Ministry and team calibration

Calibration is the process by which instruments are compared to known "norms" to ensure that there is as little deviation as possible between the norm and the instrument being tested. The better the calibration, the better the instrument will perform and with the highest degree of accuracy.

The concept of calibration is important in ministry as well. The question is understanding what the norm is and how I can calibrate my actions against a proper understanding of the stated mission and guiding principles of the organization.

For instance, as a mission organization, we have a Central Ministry Focus to develop, empower and release healthy indigenous leaders. This is what we must do every day, all the time, wherever we work. As the senior leader, I championed this ministry focus and it was quickly adopted by our senior leadership and now by nearly everyone in our organization.

But, how do staff calibrate their ministries so that they are actually carrying out this mandate? While the concept seems fairly clear, how do I know when I am actually doing what the concept means?

This is where calibration comes in and it is important. It is coming to the best understanding of the central ministry focus as possible so that there is a high level of alignment across the organization because there is a common understanding.

This happens most directly when there is regular dialogue between myself and my senior leaders and then between my senior leaders and those in their areas of responsibility. It is ongoing dialogue, discussion and Socratic dialogue that helps to clarify meaning, intent, acceptable practices, focus and bring the organization into a common understanding (calibration).

Memo's and speeches do not get to calibration. They may be part of the process but the best calibration comes between a leader and those they lead in personal interaction, time together and lots of dialogue on key issues. There is no substitute for that time and discussion. That is one reason it is so important in team meetings to pick a topic that is central to the ministry they perform for discussion and dialogue - it helps calibrate the team.

Now in order to calibrate well, a leader must be clear on what the "norm" is. He or she must have great clarity on where they need to go and how they will get there. It is against that clarity that the discussion is focused and calibration is sought. Wise leaders provide maximum clarity to those they lead and then seek to calibrate the thinking and actions of their team or organization to be as close to the stated norm as possible. It happens through time and dialogue. It clarifies and focuses the team on the important things.

Ministry and Team Alignment

How aligned or in sync is the team you lead or the team you are a part of? Many ministry teams look like the picture above with everyone doing their own thing or going in their own direction. Or, various teams going in different directions. While it may be convenient that way - one can do their own thing - it is not a prescription for maximum ministry impact.

Many ministry leaders believe that they are aligned if people have collegial relationships. It is alignment around relationship. One ministry leader I worked with believed that if only people prayed together, their hearts would come into alignment and therefor all would be well. It was alignment around spirituality. Many church staffs believe that alignment is about communication - making sure everyone else knows what each ministry is doing. Now collegial relationships, spiritual fellowship and communication are are great for a team but they are not the true basis of alignment.

In fact, the first two alignment strategies above, an emphasis on close relationship and fellowship, actually complicate true alignment because it takes the emphasis off of missional success and puts it on everyone feeling good about each other. Frank, honest, robust dialogue around missional issues rarely happens where the highest priority is that we are "best friends."

Real alignment means that the directional, value, and missional arrows are all pointed in one direction. That is, we operate by the same values or guiding principles, we are passionate about the same mission, we understand the central ministry focus of our organization and we are committed to the same outcomes. Very few ministry organizations can claim that kind of alignment but it is the key to maximizing our ministry's potential.

In order to get that kind of alignment it is first necessary to clarify the core principles by which one is going to operate, the mission one has and the outcomes one desires. Without clarity on those issues alignment is not really possible.

It is precisely because most ministries have not defined these that they end up trying to align around relationship, fellowship or communication. But these will not get the arrows all pointed in the right direction. It may give an illusion of alignment but it is not true alignment.

Once one has clarified what we call the "sides of our ministry sandbox" one can then ask every individual and each team to align themselves around those core commitments or in our terminology, play inside the same sandbox. The larger a ministry is the more critical it is that everyone is working off the same play sheet. The phrase in the book of Judges that "everyone did what was right in their own eyes," was not a commendation but a criticism.

If you were to ask the team you lead or the team you are a part of, "What really aligns us and keeps us in sync what would they say? You might want to ask the question. At best, lack of alignment causes leaks in ministry impact. At worst, it causes misunderstanding, lack of clarity and lack of objective ways to measure success.

If you need help in getting to alignment, the book, Leading from the Sandbox can help. It is all about how to build and maintain an aligned team or organization.

