Marks of a gracious church

Church culture can be harsh as many of us have experienced. It can also be very loving and gracious, where it is intentionally fostered as what God desires for His family. Healthy churches reflect the character and graciousness of Jesus, while unhealthy churches reflect characteristics of our lower natures, such as legalism, infighting, unforgiveness, power plays and harsh judgments of others, and personal agendas. 

The character and spiritual commitments of the leaders of a church will largely determine whether the culture is healthy or unhealthy. Here are some of the marks of a gracious church that reflects the character of Jesus.

Grace abounds
Just like some individuals exude grace and acceptance, so do gracious churches. One feels accepted and loved no matter who you are or what your circumstance. There is no sense of judgment or criticism for those who come. It is a safe place to be who you are and to share your journey. There is no pretense, just grace. You feel at home!

Relationships are healthy
Gracious churches put a premium on healthy relationships. Space is given for differences, conflict is quickly resolved, words are healing rather than hurtful, disagreements are agreeable rather than conflictual, and forgiveness is fast and regular. There is not a culture of gossip but one of acceptance and love. In gracious churches, we seek to see people as Jesus sees them and love them as Jesus loves them.

Jesus is always lifted high
The secret of gracious churches is that their model is always Jesus. When we pursue our own agendas, we create conflict, but when we pursue the character and presence of Jesus, we get peace and grace. When Jesus is central, our own agendas are put aside, while when we are central, Jesus is put aside. Gracious churches keep Jesus central all the time.

The Gospel is central to everything
We often forget that the Gospel is Good News. Gracious churches major on the Gospel: forgiveness, redemption, healing, transformation, and regeneration. The Gospel is the hope that we have to see our lives become like Jesus, and gracious churches communicate that all the time. 

Hope is communicated all the time
What did Jesus bring, and what does the Gospel promise? Hope for the hurting; hope that we can change and become like Jesus; hope for our futures; hope for relational discord; hope for my own sin and dysfunctions. The Gospel is all about hope because it is about the transforming power of Jesus and the Holy Spirit's work in our lives. The world brings fear, while the Gospel brings hope.

Truth and grace are inseparable
It is amazing how harsh truth can be communicated compared to the way that Jesus shared the truth with amazing grace. The truth about our human condition is not always nice to hear, and there are sharp differences between the followership of Jesus and the pull of our lower nature but gracious churches, like Jesus, communicate truth with grace. The gospel calls us to a life with Jesus and radical life change, but it does so with love and grace. Think of how gracious Jesus is with our sins and issues. Gracious churches woo people toward God and allow the Holy Spirit to do its work as we encourage people in their spiritual pilgrimage.

Spiritual transformation is the goal
None of this is possible without the goal of helping people become more like Jesus, and that is what gracious churches do. They help people discover and live in grace, think like Jesus, align their life priorities with His and see people and love people as Jesus sees them and loves them. In fact, it is this emphasis on transformation that makes a church gracious because people start to look and act like Jesus. He is the magnet of a gracious church as His people reflect Him. And that makes it a wonderful family to be a part of.

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Why the Church is Filled With Functional Agnostics from Churchleaders.com

Why the Church Is Filled With “Functional Agnostics”

Do you manage others or lead others?

If you are a leader or supervisor, you have responsibility for others. The question is how we use that responsibility. Our approach will have significant implications for the culture we create in our organization or team, as well as the engagement we get from our staff. 

Many leaders feel it is their duty to manage other people. By that, they see themselves as managing what people do, how they do it and the strategies they use. But think about this: do you like to be managed closely? Or do you like the freedom to be given a task and figure out how to accomplish it using your gifts and abilities? In the ministry world, there is a whole lot of micromanagement rather than true leadership.

Leadership is the ability to clarify goals, set a course, choose the right people to accomplish the mission, and, within appropriate boundaries, set staff free to go after the goal. This does not mean that there is a hands-off attitude, but it does mean that we empower the right people to figure out the route to the goal and give them the freedom to do the job.

If we need to manage the process closely, it usually means that we either have the wrong people, have not adequately clarified the task and the boundaries, or have a need to insert ourselves and our ideas where they don't belong. It is a permission-withholding attitude (you cannot do this without my permission) rather than a permission-granting attitude (you are free within boundaries to figure it out). Your best staff will always prefer the latter to the former. 

