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: , ,

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: , , ,

QR Codes

Posted on June 4, 2013 Written by

QR codes are free. Get a QR code for your webpage for online giving. Print the QR code in every week’s bulletin and remind people they can give online by scanning the QR code in the bulletin. Keep the CR code in the same place in the bulletin so people will know where to look for it each week. For the increasing number of people who don’t carry cash, this is a simple way to facilitate electronic giving (after all, everyone carries a smartphone everywhere but wallets are disappearing).

Lead On!

Steve

Filed Under: budget, church administration, church finances, strategy Tagged: , , ,

Revenue Projections Spreadsheet

Posted on May 21, 2013 Written by

Projecting church gifts is difficult but not impossible. If you have a few years of giving history and a good spreadsheet, you can get a pretty accurate forecast of how much a church will receive in a current fiscal year with a high degree of statistical confidence, about 98%. I use this with the most important revenue stream for a church, gifts and offerings, but it can be used for any revenue stream that is relatively stable (no major fluctuations from year to year).

To do this, you’ll need at least four years’ worth of giving data with totals by month. The more history you’ve got, the more accurate your projection will be. If you keep up this spreadsheet, each year, the forecasts will get more accurate. Here’s how to do the financial forecast:

  1. Look on the Free Resources tab for the Annual Revenue Projections spreadsheet and open it.
  2. Fill in the church’s or organization’s name
  3. Change the “Year’s Row” to reflect the years for which you have data
  4. Enter all the data for all the years prior to the current fiscal year
  5. Enter current year data through the most recent month in the current year’s column
  6. Change the formula in the row “Through the rest of year”
    1. If you have current year data for seven months, then change the formula in B20 to add up the giving for the last five months of the year.
    2. Repeat for all prior years – you want to add up in row 20 the amount given in each respective prior years’ last five months
    3. The current year’s row 20 cell cannot follow the pattern of the previous cells because there isn’t any data to add. Instead, average the percentage data for all the previous years.
    4. This step, #6, is crucial – it is the only step that is changed each month. As you input data for the most recently completed fiscal month in the current year you’ll need to change what months are added in row 20.
    5. The spreadsheet will give you a figure in “Projected Total as of EOM” (end of month). That is the forecasted receipts figure based on the data you have so far. I suggest copying that figure into the row underneath for the appropriate month so you can see from month-to-month how the forecast changes.

I’ve used this spreadsheet for about 10 years and it uncanny how accurate it is when you’ve got six years of prior giving history and six months of current year giving data. In fact, give the spreadsheet a test: since you know what the total giving was for your most recently completed fiscal year, enter the data as if that year were still in progress and see what the model forecasts with six months’ of data or seven. Compare the forecast with the actual year-end figure to see if it was within a statistical margin (4% or less).

The model isn’t flawless but it is about 98% to 99% accurate. Your Finance Committee will be impressed! This spreadsheet does not account for variances that skew giving such as major gifts or deaths or departures of major givers so consider those events when entering your data. Make sure you save this spreadsheet to your files so you can update it each month.

 

Lead On!

Steve

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

Decision-Making Committees and Working Teams

Posted on May 14, 2013 Written by

Churches need to differentiate between committees and teams. Most churches have one or the other but in reality they have both. However, they don’t distinguish between the two whereas I think there is a difference.

  • Committees
    • Committees make decisions. Committee members should have expertise in the areas to which they are assigned. For example, you need numbers people reading financial statements.
    • Committees always have an indefinite existence.
    • Examples of committees are:
      • Personnel
      • Finance
      • Strategic Planning
      • (that’s really all there are – everything else is a Working Team)
      • Working Teams
        • Working Teams accomplish a specific project. They may have an indefinite lifespan, but they have a specific job to do. Most of the teams do not require skills, they require willingness to serve.
        • Examples of Working Teams are:
          • Ushers
          • Teachers
          • Greeters
          • New Building
          • Fundraising
          • Missions
          • And dozens more, however many the church needs to accomplish its tasks

Many Working Teams should have a sunset clause – when the building is built, when the mission trip is over, etc. Committees never end. One of the key differences is that decisions by Committees may have legal consequences whereas the Tellers’ Team and other teams don’t make decisions with legal concerns.

Working Teams don’t need to have a rotation schedule but Committees must have one. It may be a three or four year rotation with the opportunity to re-up for another term or not, but rotation is important. Committees need a balance of institutional memory (members who have been around a while and know the church’s history and politics) and new blood (members who can bring fresh ideas and current concepts to help the church adapt to the present and future). The easiest and best way to get that mix of history and new is to rotate members. Frequently this rotation helps to keep the average age of a committee in the late-40s and that is a pretty good mix of ages.

 

Lead On!

Steve

Filed Under: leadership, strategy Tagged: ,
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