What spells Success?

Do you know what success looks like for your church, team, ministry or organization?

Being able to clearly define success can be a huge factor in an organization's effectiveness. In my experience, however, most leaders and their staff cannot clearly answer the question. And, many times, the factors that we believe would spell success actually do not - and we are chasing the wrong things.

For instance. Many mission agencies define success by the number of missionaries they have and the number of countries they operate in. If you doubt that, just look at their materials. The problem is that those two statistics have nothing to do with effectiveness or results.

And, that definition can have negative unintended consequences which include bringing people into the organization that are not really qualified (because we are enamored by numbers) or starting ministries in new places where we do not have the necessary infrastructure or leadership.

In a similar fashion, local churches often simply believe that it is about numbers and one can get numbers by participating in the shuffle of believers from one church to another. Reading the New Testament one does not get the impression that numbers are the final indicator of success, rather life change is.
What is interesting is that there are actually two factors in defining success.

The first is the end product you want. In my organization the end product is spelled out by a mission statement, The EFCA exists to glorify God by multiplying healthy churches among all people. Our end goal is therefore church health, church multiplication and ensuring that the denomination includes all ethnic, and socio economic groups who make up our communities, nation and through missions our world.

Clarity on the mission, however, is only half the equation. The other half is defining the culture, practices and central ministry focus that are necessary to reach the missional goal that has been defined.

First, we need a set of guiding principles which provide true guidance as to how the organization operates. This goes beyond a static set of values to a set of principles which all staff and volunteers (or in the case of a church) members are committed to living out (see here for an example). These principles ensure that your staff are committed to practices that will help you get the results you desire. Without defining those practices you are unlikely to achieve what you desire to achieve.

The second piece is knowing what the central ministry focus must be if you are going to achieve your mission. This is the one thing that your organization must do day in and day out, without which, you will be far less likely to get to where you want to go. (see this post for an example).

The third piece is that of defining the culture you must have if you are going to achieve your mission. The culture of your organization, just like the practices of the organization will either help you achieve your mission or will work against you achieving that mission. For the local church I believe the culture is spiritual vitality. For our mission, it is healthy people, healthy teams, healthy leaders and healthy churches. In other words we know that without a culture of health at all of these four levels we will not achieve our missional goal.

In the book, Leading From the Sandbox, I describe how these four elements of mission, guiding principles, central ministry focus and organizational culture can be communicated in a simple way to all staff, and stakeholders.
The central point is that we must have the correct definition of success for our ministry. But once we have that definition, we must define the practices, central ministry focus and culture that are most likely going to help us achieve that mission - and therefore success.

Measuring Success: What counts?

Most of us would agree that measuring success is critical. If we don't know what we are after we won't know if we were successful. The trick is knowing what we ought to measure.

Take the local church for instance. It is common to measure the number of people who attend weekly. The higher our attendance, the higher our success. How often do we ask, "How many people attend your church?"

If numbers are our definition of success we are driven to increase the numbers and with a little marketing moxie one can do that. No problem.

Except - the New Testament definition of success for the church is not numbers but spiritual maturity - becoming like Jesus (Ephesians 4).

I was with a group of staff from churches of over 1,000 attendees recently. To a person, they were tired of talking numbers and wanted to talk "life change." They all know that you can grow the numbers but what they wanted to know is "How can we grow people who really look like and live like Jesus?"

The Great Commission is about more believers (much church growth today is simply believers trading places) and better believers. Evangelism and disciplemaking.

What do mature believers, Christ followers, better believers, look like? Church leaders across the world are grappling with that question focusing on ways that they can encourage those who have given their hearts to Christ to give their minds and their lives as well.

Ultimately life change is the measure of success. Success is not the quality of our facility, the excellence of our services, the diversity of our programming. Jesus is looking for fully devoted followers.

Here is the irony. Those churches that focus on helping people actually transform their lives so that they look, think and act as Jesus will grow! Focus on growth and you will get it - often with little life change. Focus on life change and you will get it - and you will grow numerically and spiritually.
What is the measure of success in your church?
Can you define and measure it?
Is your ministry focused to achieve it?

Something to think about.

The Three Top Responsibilities of Leaders

What do leaders do? There are many things they can do but there are three things that they must do if they are going to maximize the effectiveness of their organization. These three are non-negotiables.