Clarity of goals, roles, and boundaries are key to leading well. And the ability and willingness to empower people to fulfill their unique responsibilities. Responsibility without empowerment is demoralizing, yet it happens all the time. It is not good leadership, and it does not result in happy, healthy staff. Empowerment is harder because it requires us to clarify as leaders. Our job is to clarify and then empower if we lead staff. Leaders always need to be conscious of whether they are managing staff or leading staff.

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The power of focus

Too many of us do too many things! 

Those things keep us from focusing on the few main things God made us for and where we will be most productive. We do them because we can, forgetting that because we can is not a reason for action. I can do many things, but God has called me to do a few things, and when I focus on the few, I see significant results. 

This is the power of focus. 

It is understanding where we will have the greatest impact if we put our energies there. I know that I can do three things really well. It is how God designed me. When I focus on those three things, I am in my "lane." Everything else I do far less well, so why would I squander my greatest gifting for lesser things? 

Focus is a powerful concept.

I remember, as a kid taking a magnifying glass to paper on a sunny day and setting that paper on fire as the sun's rays were concentrated by that glass on a specific spot. That is the power of focus. It is taking the gifts that God has given and using them to their fullest potential, which means focusing on a few things that God gifted us for. You might just light some fires. 

Leave the distractions behind.

Focus means that we choose not to do many things so that we can concentrate our efforts on the main things. How are you doing on the main things? 

At Addington Consulting,

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When we ignore organizational issues it usually comes back to haunt us

Leaders, whether on boards or those who lead organizations and teams, have a responsibility to deal with "known issues" that they face in the organization. Often we choose not to do so because we would rather hope that they will go away. And we are averse to dealing with people or issues that might cause conflict. Unfortunately, they often do not go away but rather become larger.

Take a team member who is not in alignment and is therefore disrupting the rest of the team. Choosing not to deal with that staff member allows them to disempower other teammates, create friction and/or conflict and bring down the level of synergy and cooperation among the team. This is a no-win situation and can easily result in your best team members choosing to opt out rather than deal with the conflict.

There are also instances where team leaders and organizational leaders exhibit behaviors that are highly problematic, but boards are notorious for choosing not to deal with them. After all, they are the leader, and they may be doing great things for the ministry, so who are we to make an issue of it. Often, however, those behaviors are hurting the staff behind the scenes, and eventually there is a good likelihood that it will "blow up" in a fashion that creates chaos in the organization.

In the aftermath of such situations, I have often asked board members whether the behaviors they saw in the leader they were responsible for overseeing would be acceptable in their own workplace. Often the answer is "no." Why I asked were they then acceptable in the church or organization I am working with? There is never a good answer except that they chose to let it ride, hoping it would get better. The fascinating thing is that they usually knew but chose not to act until it was too late and great damage had been done.

The same can be said for issues like a declining financial base or financial choices that, if not addressed, will cripple the ministry. Ministries are notorious for simply believing that God will provide when in fact, we need to make realistic decisions based on wisdom even as we ask God to provide. When we ignore ongoing deficits or spending that is not in line with what we can reasonably expect to come in, it creates a crisis eventually. In one church I worked with, there had not been a balanced budget for almost ten years, and finally, the leader had to leave in order for the elders to bring the financial situation under control and into a healthy spot which took three years and a fair amount of trauma.

It really does not matter what the problematic issue is - there can be many but the job of leaders, whether on boards or others, is to be acutely aware of threats to the ministry and deal with them appropriately when they become aware of them rather than waiting until they become a crisis. Usually, I find that leaders were, in fact aware but chose not to act at the time they became aware. The aftermath was rarely pleasant.

If you are a board member or a leader, make a list of any known issues you have that are a potential threat to the ministry and start having conversations about how you are going to handle it. It is never too early to have the discussion, and it will likely help you stay healthy in the long haul.

At Addington Consulting,

We Simplify Complexity

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Irritating questions that disrupt the conversation

Have you ever been in a team or board conversation when someone asks the kind of question that disrupts the whole dialogue? It happens when everyone is operating off one set of assumptions and one individual challenges those assumptions which brings the conversation to a standstill. These are golden moments because they force the common assumption to be examined and the disruptive and often uncomfortable question forces the group to deal with a deeper issue that underlies their conversation.

