Strategize Your Way to Better Communication

by: Philip Nation

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When Mature Leaders Know It’s Time to Crash the System

by: Philip Nation

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It’s happened on several occasions as I’ve worked in the publishing industry. An event, an issue, or a person comes across our collective radar screens in such a blazing fashion that we need to react. In this industry, it means publishing something.

But we have a publishing pipeline drawn up. It is the plan as to what and whom we will publish for the next 18-24 months. Sometimes even farther out. So, what do you do with interruptions that demand we change course?

We crash the system. It is the time when you break with the previous plan and do whatever it takes to get something published. Long hours of writing and editing. Crazy financial plans. Fast-paced graphic design. Last-minute printing contracts. Guerrilla marketing. You do whatever it takes to get the product into the marketplace.

With the teams I’ve led, we set up the following reasons for which we would crash the system:

• Author – a person arises who has a timely message or is such a significant personality that you would never turn them down.
• Customer Demand – Over a sustained period of time, we hear from customers about a subject that needs to be addressed.
• Cultural Issue – A major event in the culture occurs and it needs to be addressed immediately.
• World event – Headlines from a different part of the world for which believers should be aware and act upon.
• Corporate Interest – A person wishes to publish who holds influence over your board of directors or is an influential in your tribe of customers.
• Moment of Discernment – The sudden realization that we’ve missed addressing an issue for some time and seek to resolve the oversight.
• Spiritual Event – For good or bad, a spiritual movement is so evident in the world that it must be addressed.

Whenever we have crashed the system, it has felt like a wild ride. But, in the end, we’ve gotten a good return on the effort.

Church leaders also need to know when they should crash the system. It does not happen often but we should be ready for whenever it is appropriate. For pastors, it can mean changing a sermon to address a cultural and/or church issue of spiritual significance. For example, when the Supreme Court legalized marriage between homosexuals, the church needed to address the issue. Such is a reason to crash the system.

It can be localized to a particular congregation. If church leaders discover that many parents in their congregation are struggling with rebellious teenagers, then studies and personal discipleship relationships need to be ramped up. It is a time to crash the system by throwing aside the normal church events so you can address the new spiritual need.

We should be ready to crash the system for mission opportunities as well. If we suddenly discern a need that is present in the community that was not there previously, such as an influx of disconnected immigrants, it is time to crash the system of scheduled events and get busy doing outreach to your new neighbors.

The long-range (and short-term) plans of a church are usually mixed with a heavy dose of emotion. After all, everyone knows we are dealing with eternal realities. It sometimes makes it difficult to crash the system. You are suddenly interrupting groups, ministries, and other planned events. It requires that we talk about it now rather than later. As you train leaders in your church, prepare them for the inevitable crashing of the system. You must make flexibility based on ministry need a part of everyone’s spiritual perspective.

So, just as I led my publishing teams to think about why we would crash the system, do the same for your church leadership team. Here are the five reasons I would crash the system in our church.

1. Cultural Event. When events such as a tragedy or a shift in the moral landscape occurs, the church must address it and equip believers to give an answer for the hope we have in Christ.

2. Confrontation of Sin. Discovering a sin that is running rampant in the church should not be a cause for despondency but for action. If there is sin, there is no time for church fellowships, bounce houses, and business as usual.

3. Theological Problem. Church leaders need to keep an awareness of the theological temperature of a congregation. If a glitch in the system is found, it should be addressed swiftly and graciously.

4. Evangelistic Opportunity. Whether locally or internationally, as God gives your church the opportunity to push the gospel forward, we should be ready to respond at a moment’s notice.

5. Spiritual Awakening. I pray that one day soon we will see a spiritual awakening in the people of our country and a revival in the churches. When it happens, leaders must be ready to seize the moment.

Crashing the system is not to embrace chaos. Nor does it mean that we should cease long-range planning. In fact, the more spiritually attuned you are to God’s Word and His ways, the more likely your long-range planning will guide you to easily engaging ministry opportunities unknown to you at this moment. The willingness to crash the system is a sign of mature leadership; knowing that we must be leaders in the moment and not reactionaries after the fact.

