things like you are in it alone, no one cares, and nothing is working.

Take some time to rest, think and play. Get some time with a trusted friend to help you see more clearly. God is with you and you are doing something that matters!

3) Divided-Heart

This usage of the term “divided-heart” refers to when a leader is unclear about their calling, passion, and purpose.

When a leader is unsure of what their job or career should be, they can become dual-minded which results in being internally conflicted. The end result is the feeling of being pulled in two directions. No leader can sustain this for a long period of time.

This is very different than prayerfully dreaming about your future and what God has in store for you. A divided-heart is when you are truly not clear about what you are supposed to do in the present.

If this is the case, don’t panic, but don’t set it aside to deal with it “later.” You can blink and a year has gone by! Set aside some extended time to think, pray and seek wise counsel.

Ultimately this will come to a decision-making process. Please read this post for help in practical decision-making.

If you are distracted, discouraged, or have a divided-heart, take comfort in knowing you are walking in familiar territory for leaders. You can beat this. Don’t give up. Take a first step today.

> Read more from Dan.

Tags: Dan Reiland, Leadership, Leadership Battles

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Leadership >

Great Vision, Bad Execution: 6 Common Mistakes

by: Will Mancini

0

Tweet

You must be an active subscriber to view this premium content. Subscribe or Login.

Tags: Execution, Leadership Engine, Vision, Will Mancini

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Vision >

Purpose Without Priority is Pointless

by: VRcurator

0

Tweet

How can you lead your team to believe “Less is more” in a “More is more” world?

Every day, ministry leaders spend too much time, managing too much church “stuff,” for too little life-change. It is safe to say that the church in North America is over-programming her calendar and under-discipling her people.

Behind this reality is a stark irony: The effectiveness of our gospel work is limited, not by a lack of ministry effort but by an excess of ministry action.

The gospel-centered, transformational impact of your church sits as a malnourished beggar beside an every-growing buffet of church ministry programs.

We get too little discipleship precisely because we have too much church stuff.

Church stuff is the whole of the ministry activities that make up your church calendar. Programming that ranges from weekly worship and groups, to monthly programming or quarterly training opportunities.

Church Stuff = Any event service, meeting, class, or group that your church offers this year.

THE QUICK SUMMARY – The One Thing, by Gary Keller

YOU WANT LESS. You want fewer distractions and less on your plate. The daily barrage of e-mails, texts, tweets, messages, and meetings distract you and stress you out. The simultaneous demands of work and family are taking a toll. And what’s the cost? Second-rate work, missed deadlines, smaller paychecks, fewer promotions—and lots of stress.

AND YOU WANT MORE. You want more productivity from your work. You want more satisfaction from life, and more time for yourself, your family, and your friends.

NOW YOU CAN HAVE BOTH—LESS AND MORE. In The ONE Thing, you’ll learn to

• Cut through the clutter
• Achieve better results in less time
• Build momentum toward your goal
• Dial down the stress
• Overcome that overwhelmed feeling
• Revive your energy
• Stay on track
• Master what matters to you

The ONE Thing delivers extraordinary results in every area of your life—work, personal, family, and spiritual. WHAT’S YOUR ONE THING?

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

Complexity is the curse of organizations of almost any size. Many churches today are program profound and doctrinally dense – they are unnecessarily complex. The complexity is strangling their ability to grow and thrive. To the extent that today’s church has become political, institutional, or programmatic, we are making it more complicated than it needs to be.

We have bombarded our people with too many competing little ideas and the result is a church with more information and less clarity that perhaps ever before. The lack of clarity that churches give their people impedes the church’s ability to accomplish the mission of Jesus. “More” results in less clarity.

It’s time for the power of priority.

Purpose has the power to shape our lives only in direct proportion to the power of the priority we connect it to. Purpose without priority is powerless.

To be precise, the word is priority – not priorities – and it originated in the 14^th century from the Latin “prior” meaning “first.” If something mattered the most it was a “priority.” Curiously, priority remained unpluralized until around the 20^th century, when the world apparently emoted it to mean generally “something that matters” and the plural “priorities” appeared.

Watch your language. You may have many ways to talk about priority, but no matter the words you choose, to achieve extraordinary results your meaning must be the same – ONE Thing.

When each day begins, we each have a choice. We can ask, “What shall I do?” or “What should I do?” Without direction, without purpose, whatever you “shall do” will always get you somewhere. But when you’re going somewhere on purpose, there will always be something you “should do” that will get you where you must go. When your life is on purpose, living by priority takes precedence.