Let me give you an example. Church boards often deal with known issues without getting to the underlying causes (which would raise uncomfortable questions). It takes just one board member who is not conflict adverse to ask the deeper question as to why the issue exists! 

In one church I am familiar with, a long term pastor presided over a congregation that would go up to six or seven hundred and then fall to 300 - a cycle that was repeated fairly often in his career. The board spent a great deal of time trying to figure out how to keep this from happening until someone raised the uncomfortable question as to whether this actually had to do with the senior pastor's competency to lead at that level and his defensiveness that caused good leaders to leave the church. That question got to the table about 15 years later than it should have but it took one courageous board member to ask the disruptive question. And, it did put the issue in its proper perspective, whatever the outcome was going to be. 

Or take a discussion about "making disciples" that regularly takes place in church circles. Often the discussion goes way down the route of strategy for making disciples until someone asks the disruptive question: "Folks, we don't even have a good definition of a disciple so all this talk has no target or focus." An irritating comment that causes the discussion to go back to the beginning and ask what we are actually trying to achieve.

It is not unlike the question why? Why are we doing this? Why are we assuming that our strategy will get us to where we need to go? Why do we think this "conventional" idea is actually a good idea? How does this program or strategy get us to where we are trying to go? Is there a better way? 

Disruptive questions can be irritating but they force groups to clarify what they are after and focus on the right things rather than just the presenting issues. Usually they come from deep thinkers who are unafraid to raise the hard questions. They are a gift to any organization or board. 

TJ Addington (Addington Consulting) has a passion to help individuals and organizations maximize their impact and go to the next level of effectiveness. He can be reached at tjaddington@gmail.com.

"Creating cultures of organizational excellence."

8 Signs of an insecure leader

In my consulting with troubled churches and ministry organizations, I often encounter the chaos that is created by the insecurities of the senior leader. Those of us who lead anything - a team, a church, an organization, or in business owe it to our staff to lead from a place of personal security rather than from insecurity. Here are the key issues that are signs of a leader's insecurity. If they pertain to you, pay attention to them. If you are a board member of an organization and these are represented by your senior leader - please get them help. They are destructive and harmful to those around them.

1. When a leader is defensive and resists feedback, he is operating out of insecurity. Secure leaders invite feedback even when they disagree with it, and they are not defensive. In fact, secure leaders go to great lengths to know what their staff is thinking, to interact with them, and to keep themselves from shutting down discussions out of defensiveness. Personal defensiveness and healthy leadership are incompatible.

2. When a leader tells staff that they cannot talk to board members or others about issues or ideas, they are operating from a position of insecurity. Secure leaders welcome dialogue and do not put gag orders on their staff. Of course, once a team has decided on a course of action, they should all support it. But gag orders come from a leader who knows that there is no support from their staff and wants to hide it from others rather than resolve it. One of the marks of unhealthy church staff teams is the notion that staff cannot share their opinions or thoughts with others. Inevitably, this is a culture that will blow up badly in the end. It is a true sign of leader insecurity.

3. When a leader sees "loyalty" as meaning, you must agree with me, you have an arrogant or insecure leader. It implies that personal loyalty is more important than loyalty to the mission and well-being of the organization. That is a terrible assumption, and it comes out of dysfunctional leadership. It also implies that staff are simply there to do the bidding of the leader rather than to make a real contribution to the mission and strategy. Healthy leaders want staff who are loyal to the cause and respectful to one another.

4. When a leader regularly uses their "positional authority" to push people in a certain direction or get their assent, you have an insecure leader. Staff who regularly feel pressure to conform to the opinion or decisions of a leader and who have not been invited into discussions where they are stakeholders should recognize that they are dealing with dysfunction rather than health. All leaders use positional authority in certain but usually fairly rare circumstances. Those who use it regularly are saying, "I am in charge, and you will do what I say."

5. When people are publicly called out by a leader, you are dealing with an insecure leader who is using the public "calling out" as a power play to put others in line. It violates the dictum that we praise in public and deal with disciplinary issues in private. The very leaders who do this would never allow themselves to be called out in public. It is plain intimidation and unhealthy, and it says more about the leader than the staff member.

6. When a leader must have their own way on a regular basis, you have an insecure leader. Secure leaders want what is best for the organization, not their own way. Healthy leaders regularly modify their agendas and strategies in dialogue with their staff. Life is not about getting our own way but about accomplishing a common mission. The "my way or the highway" is an adolescent character trait rather than the trait of a mature leader.