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9 Ways to Uncomplicate the Discipleship Process

by: Philip Nation

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“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” -Leonardo da Vinci

Discipleship is at the heart of the church’s existence. We help unbelievers move to a point of belief and then to maturity. The maturity of the believer includes the making of other disciples. As many have put it, we are to be disciple making disciple makers. But, because we are humans who like systems, we tend to complicate the process. Here are a few principles to keep discipleship simple.

1. Biblically. The centerpiece of discipleship is God, not us. Using His self-revelaton as the pivot point for disciple making will keep us trained on God’s kingdom rather than our comfort.

2. Prayerfully. Focus the new disciple on a powerful prayer life and you will set them in the right direction. They need to see and learn why prayer matters.

3. Quickly. We need to move more quickly through discipling people rather than belaboring a process. It is easily accomplished if you will remove all the parts of your church process that are window dressing rather than ministry.

4. Urgently. The world is filled with people who are dying in their sin. The church is filled with Christians who are wallowing in spiritual infancy. The church simply has no time to dawdle. We need to live with and infuse a sense of urgency about the task of evangelizing the lost.

5. Relationally. Discipleship delivers content but that does not make it a sterile academic process. We are to personally engage with those who need to grow. Discipleship happens best with friends.

6. Spontaneously. Waiting for the right moment to start a process often means losing time with people’s real lives. Make discipleship something that can happen at any time. But that will mean that the heart and mind is prepared.

7. Methodically. Being spontaneous does not eliminate having a method. Discipleship needs to have a target to which it is aiming. Set the goal of the process and drive people toward it.

8. Passionately. To make disciples is the last command Jesus left us before the ascension. We must regularly test our hearts as to what is our priority. It should be increasing the number and the maturity of those who follow Jesus.

9. Naturally. Discipleship is not weird. It is the way that we put the world right. The gospel is the only thing that makes life make sense. Set your desires toward making disciples and then do it as the normal work of your life.

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Asking These 20 Questions of Others Will Help You Become a Better Leader

by: Philip Nation

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A leader needs to be a learner.

And, the learning needs to be constant. It proves itself to be true over and over again that you can learn from anyone in any leadership position. In fact, some of the greatest leadership lessons I have gained have been from those who felt they were in “lower” positions. The idea of this was driven home for me when LifeWay Research (which I was a part of for three years) did the study for Transformational Church. Many of the pastors that we interviewed based on the health of their church would ask, “Why me? Why are you interviewing a pastor like me in a normal church like this?” What they did not know is just how important their leadership was to the life a church that we needed to learn from.

Leaders, as a group, look for the superstars among our particular type of organization and learn from that perceived top echelon. Pastors are no different. So, my encouragement is that no matter what work you do, learn from everyone you can.

As I’ve been mulling over how I can more intentionally learn from others, I began putting together a list of questions that I hope to pose to more and more people. When I meet other leaders, here’s what I want to know. Please feel free to add in your ideas in the comments section.

1. What book has had the greatest impact on your understanding of leadership?

2. What are the most important “nuts and bolts” lesson that you can give me?

3. What are your reading habits?

4. What blogs do you read on a regular basis?

5. Who are the historical figures who have influenced you the most?

6. What other arenas of leadership to look to learn from?

7. Tell me about the pieces of technology, apps, and software that helps you the most.

8. Did anyone put you through an intentional plan for leadership development? What was the plan?

9. Do you have a plan to intentionally develop yourself as a leader?

10. Do you have a plan to intentionally develop others into leaders?

11. How do you separate yourself effectively from work to rest?

12. What are your main goals in leadership?

13. Describe your process for developing a vision and mission for your organization.

14. What is your daily schedule of work?

15. How do you design and hold a great meeting?

16. Do brainstorming meetings really work? If so, how do you one well?

17. What do you do with a team members who has bad chemistry with the rest of the team?

18. What offenses require you to immediately terminate someone’s employment?

19. What are the best hiring practices and processes you’ve used or seen?

20. How do you admit and fix a problem in your leadership?

20. What do you want to go back and change?

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10 Ways Buzzwords Are Undermining Your Leadership

by: Philip Nation

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On several occasions when teaching, I’ve noted the difference between buzzwords and leadership. In fact, I think that a key facet of leadership is knowing the difference between a strategy and a collection of buzzwords. In the corporate world, there are a multitude of buzzwords (and phrases) that need to fall out of existence. And, yes, I’m an offending party on several of these.