One: Leaders provide maximum clarity around mission, guiding principles, central ministry focus and culture

Leaders must provide clarity about what the ministry stands for, what its mission is, how it will operate (guiding principles), what it must concentrate on (central ministry focus) and the culture of the organization.

Staff, donors, constituents and congregations all want to know where we are going, how we are going to get there, what we are about and they want a mission that is so compelling that they can give their energies, their resources and their best efforts. General clarity leads to general commitment. High clarity brings high commitment. The more clarity a leader provides the more commitment they will have from others.

Two, leaders ensure that mission is accomplished.

Leaders care about ministry results. They focus on ministry results and they hold their staff accountable for ministry results. Leaders distinguish between activity and results. They do not confuse activity with results and help staff understand that their activity must be focused in ways that are most likely to bring results. Everyone is busy but not everyone sees real results.

Staff pay attention to what their leaders pay attention to. If leaders are always focused on ministry results they will be too. If leaders don't focus on ministry results staff will not either. Leaders set the tone for the seriousness with which staff take actual missional effectiveness.

Three, leaders intentionally create an organizational culture that will allow it to best live out its clarity (one) and achieve missional results (two).

Most leaders underestimate the power of culture and pay too little attention to it. One can have the highest clarity and deepest commitment to missional effectiveness but have a culture that is unhealthy and which does not encourage healthy relationships, collaboration, robust dialogue, innovation and personal development. Healthy culture is critical to missional effectiveness and leaders are ultimately responsibility for that culture.

If you are interested in learning more about these three responsibilities of leaders, the book Leading from the Sandbox deals with these issues extensively.

Vision demystified - the last 20%

We indicated in the previous blog entry that 80% of vision for the local church has to do with what the people of God ought to be and crafting a mission, set of guiding principles, central ministry focus and culture of spiritual vitality to help God's people become transformed into His image. Getting clarity on those four areas is not easy but it is not complicated either. It simply takes the time and hard work of leaders to clarify, communicate and then be intentional in living these four areas out.

Then there is the other 20%. Here, leaders must make critical directional decisions that help the congregation maximize its spiritual influence in the community in which it is located - and in the world that it wants to reach. These directional decisions have significant opportunity to help the church expand its spiritual influence.

Directional decisions can include staffing, building, relocating, initiating ministry initiatives, killing no longer effective ministries, governance changes, community initiatives and other key decisions.

I think it is helpful to differentiate between two kinds of directional decisions. Global and local. I am not using these terms geographically.

By global, I mean directional decisions that actually change the game for a congregation. They are the kinds of decisions that are infrequent but significant - they are game changers. Take for instance, the game changer that Crystal Evangelical Free Church undertook in a suburb of Minneapolis. Historically the church had served an upper middle class congregation and community and was one of the larger churches in the EFCA.

When the church outgrew its campus in Crystal, it relocated to New Hope several decades ago where it continued to expand. Over the last decade, however, the community of New Hope changed significantly from an upper white middle class community to an ethnically diverse, lower class community.

The typical response to churches in changing communities is to continue to do ministry as usual and either relocate to a community that reflects its constituency or stay and become a commuter church with its traditional constituency driving from further out neighborhoods.

As Steven Goold, the senior pastor and his board pondered the changing landscape they chose a drastic, risky, prayerful and considered decision not only to stay but to intentionally change their ministry to minister to the multi-ethnic, lower class community. This was a global decision that changed the ministry game of the congregation.

It meant diversifying the staff. It meant accepting the fact that some who had called Crystal their church home would leave. It meant that the budget would probably go down. It meant learning new ways to do worship and doing the tough work of building love and unity in a multi-ethnic congregation rather than a white upper middle class congregation. It meant learning new ways to relate, to minister, to relate. It changed everything. It even meant changing the name of the church to reflect the community in which it was located "New Hope." It has not been easy but God is blessing the decision and God is at work in awesome ways.

Global decisions like this are the result of a huge amount of prayer, seeking God's direction, dialogue, discussion, planning and reflection. They are made by thoughtful leaders who have done the hard work of discerning the times, the opportunities, the right course of action and who have the courage to lead a deliberate process in order to make the transition from what is to what God is calling the church to. Such decisions should never be made quickly, should never be made without counting the cost - and there will be a cost - and should never be made without the leadership commitment to work the necessary process.

