Be a Leader, Not a Manager

Posted on October 15, 2013 Written by

The church today doesn’t need any more managers. Over the past few decades the church has had people who cared for and made sure the current plans were set in place and funded. These are managers. Frankly, most pastors and church staff are managers because they like getting a paycheck, so staff members tend to stay in the comfort zone of the church members.

This has created the church we have today in America: well-tended and well-intentioned organizations. They have been managed. You might even say that these churches have been managed to death; churches did what church members wanted and stayed within the boundaries of the usual and customary, only rarely pushing out into the deep (usually after much study and having a church member or two champion this idea). Churches are declining. Younger generations do not care for well-managed churches; churches need leaders.

In Deep & Wide, Andy Stanley writes the following (I could post all of Chapter 14, but this is a sample):

The primary reason churches cling to outdated models and programs is that they lack leadership. For an organization to remain vision-centric, it must be led by a vision-centric leader or leaders. Problem is, church boards rarely recruit and hire leaders. They recruit and hire pastors, preaches, and teachers. Then they expect those pastors, preachers, and teachers to lead. But pastors, preachers, and teachers are trained and gifted in … you guessed it … pastoring, preaching, and teaching. In most churches, the man or woman who carries the preaching responsibility is expected to carry the mantle of leadership as well. This is true whether he or she is gifted and trained to lead or not.

Pastors, preachers, and teachers who are not gifted in the area of leadership default to management. Best-case scenario, they take what’s handed to them and nurture it, protect it, defend it, and in some cases, improve it. Worst-case scenario, they focus on pastoring, preaching, and teaching, and delegate key leadership decisions to committees. They are reticent to move outside the lines they were hired into. It’s neither intuitive nor comfortable for them to abandon the approach they inherited in order to lead out in a new direction. Consequently, they end up married to the model they were hired into.

Churches are craving excellent leadership, but churches are fearful of it too. This means leaders need to lead wisely and strategically. As often as I can, I tell men and women who are getting started in ministry that the church doesn’t need any more managers; it needs leaders. I plead with them to be leaders and not settle for mere management. Management has its place and is necessary, but there is a vacuum of leadership which desperately needs to be filled.

Please, please, please – be a leader.

Lead On!

Filed Under: leadership Tagged:

True Test of Servanthood

Posted on September 24, 2013 Written by

How do you act when you’re treated like a servant? Too often I don’t react well. People ask me to do this, they complain about that, and they want me to take care of something else. They treat me like a servant. Well, I am a servant, so I should expect to be treated like a servant. But I’m also a leader, and my humanity tells me I should be treated like a leader.

One of the key things about servants is that while they are called on to do lots of menial chores, their role is vital. If not for them, much of the work would never been done. Never underestimate the need for servants and the work they do.

I’ve seen families with servants and how those servants were treated. Almost always the servants were treated with graciousness and respect. Occasionally servants were treated in a demeaning way, and those places had high turnover rates among their servants. Servants are never to be denigrated. They are to be appreciated and valued for the assistance they provide.

So, when I’m treated like a servant, I need to understand the motives of the person. Are they “putting me in my place,” in which I case I have a responsibility to help them understand how to use church servants more effectively? Or, does the requestor have a real need and I, the servant, can help meet that need like few others can? Can I read through the question to see the real intention and then be a servant to this child of God? I’m going to try and I hope you will, too.

Lead On!

Steve

Filed Under: church staff, leadership, wisdom Tagged: , ,

Missional – Institutional

Posted on September 17, 2013 Written by

All churches start with the passion of a person or group of people. They are excited about the opportunities and sometimes approach the impossible with a can-do attitude. They face lots of problems and often overcome them. This is the “Missional Church” – the church that starts with a mission to reach people with the Good News of Jesus Christ and will not be deterred from that task. There are discouraging times along the way, and there are setbacks every now and again. But the leaders and the members who stick it out know they are doing what God wants them to do.

And then, almost without exception, every Missional Church hits a roadblock. They buy a building, and that structure frequently stops the Missional Church in its tracks.