• Learnings
• Synergistic
• Guru
• Bandwidth
• Thinking outside of the box
• Let’s talk offline
• Deep dive
• Granular
• Come-to-Jesus moment

The list could go on and on. For those who lead in the church, we have a completely other set of buzzwords. The sad thing is that many of the words have an important meaning. Nevertheless, they have become junk-drawer terms that are applied to everything and often come to mean nothing. A short list would be:

• Postmodern
• Missional
• Relevant
• Contemporary
• Gifting
• Resonate
• Gospel

A few of these terms are important to me. They might be important to you. And, yes, I just put “Gospel” on the list. The reason is not that the biblical term has lost its meaning but that it has been so widely applied that others have lost a sense of its meaning. The three questions I have are simple: “When you use that term, what do you mean?” and “Do the people listening to you understand what you are saying?” and “Do they now understand enough to follow where you are leading?” It is a lesson that was driven home for me when I recently traveled to teach at the Kiev Theological Seminary. When leading, we must know these facts.

• Just because you speak does not mean that they heard you.
• Just because they nodded their heads in affirmation does not mean they understand.
• Just because they said they understand does not mean that they agree.
• Just because they agree does not mean that they will do it.

So, as I consider the power and the bane of buzzwords, I would offer these 10 thoughts.

1. Buzzwords begin as a rallying cry and end as words too broadly applied. Leadership constantly looks for fresh ways to keep the movement alive.
2. Buzzwords are a poor substitute for the real content. Leadership offers a vocabulary of meaningful dialogue.
3. Buzzwords give a false sense of momentum when stagnation is the reality. Leadership identifies stagnation and tackles it.
4. Buzzwords are an easy way to say nothing when those who follow you need to hear something. Leadership shows the willingness to have the difficult conversations.
5. Buzzwords kill the meaning of a movement. Leadership continues to give life to a movement.
6. Buzzwords are the escape hatch for the speaker who is unprepared. Leadership finds a way to be the most prepared person in the movement.
7. Buzzwords provide a facade of being knowledgeable. Leadership actually learns.
8. Buzzwords give false hope of a possible future. Leadership tells a beautiful and detailed story of what can be.
9. Buzzwords are big ideas boiled down to the lowest common denominator of thought. Leadership offers everyone a way to access the big ideas and bring understanding to them.
10. Buzzwords make important words eventually seem disposable. Leadership redeems the important meaning of words and phrases.

Read more from Philip here.

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Balancing Life, Work, and Ministry: 6 Issue for the Bivocational Pastor

by: Philip Nation

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For the last three years, I’ve served as a bivocational pastor with The Fellowship. Over a year ago, I also joined our body of Elders to serve alongside the men who give strategic and missional leadership to our church family. In comparison to the first twenty-two years of ministry, it has been a significant adjustment. I am constantly looking for the proper balance in life, work, and professional ministry. As I have thought through it all, for my own sanity, I decided to make a quick list of the top issues I am working through as a bivocational pastor.

1. Relationships. It is so tempting for me to expend all of my emotional energy on my full-time job at LifeWay first, put the church in second place, and then allow my family to fall to third. It is tempting and it is wrong. Having two jobs requires extra diligence for me to show preference to Angie, Andrew, and Chris.

2. Rest. Admittedly, I have (or have learned to have) a driven personality. My preference is to be productive. I know I need to rest but often feel guilty for doing it. There is always more work to be done, something to read, an email that needs a response, a plan that needs refining, and a sermon that needs writing. On top of it all, I love to write. But it is an emotionally taxing process. So, I’m trying to learn to not feel guilty for simply taking a day (or half of a day) to just sit down and relax.

3. Study time. All bivocational ministers struggle with this one. We just need to find ways to study well; both efficiently and effectively. Every sermon still demands copious amounts of study and prayer. I’m blessed to serve with two other teaching pastors and we share the load of sermon preparation.

4. Faith. Did I mention that I’m a driven person? Faith sometimes gets run over by the “I’ve got this” attitude. Faith often requires you to wait. It always requires that you surrender control. By nature, I’m not good at either waiting or surrendering. It is a good thing that the Lord is so patient and the Spirit is such a wonderful instructor.