Most directional decisions are "local," in that they are key decisions but more limited in their scope. For instance, a decision to focus on compassion ministries within one's community in order to meet the commitment of the congregation to be the hands and feet of Jesus would fit this definition. Many local directional decisions are made on an annual basis in order to further the spiritual influence of the congregation and maximize its effectiveness.

The point here is that vision is a deliberate process on the part of leaders to maximize the opportunity and spiritual influence of the congregation. Most of these key directional decisions are limited in scope and a few are game changers. If leaders want to be "visionary," it is not necessary to have huge aspirations. It is necessary to be deliberate in figuring out how they can maximize the opportunity God has given them and then make the directional decisions to expand its effectiveness or influence.

You can be a leader in any community and any size church and be a leader and church of great vision. In fact, God has called you to do that. Vision is not the purview of the huge ministries around the world. It should be the vision of every congregation in every community.

One final thought. Wise leaders spend a lot of time praying, thinking and talking about how to maximize the opportunity God has given them. This means that they understand that their job is not to manage the present but to thoughtfully plan for the future. These kinds of discussions and times of prayer need to make up a large part of the time and work of church leaders. Vision is about the future and always pressing the missional agenda of the church for the sake of Christ and His kingdom.

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Vision demystified - the first 80%

In talking to pastors, one of the frustrations I often hear is - how do I determine vision for my church? We go to conferences and hear the importance of vision, we read the tomes of successful pastors who tell us how important vision is and we look at our church and say, "what do I do about that here?"

The good news is that all of us can have and communicate vision. But, we need to be clear about what vision is. Vision is primarily about what we want our church to be - missional, healthy, a place where we grow people into fully devoted followers of Jesus and where we are releasing people into active, meaningful ministry.
In fact, I would argue, that is 80% of what vision is all about. It is NOT the spectacular plans we have for the future - it IS about leading our church in a way that produces healthy Christ followers who are making an impact for Him in their neighborhoods, schools, places of work and community. The church is about transformation of lives into the image of Christ and when lives are transformed it starts to impact our communities.

How do we determine and put into practice this 80% of our vision for our congregations? There are four areas we need to define, articulate and constantly monitor. If you can clearly articulate these four areas, you can then work on annual plan to ensure that the congregation is growing in all four - and you will be moving intentionally toward greater health and spiritual vitality.

Mission - Why are we here?

We often underestimate the importance of a clear mission statement that articulates why we exist. It is critical because we often wrongly assume that the folks in our church are clear as to why the church exists. I can tell you with certainty that many are not. In fact, many church attenders have never even thought about it, they just enjoy being part of a good church. Yet everything about the church is missional if we take the great commission seriously.

If a mission statement cannot fit on the back of a t-shirt it is probably too long. 80% of your people ought to be able to tell you what the mission statement is and explain it. If they cannot, whatever you have as a mission statement is not going to make much difference in what actually happens.
Mission statements are not about a line to put into the bulletin but a commitment on the part of all of our people to be lived. Don't underestimate the power of a well crafted, constantly articulated and leader championed mission. It is a powerful tool to help point the whole congregation in the same direction of "more believers and better believers."

Guiding Principles - what are the core principles by which we will all live?
These are the principles by which we agree to do ministry, relate to one another and conduct ourselves as believers. These principles ought to actually guide behavior and in guiding behavior it actually shapes the kind of culture you want to create in your church . A carefully crafted set of guiding principles, if constantly championed by leaders and intentionally lived out allows you to intentionally create a healthy culture rather than simply settling for what is.
With guiding principles, one can intentionally create a culture of relationships, practices, spiritual dependency and commitments that are God honoring and designed to maximize the ministry opportunity your church has. They are powerful teaching opportunities to help your people understand how He wants us to relate to one another, to Him, to unbelievers and to the world. If we got that right in the church we would be an amazing transformational force in our communities.
Central Ministry Focus - what do we need to do all the time to maximize our spiritual impact as a church?

The central ministry focus is the one thing that your church needs to do day in and day out in order to maximize your ministry effectiveness. For the church I believe Scripture has already given us that focus - in Ephesians 4:12. The job of leaders is to equip people for works of ministry so that individuals become mature, the body is built up and the Kingdom is expanded.