Too often the Missional Church becomes the Institutional Church. There is now something to protect, a debt to pay off, a place to focus resources, a building that consumes more and more financial and personnel resources. Left unchecked, the Institutional Church takes away almost all of the passion of the Missional Church.

I’m not saying church buildings are bad—far from it—but there must be some moderation. I am saying that the church must not lose its initial passion for people, but it should never let that energy be redirected toward bricks and mortar.

I celebrate the Missional Church and encourage it. I just want that church to never lose its desire to keep the main thing the main thing. And in church, the main thing is always, always, always PEOPLE. So, buy a building, make it a nice one so that people will come, and then find ways for those who come inside to then go outside to minister to others. Never believe that a building, an institution, is the endgame. It is a tool, not an institution.

Lead On!

Steve

 

Filed Under: church staff, leadership, strategy, wisdom Tagged: , ,

Judges 21:25

Posted on September 10, 2013 Written by

In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes. (NRSV) The book of Judges picks up from where Joshua left off: in Joshua we read about the invasion of the Promised Land, pitched battles for Jericho, Ai and other cites, dividing the land among the tribes and settling in. Judges 2:16-19 is the book in a nutshell: God provides a leader (Deborah, Gideon, Samson, and many others) who guides the people to follow God’s ways; when the leader dies, the people cease to follow God’s ways; God provides a new leader and the cycle repeats. Time and again the Bible says that when the people had no leader, everyone did “what was right” in their own eyes. But 21.25, the last verse of the last chapter, is different. Let’s go through that verse:

  • In those days
    • The author refers to a prior time, not the present time, as if to say “back when we were not as advanced as we are today.”
  • There was no king in Israel
    • Israel didn’t have a leader. It had been proven time and again that Israel needed a governor to rule and guide them, and now they had no one.
  • All the people
      • Everyone, no exceptions.
  • Did what was right
    • They were doing the right things, and that was a huge improvement over what they had been doing before.
  • In their own eyes
    • But everyone was doing what they wanted to do.

Everyone in Israel was finally doing the right thing which God had been training them to do for a couple of centuries. However, there was no leader or king to guide everyone so that they were working together for a common goal. Instead, everyone was working for their own purposes and not for the best interests of the country. For the lack of a leader, the nation went in a million different directions, all of them good. A good leader can help his or her staff and followers pull together so that they are unified in rowing the ship toward the same horizon. If everyone is rowing in different directions at different times, then the ship is going in circles. The ship is moving; it’s just not going anywhere. A ship is meant to sail on the high seas with the work being done by the sailors who are led by the captain. Organizations, including churches, are meant to be intrepid and taking risks under a leader who uses his or her people wisely. I implore leaders to be leaders, to guide wisely, and to unify followers in a common goal.

Lead On!

Steve

Filed Under: leadership, strategy Tagged: ,

Urgent vs. Important

Posted on September 3, 2013 Written by

There’s already been a lot written about “urgent versus important” as a management tool. I’m sure I’ll repeat some things, but they bear repeating. Some consultants advise using a JoHari Window to help manage the important and urgent.

Important

Not Important

Urgent

Not Urgent

 

  1. Immediately deal with important and urgent items.
    1. These are items that cannot wait and if not dealt with efficiently and effectively, there could be a significant downside impact.
    2. Often these will require using substantial amounts of resources so that the outcome is the best possible for everyone.
    3. Next, deal with urgent things quickly but do not invest lots of resources in them.
      1. They are wildfires that need to be put out. Don’t let them get out of control or there could be unfortunately consequences.
      2. Urgent things consume resources – time, money, and energy – and are often not productive.
      3. Third, focus on the important things.
        1. That’s where you need to invest your resources.
        2. Taking time to set expectations and standards will, in due course, mean that people will know what is important to you. They will realize that urgent things are usually insignificant and that you want to spend time on important stuff.
        3. Lastly, things that are not important and not urgent shouldn’t be dealt with at all. Not even by subordinates. They are a waste of time.

