Strategy

Organizational Control and Empowerment

Strategy / / By

All organizations must deal with the issues of Control and Empowerment. It is not one or the other, but the relationship and balance between them.

When organizations lean too far towards control, they stifle creativity and innovation. They also tend to disfranchise people on the fringe.

When organizations lean too far towards empowerment, they often lose central focus and mission. The organization tends to fragment and lose clarity.

It is the equilibrium between control and empowerment that provides the most results. The leadership controls the mission, culture, and values, while at the same time allowing great empowerment of their people to innovate and bring new ideas into the organization.

How is your organization doing at finding the right balance?

 

Lead Pastors, are you learning from those larger than you are?

Leadership, Strategy / , / By

I received my September/October 2021 issue of Outreach Magazine today.

As I was looking over the lists of the 100 Fastest Growing and 100 Largest Churches, I was reminded how many of these churches I took pastors and graduate students to over the years:

  • Bayside Church, Roseville, CA
  • Gateway Church, South Lake, TX
  • Harvest Church, Billings, MT
  • Mariners Church, Irvine, CA
  • North Coast Church, Vista, CA
  • Southwest Christian Church, Louisville, KY
  • Northpoint, Alpharetta, GA
  • Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, CA
  • Flatirons Community Church, Lafeyette, CO
  • Red Rocks Church, Littleton, CO
  • The Rock Church, San Diego, CA
  • The Village Church, Flower Mound, TX
  • Plus 4 or 5 others

There is nothing like seeing a great church with your own eyes.

There are several great churches in San Antonio that would make an outstanding trip:

  • Community Bible Church
  • Gateway Fellowship Church
  • Oaks Hills Church
  • Westover Hills Church (AG) and one of the most integrated Churches and staffs in America

This would be a great Fall or Spring trip. The weather in San Antonio would be great.

A California church I have not visit that would be on the top of my list would be Eastside Christian Church in Anaheim, CA. This could easily be done with Mariners and Saddleback.

If you are a lead pastor of a large church, what are you doing to help you see a church larger than you are?

If you can’t envision it, it is much harder to get there.

Post Covid Opening up Strategy

Planning, Strategy / By

One of my coaching clients asked me a question about where we go now, and I decided to share my answer with a few of you who I have coached in the past.

We are a transition point. The last year and a half disrupted how almost everyone did church. Everyone had to adjust and find ways to minister during Covid. The hybrid church is probably here to stay.

We are now at another transition point. People are ready to forget about Covid and get back to life and the future. This is observable in many ways: air travel is growing exponentially, national parks are breaking all-time records, people are taking a vacation and going to see family, sporting events are packed to capacity. All of this tells us the focus of people in on the present and future. They are wanting to get on with life, not focus on the past and problems.

What are the implications for church leaders? I think every church needs to act like they are planting their church all over September 1st. What would you do if you were planting your church for the first time this September? That is probably what you should be doing.

How are you going to get people connected to your church who don’t even know you exist? Here are a few ideas to get you thinking.

  1. I would urge you to consider a three-issue mail campaign to your community (3 mailings two weeks apart). If you can’t afford to mail to your entire community, consider: 1) mailing to everyone who has purchased a home in the last year and a half; 2) mailing to everyone who has children living at home (Buy the address list from a marketing company); 3) mailing to everyone within 2, 3, 5 miles of your building. In your mailing focus on why they should attend your church from their point of view. Not your mission statement “To know Christ and live for him daily”, BUT “You can find faith that will transform and authentic friends”.
  2. Print invitation cards (sometimes called touch cards) for your members to use in inviting their friends, neighbors, and co-workers to come with them to church. Design them for non-Christians.
  3. Start a weekly email to every email address you have. Keep it short and focused.

First, share one-way people are being transformed at your church (one week you might feature one of the following:

      • youth (maybe a story from camp or a teen who turned their life around),
      • children (maybe a story from your summer kid’s ministry or how the kid’s ministry helps parents)
      • Young Adults (how someone found authentic friendship or direction in life)
      • Women (How someone’s life is being transformed by a small group or activity)
      • Small groups (How being connected helped someone in a tough time)
      • Community outreach (How your church is changing lives in your community)
      • You get the idea. People are not interested in programs or numbers, but they are interested in lives being changed.

Second, why they will not want to miss Sunday (The is your message teaser) How will the message be meaningful to a non-believer.

  1. Plan a fall fun event that is easy for your church people to invite friends to attend:
      • Have a Car or motorcycle show
      • 3 on 3 basketball tournament
      • Kids’/Family fun time
      • Food trucks after church
      • Concert in the park with several bands
      • A community serve day

Remember to reach your community you will probably need to build some momentum. That is why I suggest your brainstorm with your team on what you would do if you were launching this fall.

I know many of you are way ahead of me on this, but I thought I would share. May God grant you a genuine harvest of souls this fall and help your church to truly reflect Christ in your community.

Mel

 

 

“To know Christ and make Christ known”

Why is it so easy to over correct?

Leadership, Strategy / , , / By

As someone who has been observing and analyzing the church for most of my adult life, I find that whenever you find an excess, the next generation tends to over correct, much like a pendulum corrects to the opposite direction.

Let me share a few examples:

When the church became so focused on its liturgy, the next generation throughout all liturgy and became the Free Church. Both sides lost. The high church lost out on the vitality of the Spirit’s presence and the free church lost the depth of worship reflect in the liturgy.

When many in the American builder and boomer generations went to excess focusing on individualism to the exclusion of community, the next generation has swung the pendulum so much to community that they have excluded individual roles and responsibilities. I see this really come out in how each generation exegetes Biblical texts. Many in the Boomer/Builder generations read all scripture as if it only applied to the individual. Many in the Xer/ Millennial generations read all texts as if it were only understood in community. Each generation lost something in the over reaction to the previous generation.