5. Emotional frustration. Being in ministry as your full-time vocational work, it affords you the chance to connect with the church family on a deep level. As a bivocational pastor, I do not have all of the opportunities to emotionally connect with members of our church. At times, I am emotionally frustrated that I cannot be present, connected, and deeply embedded into everyone’s life. So, I have to remember that I am simply one of the under-shepherds. The Lord has not lost control of caring for His people.

6. Vision capacity. Having multiple responsibilities for leadership means that my capacity for visioneering is spread over multiple disciplines. I am a leader at church, a director of publishing at work, an author, and also travel to speak in various conferences and churches. Just doing the first two require discipline to lean into the Word and prayer in order to stay in tune with God’s will. Returning to point number one, all of this must be subservient to living better as a husband and father. It is so apparent to me that I need to lean more heavily into the work of leading my wife and sons better.

It all stands as a key reminder for all of us. There’s only one God and I’m not Him. Thank goodness for that fact. Every bivocational pastor I meet loves the work that God has entrusted into their hands. We hope to be found faithful in our professional and ministerial work. Oftentimes, we long for the day that we only had one of the two. And you can well imagine which one we’d most likely choose.

So, for my merry band of bivocational pastors out there in the trenches today, take heart. The church is still led by the Chief Shepherd and you are deeply loved by the King of Glory.

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Less Can Be More: How Ruthless Calendaring Will Make Your Work More Productive

by: Philip Nation

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Here are two words that you do not expect to read in a single phrase: “ruthless” and “calendaring.” But, I hope that by the end of this post, I will have made them make sense together for 2014.

Recently, I spent an hour with the managers and publishing team leaders in my area to discuss our schedules. By virtue of working in a company, meetings are necessary. At least that’s what we think most of the time. What I have found is that some of our meetings have a less than necessary reason for existence. In order to order my life better, here is some major planning for 2014. Here’s is why I plan to do it and what I hope to accomplish.

1. Curb the pop-in-the-office meetings. I am incredibly guilty of this behavior and it causes everyone in our company to have permission to do the same. I hope to stop just popping into other offices unannounced. My leaders are gracious and don’t act as if they mind it. But I think it makes for too many spur-of-the-moment decisions and just eats up time. A better schedule will help us be more intentional with our conversations.

2. Establish the major conversations. In my calendaring for the next year, I am establishing the major conversations that will take place each week and/or month with others. For my core leadership, we will meet each week. For a group of my peers where I lead a “matrix” meeting across our adult ministry work, we will meet once a month. Without a doubt, there will be emergencies that arise that will require a meeting, but a pre-planned conversation will help us know when the conversations can be most fruitful.

3. Schedule conversations. A great part of leadership is relationship. I don’t want my relationships with our team to feel contrived but I know that the vast majority of our interactions simply revolve around our assigned work. The only way for me to spend any personal time where we talk about life, faith, family, and the things we enjoy is to schedule those conversations. It will take the form of walking to a coffee shop, going to lunch, or a planned break from the up-tempo pace of our work life.

4. Show patience. When it comes to work, I can be a hard-charging personality. I don’t know that I have this natural inclination or if it is a learned behavior. I guess it does not matter… it is who I very likely am at work. By holding to my scheduled meetings and conversations, it will help me practice patience. Rather than giving in to the impulse to rush around and force conversations and decisions, I hope that my calendaring will allow me to settle down. At least a little bit.

5. Establish a reason for every meeting. My coworkers know that I hate two things about meetings: when they are long and when we leave without a reason for having met. By doing this planning ahead of time, I hope to also establish a reason for every meeting to occur. It means that each meeting will not only a reason but also a plan for discussion and/or delegation.

6. Own your calendar by refusing to let others own it. We all work off of Google Calendar where others can search for an open spot on your schedule and send an invitation. I’ve decided that just because I have “white space” does not give others permission to own it. It is okay to say “no” to a meeting or delay it to another time.

I will likely have a mixture of success and failure in all of these areas. I’ll let you know how it goes along the way.

So… what are you doing to make this year more productive in your work?

Read more from Philip here.

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