The very reason the church has so little impact in our world is precisely because not enough believers are serious about using their spiritual gifts for the advancement of the kingdom. And not enough church leaders are truly serious in helping their people understand their God given gifting and then releasing them in meaningful ministry - not simply in the church but in the community at large that the church has been called to influence and transform.

Ephesians four is clear on three counts. One that the job of leaders is not simply to do the work of ministry but to equip everyone to be involved in meaningful ministry. Two, that no Christ follower is mature who is not actively using their gifting for the cause of Christ and three, that our congregations will only be mature to the extent that the whole body is involved in using their gifts. Those three truths explain why most churches have so little impact and why some churches have enormous impact. Our impact is directly related to the seriousness with which we develop, empower and release our people in meaningful ministry.

Culture - Developing a culture of spiritual vitality The culture we must grow in the church is a culture of spiritual vitality.

Wise leaders take the time to determine what a mature believer looks like and then they create intentional teaching, experiences and opportunities for people who want to grow into Christ's likeness to do so. Rather than simply hoping people mature they are deeply intentional about seeing transformation happen.

The church I attend identifies five marks of spiritual vitality:
Grace: Understanding God's grace to us and extending it to others
Growth: Having an intentional plan to grow our relationship with Christ
Gifts: Using our gifts for the advancement of His kingdom
Generosity: Being generous with God as he has been generous with us
Gathering: Growing and ministering in community with others

Those five marks of spiritual maturity or vitality become the target we have for all in the church. Lived out, these five practices will, through the work of the Holy Spirit bring transformation to our lives.

How does one communicate these four areas to the congregation and keep them in front of them all the time? I use a SANDBOX (hence the title of this blog site) to illustrate the four sides of our ministry - mission (top side), guiding principles (left side), central ministry focus (bottom side) and culture of spiritual vitality (left side). Thus in one picture I am able to illustrate these four areas which make up 80% of the vision for our churches or ministry organizations. Then we ask people to play inside the sandbox and use the sandbox as a teaching tool throughout the ministry.

If you are interested in more information on crafting these four key areas for your church or ministry organization - and therefore defining the key elements of your vision, the book, Leading from the Sandbox: Develop, Empower and Release High Impact Ministry Teams provides a road map for you. If you click on the book to the right of this posting you can order the book.

Guiding principles that impact ministry decisions

In a prior post I gave an example of guiding principles that can actually guide ministry decision making.

I liken guiding principles to the channel markers that one encounters when piloting a boat in inland waterways. The green and red buoys that mark the channel are there for one reason: to keep you and your boat safe. They tell you that as long as you stay inside the channel, you are in safe water. If you choose to leave the marked channel, you are in unsafe water. It amazes me how many would-be pilots think they don't have to stay inside the channel and find out the hard way that shallow water or shoals are not good for their boat's hull!

In the same way, an organization's guiding principles are designed to delineate the safe water or channel that everyone is to say within, If you review ReachGlobal's guiding principles from a prior post you will see that they delineate how we do what we do and provide concrete guidance to all personnel as to how they must approach their work. They are prescriptive in nature and measurable. Supervisors can dialogue with personnel on how well they are living by the guiding principles and hold them accountable if they choose to ignore them.

Many organizations have values that are so general they provide no real guidance and are ignored. I asked the president of an organization recently what the guiding principles or values of his organization were and he could not even remember them. Obviously they were of no help to him or others.

Guiding principles serve several key purposes that are central to a healthy organization. First, they allow you to define for all personnel the core commitments that you want everyone to live by. For instance, in our organization, 'team' is a non-negotiable commitment and our guiding principle makes it clear that all personnel work in a team context. It is not an option and the guiding principle makes it clear.

Second, taken as a whole, guiding principles allow you to craft the kind of ministry culture that you want to permeate your organization. When all of your personnel are living by the same set of guiding principles, you start to get significant alignment.

Third, they keep your organization in 'safe waters' by clarifying those things that are non-negotiables. By doing so, you prevent the unintended consequences of traveling outside the channel markers into unsafe waters.

To get to clarity on guiding principles you can ask yourself these questions:
-What are the non-negotiables that apply to our whole organization?
-Around what things must we have absolute alignment by everyone on the team?
-What are the principles, that if followed, will keep our organization in safe waters?
-If we had to describe the most important principles of how we do what we do, what would they be?