By the way, if you’ve not used JoHari Windows, I strongly encourage their use. You can put almost anything on the sides and once you fill in the squares, you’ll quickly see where you need to focus your resources. The Johari Window was created by two guys (Joseph and Harrington) in the 1950s as a tool to help interpersonal relationships, but management consultants saw where this can be used in a variety of business scenarios.

Lead On!

Steve

 

Filed Under: church administration, leadership, strategy Tagged: , ,

Jesus and Church Staff (Pharisees and Sadducees)

Posted on August 27, 2013 Written by

Look it up – the ONLY people whom Jesus ever criticized were church staff (that would be the Pharisees and Sadducees during Jesus’ life on earth). He never laid low anyone else, but he really came down hard on the Temple leaders. He wasn’t even discreet about it – most times he said it straight to their faces. In one chapter alone, he takes it to them (these verses are called the “Seven Woes” by scholars):

  1. They taught about God but did not love God — they did not enter the kingdom of heaven themselves, nor did they let others enter. (Matt 23:13-14)
  2. They preached God but converted people to dead religion, thus making those converts twice as much sons of hell as they themselves were. (Matt 23:15)
  3. They taught that an oath sworn by the temple or altar was not binding, but that if sworn by the gold ornamentation of the temple, or by a sacrificial gift on the altar, it was binding. The gold and gifts, however, were not sacred in themselves as the temple and altar were, but derived a measure of lesser sacredness by being connected to the temple or altar. The teachers and Pharisees worshipped at the temple and offered sacrifices at the altar because they knew that the temple and altar were sacred. How then could they deny oath-binding value to what was truly sacred and accord it to objects of trivial and derived sacredness? (Mat 23:16-22)
  4. They taught the law but did not practice some of the most important parts of the law — justice, mercy, faithfulness to God. They obeyed the minutiae of the law such as tithing spices but not the real meat of the law. (Matt 23:23-24)
  5. They presented an appearance of being ‘clean’ (self-restrained, not involved in carnal matters), yet they were dirty inside: they seethed with hidden worldly desires, carnality. They were full of greed and self-indulgence. (Matt 23:25-26)
  6. They exhibited themselves as righteous on account of being scrupulous keepers of the law, but were in fact not righteous: their mask of righteousness hid a secret inner world of ungodly thoughts and feelings. They were full of wickedness. They were like whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside, but full of dead men’s bones. (Matt 23:27-28)
  7. They professed a high regard for the dead prophets of old, and claimed that they would never have persecuted and murdered prophets, when in fact they were cut from the same cloth as the persecutors and murderers: they too had murderous blood in their veins. (Matt 23:29-36)

That is hard stuff to hear – imagine if it were directed at you. How would that make you feel? Pretty bad. Now imagine how you would feel if Jesus Christ, your Lord and Savior, were to say that to you. You’d feel even worse.

Church staffs have very high expectations – set for them by God and to which they agree (or else they wouldn’t have accepted to serve with a church). Everyone who serves on a church staff should take a moment every week to step back and ask, “Have I done anything this week for which Jesus would criticize me?” If yes, then address that issue head on; if not, be grateful but also make sure you’re not covering something just because you don’t want to address it.

We all fail – we’re all human. The key is how we react when we know we’ve failed God. If we try to cover it up – expect Jesus to get in your face about it. Never be a hypocrite like the Pharisees and Sadducees. Recognize your shortcomings, be a leader, and own up to them. People will respect you and God more if you acknowledge that you aren’t perfect and that God is, and always will be, working on you.

Lead On!

Steve

 

 

Filed Under: church staff, leadership, wisdom Tagged: , ,

Decision-making Questions

Posted on August 20, 2013 Written by

Gray areas are dangerous territory. When something is not clear cut and no easy decision can be made, it is a gray area. To help navigate those gray areas, ask yourself several questions:

  • What is the upside versus the downside of doing or not doing this action?
  • What is the wise thing to do?
  • What would a prudent person do?