There can only be ONE. Your most important priority is the ONE Thing you can do right now that will help you achieve what matters most to you. You may have many “priorities,” but dig deep and you’ll discover there is always one that matters most, your top priority – Your ONE Thing.

Gary Keller with Jay Papasan, The ONE Thing 

A NEXT STEP

Again, select three potentially good ideas for ministry action, and write them on a chart tablet. These can be three new ideas or from Solution 1 above.

Plot each as a journey of activities, and highlight who is involved in each step such as volunteer leaders, staff members, congregation, guests, community members, etc.

Highlight those that are crucial to each step and discuss with your team if those stakeholders listed above remain motivated throughout the whole journey. What is their motivation?

How many steps does it take until the motivation becomes unclear? How many steps can it take for the motivation to be lost? Put a red dot by the steps that are unclear.

Repeat the steps above with the other two ideas and make the final count of red dots. The idea with the least red dots is the one that should be considered as the priority.

Taken from SUMS Remix 42-2, published June 2016

This is part of a weekly series posting content from one of the most innovative content sources in the church world: SUMS Remix Book Summaries for church leaders. SUMS Remix takes a practical problem in the church and looks at it with three solutions; and each solution is taken from a different book. As a church leader you get to scan relevant books based on practical tools and solutions to real ministry problems, not just by the cover of the book. Each post will have the edition number which shows the year and what number it is in the overall sequence. (SUMS provides 26 issues per year, delivered every other week to your inbox). 

> Subscribe to SUMS Remix <<

Tags: Gary Keller, Jay Papasan, Purpose, SUMS Remix, The One Thing, priority

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Execution >

Standing Strong…Why Church Structure Affects Church Growth

by: Brandon Cox

0

Tweet

Structure is essential.

Like a body without bones or a building without supporting walls, an organization without a structure goes nowhere, fast.

Having said that, it’s important to understand that only healthy structure supports growth. Unhealthy structure holds organizations back from growing.

Todd Henry, author of Louder Than Words, says this,

The more structures we have to navigate in order to do our work, the more difficult it is to do our best work. When we are required to resolve the dissonance of complex systems, reporting relationships, and accountability structures just in order to get our objectives and check off our direction, we will begin to lose our drive to do brilliant work. Over time, this complexity only pulls entire organizations toward systematic mediocrity.

(Discovered via Tony Morgan’s short book, Stuck in a Funk?: How to Get Your Church Moving Forward)

The more complex an organization becomes, the more room there is for communication leaks. Information and instruction gets lost, tweaked, and twisted as it moves between all the different layers and channels.

This explains why government bureaucracies have such bad reputation. There are so many arbitrary rules and regulations, implemented at different times and for different reasons that it winds up being pretty tough to get a final decision from anyone.

In tech startups, however, a seemingly large business may consist of only a handful of remotely-working entrepreneurs. These organizations can often make decisions quickly and with agility.

One of the features of Saddleback Church that amazes me is the speed with which decisions and instructions can be carried out. The elders believe in passing decision-making authority down to the lowest possible level. With fewer layers of approval needed, leaders could make changes quickly.

I often thought of the Saddleback staff as a flock of birds. Pastor Rick Warren was out front, leading our v-formation. When his direction would suddenly shift, the church’s staff could quickly adjust and follow right along.

So, what does this look like for your local church? What does an unhealthy structure look like contrasted with a healthy structure?

Churches with unhealthy structures:

• Have too many committees.
• Vote on too many issues.
• Lack simple, written parameters for decision-making.
• Spread authority out randomly.
• Move slowly to allow everyone’s turf to remain safe.

Churches with healthy structures, on the other hand:

• Have high trust in their leaders.
• Give responsibility to more leaders whenever possible.
• Have few or no committees.
• Don’t vote on almost any issues at all.
• Are able to move and change more quickly.

Can an unhealthy structure be overcome? Possibly, but it takes a long time. There is usually a lot of foundational work that has to be done, especially in the trust-building department. People avoid change because of the fear of losing control, and fear is a very powerful emotion to try to overcome.

One of the issues I often coach leaders about is how to create a healthy, growth-oriented and life-giving culture that allows the structure to be changed.

An unhealthy structure doesn’t necessarily kill churches and organizations, but it can definitely keep them sick and weak.