To be meaningful, guiding principles are not merely a phrase or word but should include and explanation of what the word or phrase means in your organization. That way they can truly guide behavior.

A well-chosen set of guiding principles also gives your organization permission to choose certain courses of action. One of our guiding principles is that "We measure results." That sends a strong message to our personnel that we are committed to seeing measurable results in our ministry and that everyone in the organization must be productive vs. busy. What we measure is important, but the ability to measure is ensured by the guiding principle.

Well-written guiding principles are not only the channel markers for the ministry but they empower personnel to make decisions that are consistent with the principles. They provide both empowerment and accountability.

A journey from ambiguity to clarity

I have worked for the EFCA for 18 years in the national office. It is a great organization. However, for the first eight or so years that I worked there we had a very nebulous idea of what our mission was. We knew it revolved around churches and we were focused on the number of churches we had. Apart from running good programs and focusing on church planting, however, it was very hard to define what we were apart from being one of those 'denominational offices.'

About ten years ago, a big transition took place for us as we worked through a process to define a new mission statement: "The EFCA exists to glorify God by multiplying healthy churches among all people." All of a sudden we had meaningful targets that were not simply about numbers. We are about multiplication of churches, the health of churches, becoming a movement of 'all people' in the United States, and reaching 'all people' globally. These four integrated foci began to drive everything we did.

At the same time, we determined that we had to be a service organization for the churches in our movements. We existed for them and not them for us! In other words, by helping our churches become all that they could be (the local church is God's chosen instrument to reach the world) we fulfilled our mandate. Our surveys show that about 98% of our pastors know and believe in the mission of the EFCA today. And, because our churches voluntarily give financial contributions to the national office, they vote on our effectiveness with their pocketbooks. In the past 10 years, the financial support of the EFCA national office has gone up dramatically. All this is the result of moving from ambiguity to clarity and then living out that clarity.

Moving from ambiguity to clarity is one of the most powerful things a ministry organization can do to increase its missional effectiveness.

Maximum Clarity on your central ministry focus

The central ministry focus of an organization is the one thing that is must do day in and day out - the most important thing it does to help it fulfill its mission. The central ministry focus is the organization's most critical activity or perspective that has the greatest impact on missional success of the organization.

The question we must ask is this: Given our particular mission, what is the most important thing we need to focus on with a laser-like intensity to maximize our opportunity to fulfill our mission.

How one answers that question has huge implications for the effectiveness of one's ministry. The answer to this question ought to help your organization have the greatest impact on its mission and maximize its ministry opportunity.

The central ministry focus is the one thing that everyone in the organization must be committed to doing all the time. For many ministries - including churches - this will be about equipping and releasing people into ministry. You need to to ask, "What is the one thing that all of us must be committed to doing and that, if done consistently and well, will ensure that we maximize our ministry opportunity.

For the ministry I lead, the central ministry focus is to develop, empower and release healthy mission personnel and healthy national leaders. The more we focus on this the more effective we will be.

I believe that the central ministry focus for the church is found in Ephesians 4:12-13 where Paul says that the job of church leaders is "to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."

The key to our ministry, according to Paul, is the developing, empowering and releasing of the whole body for ministry rather than simply doing the ministry ourselves. Our ministry in large part is to release others into ministry themselves.

If every congregation lived out Ephesians 4:12 in developing, empowering and releasing people into active, life0-changing ministry in accordance with how God had gifted them the local church would be the revolutionary force God designed it to be. There are churches that live this out, but way too few.

The Power of Clarity on Guiding Principles

Values or guiding principles answer the question "how will we do what we exist to do?" They should be clarified and written in a way that actually provides significant guidance in how we do what we do. That is why I prefer to call them guiding principles to drive home the fact that these values were actually designed to guide everyone in the organization in how they make decisions and carry out ministry.

In our organization we defined 10 clear values or guiding principles that every leader and all personnel are expected to live by. As you read the following guiding principles, note that they actually describe how personnel will approach ministry. They are specific enough that it is possible for any leader to determine whether his or her reports are ministering in alignment with them.