These questions will make you pause long enough to help you make the right decision. Sometimes you only need to ask one of these but sometimes you should ask all three . You can figure out when to ask which ones.

What is the upside versus the downside of doing or not doing this action?

By definition, decisions mean choosing one thing over another. That means you give up something in favor of something else, and you want to choose correctly. This question asks if the benefits of this decision outweigh any negative consequences. Sometimes a decision made with good intentions can have unintended divisive results and you need to determine ahead of time if that good decision is worth it.  Make sure the downside never overshadows the upside; if there is a chance it will, don’t do it.

What is the wise thing to do?

Andy Stanley wrote a book The Best Question Ever in which he posed this question as THE basis for all life-decisions. I agree – asking yourself “is this the wise thing to do” will always make you stop and ponder the consequences of your upcoming actions. Wisdom is a life skill that increases with age and experience. Even if you are a teenager, asking this question can simply slow you down before committing to something so that you can make that decision in a well-thought-out manner.

What would a prudent person do?

Ask this question especially when there is a legal issue at heart. Let me be more explicit: can you stand in front of a judge and with a clear conscience justify your decision, such as why you spent that money on some product or didn’t spend money on some safety feature? Make sure you have the right reasons for your decision and then proceed.

Leadership is all about decision making. That is pretty much what leaders do all day long: make decisions. Here is my final rule:

Make the right and wise decision based on all the knowledge and information you have at that time. Go full-speed ahead with that decision. As you go along you will gather more information, and if any of that additional knowledge is sufficient to warrant a new decision, then do it. Never stick with a wrong decision in the light of data which can help you make a better decision. Then, make the new decision and proceed full-speed ahead until/unless you get info that will change that decision.

Lead On!

Steve

Filed Under: church administration, leadership, strategy Tagged: , ,

Standing Rubble (part 2)

Posted on August 13, 2013 Written by

In my last post, I wrote about Solomon’s Temple, Herod’s Temple, and the First Church of Jerusalem as the three greatest structures in ancient Judaism and early Christianity. These buildings helped shape Judaism and Christianity, and they became centers of their respective faiths. However, all three buildings are gone – only the Western or Wailing Wall of Herod’s Temple remains. Everything else is rubble, as Jesus predicted in Matthew 24:1-2.

As a church administrator, one of my roles is to maintain and upgrade church buildings. I believe that all church buildings should be places where people want to come to, pleasant to be in, inviting to newcomers, and welcoming to all. This means keeping the buildings clean and in good condition – walls with good paint, updated furnishings (not outdated furniture), well-lit, clean carpets and floors, free of clutter, etc. Well-cared-for and well-maintained facilities are important to getting younger generations inside a church – they have high expectations of what they want to see, and too many churches fall short. I’ve been in too many churches that are not taking care of their brick-and-mortar investments and that is a failure of stewardship, but that isn’t my point.

Taking care of church buildings is important, but taking care of people is even more important and urgent. Building up people is the real purpose of the four walls of a church edifice. Renovating hearts and minds is essential to the work of the church. Sometimes “gutting” mindsets and hardened anti-God feelings is necessary so that God can use that hollow structure to construct anew. Helping people begin to understand the love of God is the core purpose of every church building. The church must always be looking out its windows at the horizons God has set in front of it; it must take care of what God has entrusted to it, but the main thing for all churches is people.

All church buildings die. If they didn’t, then I’m sure that at least one of these three central religious structures who be standing today. None of them are. It’s not that God doesn’t care for the buildings, he just cares for people infinitely more and will sacrifice everything, including beautiful and important buildings, for the sake of his most loved creation. We should imitate God and realize that every building can be replaced, but people can’t. We need to prioritize our focus on buildings; they are a tool to help individuals get to know God just like so many other tools God gives us. Take care of your buildings, but take care of your people even more.

Lead On!

Steve

Filed Under: future, leadership, strategy, wisdom Tagged: , , ,
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