Change the culture, and then address the structure. Sometimes an overhaul is the only sensible answer.

> Read more from Brandon.

Tags: Brandon Cox, Church Structure, Leadership

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Leadership >

Your Volunteers: Training Your Greatest Ministry Asset

by: Church Community Builder

0

Tweet

Once you have recruited a volunteer – moving them from a come-and-see to a come-and-serve mindset – you’ll need to train them.

In the follow-up to ‘Your Volunteers: Recruit,’ Chris Mavity’s ‘Your Volunteers: Train’ addresses three critical components to training: the differences between training and equipping, training for the long term, and the four characteristics of healthy training – but what, exactly, does each mean and entail?

Training v. Equipping: As Mavity puts it, “Training is providing input, in various forms, to influence a person’s future actions, attitudes, and behaviors. You’ll need to train your volunteers so that they achieve the specific ministry outcomes you desire. Equipping is about providing the resources a person needs to perform the duties associated with the roles and responsibilities for which they have been selected. For example, a custodian needs a vacuum cleaner, a data entry volunteer needs a computer, and a Sunday school teacher needs a classroom and supplies.”

Training for the Long Term: There are two types of training: orientation and ongoing training. Orientation training helps your volunteers understand the role, responsibilities,and expected outcomes of the assignment. It also gives your volunteers enough guidance, information and instruction necessary to complete the assignment while helping them gain confidence. Ongoing training is focused on life-skills development by helping your volunteers become a better version of themselves and communicating that you care about them as people – not just in a ministry capacity – and that you will pour into them to make them better in all aspects of their lives.

Four Characteristics of Healthy Training: As you develop your training, keep it …

… simple. Understand the purpose or scope of your meetings and tailor your information and activities to that single purpose.

… spreadable. Volunteer training that works in one department of your church will likely be useful – with a few modifications – in others.

… scalable. As you grow, your processes will need to be able to adjust to account for the number of volunteers you have.

… scrappable. If something isn’t working, scrap it. Keep the focus on outcomes, engagement, participation and productivity.

Training your volunteers takes commitment, time, effort and energy – but it’s so worth it. When you make a commitment to training your volunteers, you’ll find that your training will keep everyone focused on growth, your volunteers will become influential members of your congregation, and you’ll better be able to anticipate what’s next.

> Read more from Church Community Builder.

Tags: Church Community Builder, Volunteer training, Volunteers, training volunteers

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Execution >

How NOT to Run a Church

by: Carey Nieuwhof

0

Tweet

Something’s driving your church.  There are a variety of things that run a church…the challenge for many church leaders is no one is really quite clear on what that is.

What drives your church is critical because it impacts everything you do. Ultimately, it directly impacts both your health and your growth as a congregation.

As I talk to leaders of churches of all sizes, I find different factors at work.

As much as we’d all love to say Jesus runs the church, the reality is that church is a partnership. God seems to delight in human interaction, and while God is in control, we have a role.

How we play that role can can create health or dysfunction.

Here are 4 bad ways to run a church and one good one.

1. A Person

Small churches are almost always run or controlled by a single person. That’s rarely—if ever—healthy and almost always an impediment to growth.

The usual candidate for this kind of church is a matriarch, patriarch or the pastor.

Matriarchs and patriarchs often emerge in a small church as the one person that effectively keeps the doors open and the lights on.

Interestingly enough, the matriarch or patriarch doesn’t even have to be on the board to exercise their control. It’s just that everyone knows nothing gets done without the approval, blessing or consent of X.

The commendable side of a matriarch or patriarch is that the church likely wouldn’t still be in existence without them. They are deeply committed to seeing it exist.

The challenges outweigh the benefits though for a number of reasons. First, the church is programmed to stay small…one person leadership naturally stunts growth.

Second, churches run by a single person are usually in preservation mode—the goal is to keep it going.

Sometimes the single person who runs a church is the pastor. That’s also a bad idea.

It’s the pastor’s responsibility to lead the church, but not to run it.

Again, scripture makes it clear the role of a church leader is to equip people to do the work of ministry, each operating in their area of gifting.

Clergy who insist on doing everything deny people their ability, and the church ends up with a much smaller impact than if the pastor truly led. Leaders who insist on running everything end up with relatively little to run.

Churches were never designed to be run by one person.

2. A Personality

Being run by a person and personality are two variations of a similar theme.