While many in the Builder generation emphasized Bible knowledge/theology and the first commandment (Love God). Many in the Xer/Millennial generations emphasize living the life of compassion and the second commandment (Loving others). The older generation missed the importance of compassion and relationships and the younger is missing the strength of orthodox beliefs. I am afraid there are very many in our churches that no longer have a belief system based on Scripture, therefore they fall into relativism.

Many in the older generations tied God to County, sometimes losing sight that our primary citizenship is in heaven and that countries can and do become evil.  Some in the younger generation almost make it God against country. Both miss out of scriptural insights. We are to prayer for and honor our leaders, yet at the same time we have loyalties that supersede where we now live. Daniel in the Bible I think reflects this balance.

Finding the appropriate tension between ways of thinking has always been more difficult than just letting ourselves continue to over correct. I pray the church has the strength to not settle for over-reaction and over correction. The over corrections leave the church continually out of balance.

What Drives Your Organization?

Strategy / , , , / By

Every organization that is achieving results has something “driving” it. What the driver is will vary, but without a driver, the organization will fall into mediocrity and eventually decline.

Some will say the driver must be one thing (examples: mission, vision, purposes, or culture/values.) It has been my observation and experience that it can actually be any of these, but there must be a clear driver. I am aware of world class organizations that use each of these. They know their driver and it shapes their organization.

In a healthy organization:

  • The driver often keeps leaders up at night dreaming about it?
  • The driver is what causes an organization to make hard strategic decisions?
  • The driver is the thing that trumps all other considerations in decision making?

Unfortunately, many organizations have no driver or they have too many drivers. Many things could cause this: being overwhelmed by the day to day, lack of conviction, lack of confidence, doing business by routine, or lack of clarity by senior leadership. I am sure there are many other reasons that we could add to this list. When the driver is fuzzy, everything is fuzzy.

Senior leaders must get clarity on the organizations driver and make that the most important thing there is in the organization. I would say that this and leadership development are the most important jobs of senior leaders. Why does your organization exist? What is it trying to accomplish? Why does this matter?

The driver will affect how money is spent, who is hired or recruited, what fill up the calendar, what gets emphasized and what doesn’t. The driver will literally shape the organization.

Does your organization have clarity on what is its driver?

Church Events

Planning, Strategy / , / By

I think it is import for Church leadership to answer these seven questions about every event that they establish:

  1. Why are we doing this event? (What is its purpose and mission)
  2. How will this event help people move forward (take their next step)? Events are never an end, but a step in a process.
  3. How will we make the Next Step clear at and through the event? (Will an attender know what they should do next and is it easy to do?)
  4. How will we measure the effectiveness of the event? (It is not how many attend, but how many take the next step).
  5. Who is responsible for getting ALL the information to the communication people?
  6. By when will ALL the information be given to the communication people?
  7. How will the event be promoted?

If you can’t answer these questions, you probably should not be doing the event.

Is it Time to Repeat the Church Development Process?

Recalibration, Strategy / , / By

No matter how great your church is, every church needs to go through some development process at a minimum of every five years. The reason is all organizations, including your church, over time lose focus, clarity and conviction. Also all systems tend to weaken or atrophy over time. The way to combat these tendencies is to do a periodic Church Development Process.

Some of the things that need to be re-examined include:

  • Mission (What is God’s mission for your church?)
  • Culture and Values (What Culture and Values does God want for your church?)
  • Functions and Purposes (What are the functions or purposes of a New Testament Church?)
  • Congregational makeup (Who is part of your church and what are they like?)
  • Community analysis (Who lives in your ministry area and what are their values and needs?)
  • Evangelism System (How are you building relationships with people who do not yet have a relationship with God?)
  • Spiritual Formation System (How are people becoming more like Christ?)
  • Worship Gathering System (Is your Worship Gathering drawing people to Christ and are they being encouraged?)
  • Ministry/Serving System (Are people discovering their gifts and strengths and finding a place to serve?)
  • Finance System (Are you developing a generous attitude and managing God’s money and resources effectively?)

Some churches will want to go through a concentrated process and other churches will prefer to focus on two or three systems each year in a five year cycle. But no matter which approach, to keep your church strong you need to be intentional about recalibrating. We see what happens in the New Testament when churches do not do this. The same vibrant churches planted in Acts are challenged in Revelation for getting off mission.

A mistake some churches and leaders make, is to think once they have been through a development process (For example: Leadership Development Process (LDR), Turnaround Churches, Re-calibrate Network, Outward Focused Churches or Acts 2) they are done. In reality, they need to repeat such a process as a church at least every five years.

If you have not done an intentional Church Development Process in several years, I encourage you to become part of one of the ministries that can help you get refocused or to connect with a Church Coach.

Here are some development approaches you might consider:

All of these will help you keep your church on mission!

Complexity and Simplicity

Strategy / , / By

In coaching leaders and organizations, I find they often want a simple solution to their challenges. The problem is they do not want to do the work and research necessary to fully understand the complexity of the issue, before they implement a simple solution.

Oliver Wendell Holmes observed, “For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn’t give you a fig. But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, for that I would give you anything I have.”

Some of my favorite quotes on this subject are:

  • “Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.” — Alan Perlis
  • “…the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity.” — Alfred North Whitehead
  • “Simplicity is complexity resolved.” — Constantin Brancusi

The goal is always simplicity, but to get there you must first understand and analyze the complexity.

What is it in your life or work that you need a simpler solution for?

The old Acrostic K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple stupid) it a good formula, but to get there will require work. First study and analyze the bigger situation with all its complexity, then and only then look for the simple solution.

Albert Einstein said, “Everything should be made a simple as possible. But not simpler.”

May you find simple solutions to the issues you face.