Reach Global Guiding Principles

We are word based and spirit empowered
As a Word-based organization we are committed to ministry that aligns with God's Word. Spirit empowerment comes from intimacy with Christ, a deep commitment prayer, watching where God is at work and always listening to His voice.

We are team lead and team driven
Believing that there is strength in teams and in the voice of multiple leaders, we are committed to a paradigm of team leadership under a gifted leader at each level of ReachGlobal ministry. We believe that ministry personnel are more productive when they are deployed in ministry teams and in community with one another. We will build strong teams with healthy relationships wherever we deploy personnel.

We are partnership driven
We are committed to carrying out the Great Commission in partnership with local churches in the United States, national partners and other evangelical organizations. We recognize the Biblical value of healthy cooperation with national partners. This includes the avoidance of paternalistic attitudes and a willingness to appropriately share in ministry decisions that affect both parties. Healthy partnerships included mutual cooperation without either party losing its identity or ability to work toward its intended objectives.

We empower personnel
We are a permission-granting - within agreed-upon parameters rather than permission-withholding. We help personnel discover their strengths and deploy them in ways that maximize their gifting and abilities.

We practice entrepreneurial thinking
In global ministry, one size does not fit all and, while our mission remains constant, the strategies to complete the mission vary and change. We always look for 'best practices' and better ways to fulfill our mission.

We measure effectiveness
ReachGlobal is committed to being accountable to EFCA churches and supporters for tangible ministry results. A commitment to effective ministry requires the accountability of measurements.

We do multiplication rather than addition
ReachGlobal is committed to providing ongoing training and equipping of personnel in life and ministry skills. ReachGlobal will only be as good as the leaders who provide leadership at each level. We will find, equip and deploy those who have the gifts of leadership and who have proven leadership effectiveness.

We resource for maximum ministry
A well-resourced organization is more likely to be an effective organization. It is the responsibility of all ReachGlobal personnel to participate in the three-fold resourcing of personnel, strategy and finances.

We are holistic and integrated in approach
Historically, missions have emphasized the Biblical mandate of ministering to the whole person in the name of Christ. This includes ministries of compassion, education and other ministry platforms in addition to those of evangelism and church planting. A distinctive of ReachGlobal is that all ministries are integrated into the goal of multiplying healthy churches.

Notice that each guiding principle is followed by a clear definition of its meaning. These definitions have been carefully crafted and edited over time to clarify as well as we can what we mean by the guiding principle and how it actually impacts how we do ministry.

Both the headings and the explanation of each principle are designed to provide maximum clarity. Today there is no question in the minds of our personnel that we are committed to these guiding principles and that all of us are expected to live by them. They inform and influence everything we do.

The Power of Clarity around Mission

For a congregation or ministry organization to reach its God-given potential, leaders must have absolute mission clarity and an unwavering commitment to that mission. Mission clarity allows leaders to lead in a specific direction that fulfills God's mandate for their ministry.

Mission answers the question, "Why do we exist?" The ability to clearly answer this question and help our organizations and churches understand the answer is key to good leadership and healthy, effective ministries.

Vagueness on mission leads to a diffusion of ministry effectiveness and competing, sometimes contradictory, directional emphasis. The greater clarity we have for why we exist, the more focused our ministry energies can be. Mission does not answer questions of specific strategies you are going to pursue. Rather, it answers an important directional question and, if answered well, allows leaders to move whole congregations in a common direction.

In our organization, the mission is clear: "We exist to glorify God by multiplying healthy churches among all people."

This answers the question for us, "why do we exist?" We want to glorify God. We will glorify God through church multiplication. But the multiplication we are after is not general, it is specifically healthy churches. And we have a commitment to do that multiplication among all people.

This is what we know. Our goal is to glorify God. We will be successful only when we see true multiplication take place and where that multiplication is healthy and includes not just some kinds of people but all kinds of people.

Most organizations have a mission statement. The problem is that most of their constituents either don't know what it is or what it means. Mission is not something to be written in our materials but lived in our lives. In our organization we insist that all initiatives undertaken can be tied clearly back to our mission. If they cannot be, they are probably not things we should be doing.

A key ongoing question for leaders ought to be "how well are we doing in living the mission?" In some organizations the mission will need to be clarified so it is possible to answer the question. Your mission is the main thing and the main thing is always to keep the main thing the main thing.