Personality driven churches are usually bigger and actually more effective in reaching people than person-run churches.

Usually in a personality-driven church, the personality of the senior leader functions like a magnet, attracting staff, volunteers and new people to the church.

The challenge is that both the growth engine and the loyalty in the church are to the senior leader. And that’s the achilles heel.

The problem with a personality-driven church is that when you remove the central personality, the church falters.

It can also distract people from following who they should be following—Jesus.

No personality should ever compete with the centrality of Christ in the church.

God can use people to lead people (Moses and Paul were pretty imposing figures), but the goal of a leader should always be to point people to Christ.

Personality-driven churches are only as strong as their leader. And that’s an often fatal flaw.

3. An Agenda

Nobody likes a hidden agenda. Except people who have agendas.

If you’re not careful, an agenda other than the main mission of the church end up running the church.

This happens when an influential leader (staff or otherwise) gets the church to focus on something minor until it becomes a defining characteristic of the church.

The possibilities are endless. They include:

• Opposition to change (Nothing changes around here; everything stays the same)
• A theological sub point (How we do baptism becomes more important than why we do baptism)
• A political viewpoint (This is a Republican/Democrat only zone)
• A single, non-biblical issue (Our church is all about X)

Churches that allow agendas to dominate usually only attract like-minded people who are more passionate about the cause in question than the Gospel itself.

4. Staying Alive

When only a small percentage of churches are actually growing and the church as a whole is lagging behind population growth, it’s no surprise that many churches are battling simply to stay alive.

Unfortunately, that can easily become the mission. When the mission is to merely keep a church alive, death is the most likely outcome.

You effectively end up saying “Come join our church so we can keep our church open.” That begs about 1000 questions.

As soon as you start to maintain what you’ve built, rather than build something new, you know the end is near.

5. The Mission

The one good way to run a church is simple: let the mission drive everything you do.

As Rick Warren so helpfully pointed out 20 years ago, purpose or mission-driven churches are always the most effective.

Why?

First, the mission is bigger than anyone and anything. The true mission of the church has lasted 2,000 years and will endure until Christ comes back. If that doesn’t motivate you, nothing will.

Second, the mission outlasts every leader. The church is far less affected by personality when the mission is bigger than any one personality.

Finally—and most importantly—the true mission of the church resonates because, well, it’s the true mission of the church. Enough said.

Learn more about how mission can drive your church – talk with an Auxano Navigator today!

> Read more from Carey.

Tags: Carey Nieuwhof, Mission, Vision

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Execution >

Six Reasons to Avoid the Pitfall of Isolation

by: Eric Geiger

0

Tweet

An isolated leader is a dangerous leader. The sting of criticism, the burden of the responsibilities, and the pace of leadership can nudge a leader towards isolation, but every step towards isolation is a step towards danger. Sadly, many leaders move towards isolation. They have taken the cliché “it’s lonely at the top” as justification to remove themselves from people. Though there is truth in the cliché, it must not be used to practice unwise and ungodly leadership. Here are six reasons isolated leaders are dangerous.

1. Isolated leaders don’t receive care and encouragement.

Leading is continually challenging, and leaders who don’t receive care and encouragement are in a dangerous position. But isolation makes it impossible to receive care from others.

2. Isolated leaders don’t receive necessary confrontation.

Because no one leader is perfect, every leader needs confrontation at times. An isolated leader removes himself/herself from those opportunities by only being surrounded with people who are unwilling to confront, which means spiritual maturation and growth will suffer. And a ministry leader who is not growing in godliness is dangerous. Healthy ministries are led by healthy ministry leaders.

3. Isolated leaders make foolish decisions.

The writer of Proverbs reminds us that plans fail for lack of counsel (Proverbs 15:22). An isolated leader won’t gain the perspective necessary to lead well.

4. Isolated leaders don’t learn effectively.

Leaders must continually learn, and leaders who are isolated greatly limit their learning, thus greatly limiting their effectiveness.

5. Isolated leaders are divorced from reality.

Isolated leaders are divorced from the reality of their context, so they lead in ways that are out of sync with reality.

6. Isolated leaders are removed from the people they lead.

Leaders are responsible for the people they lead, are responsible to serve and love them well. But an isolated leader can’t love and lead well, thus the people won’t receive the care they need.

> Read more from Eric Geiger.

Tags: Eric Geiger, Isolation

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Leadership >