7. When a leader takes credit for the success of others who made the organization look good, you have an insecure leader. Secure leaders do not need the spotlight, and they do not seek it. In fact, they go out of their way to give credit away rather than to keep it themselves. They know that success comes from a team, not any one individual, and they acknowledge that regularly.

8. When a leader regularly puts others down, you have an insecure leader. Usually, they put others down in order to build themselves up. Healthy leaders keep their own counsel on others and do not share negative information about others with others.

This is all about having a healthy self-image and good EQ. When that is not there, we end up hurting others in ways that may take years to undo. If any of these characteristics represent you as a leader, take note and work to correct the damage and your leadership style. 

I cannot stay in this job because...

There are reasons that people leave jobs. It is often not for higher pay but for a better supervisor or organizational culture that is getting in the way of their current role. Often, when leaving a dysfunctional work environment it is not apparent until we have been out a while that we realize how bad it was. And how glad we are gone.

Here are some of the reasons that people cannot stay in their job.

One: There is no clarity as to what we are about, what we are going after and how we are going to get there. For those who want to invest their lives, this is a huge problem - and should be. Without clarity we all work in our own silos and none of us know how to best contribute to the whole. We don't know if we are going somewhere or nowhere. It is deeply frustrating and when one asks, there seem to be no answers.

Two: I have skills, gifting and training but I am micromanaged and cannot use any of my own creativity. What I feel inside is that my boss does not trust me enough to leave me alone. What I want is the big picture and then I will make things happen in my arena. However, with micromanagement and control I feel like a servant rather than a colleague. I really think I am better than that. 

Three: My opinion does not count. In fact, I am not even asked for my candid assessment of decisions or direction. When I try to give it I am rebuffed and if I disagree I am called disloyal when all I really want is the very best for the organization. I don't know who my leader talks to but it is not me and there is no venue for candid discussion.

Four: My leader has really bad EQ and it spills over on his staff - including me. He is defensive, insecure, needs to have his own way, does not like feedback unless it agrees with him, is manipulative, can be dismissive of others, does not resolve conflict and frankly lives in his/her own fantasy world that all is well. What is true is that the emperor has no clothes on this one and everyone around them knows that to be true except them. His problematic behaviors demean and diminish others and it is highly unpleasant. People on the outside do not see what we see but we see it all the time.

Five: I want a healthy leader and a healthy organizational culture. This does not cut it. I love the ministry and its people but to work here has become a non-starter. I am looking but I cannot tell my boss because he/she will become threatened and will probably undermine my efforts. To leave is to be disloyal.

There does come a tipping point when the leader and culture is unhealthy and when it does, people bail. Years ago I heard of a consultant to told the CEO of a Christian ministry all of us would recognize that his senior people were on the bubble for the kinds of reasons I have shared. He got angry and said "No one ever leaves this ministry." Over the next five years almost all of his senior leaders left. All it took was the first to go for others to realize that there was life beyond their organization.

We either lead well and create a healthy culture or we will have staff saying, "I cannot stay in this job because..."

TJ Addington (Addington Consulting) has a passion to help individuals and organizations maximize their impact and go to the next level of effectiveness. He can be reached at tjaddington@gmail.com.

"Creating cultures of organizational excellence."

Three marks of faithful friends

Having faithful friends matters. All of us will have superficial friendships, but we also need deep faithful friends. They may be family or others, but you know they are always in your corner. As I think about what characterizes faithful friends, I think of these three qualities.

First, they are trustworthy and always have your best interests in mind and we theirs. They can be trusted with confidential information, they have a deep and abiding love and you can always trust their motives. There is no pretense in their friendship and it is not based on anything we can give (although all friendships are mutual, one to the other). In other words we can be the real us with them and they with us.

Second, they (and we) can be counted on in good times and bad. We need faithful friends at all times of life but we really need them when the chips are down. Faithful friends go the distance and go out of their way when times are hard. Most move away from those who are in the hard times. Faithful friends move toward those who are in the hard times.

Third, faithful friends will tell one another the truth, even when it hurts. Who else will do that? Our enemies for sure but they have no redemptive motive in mind. Faithful friends do not let other friends go in the ditch if they can help it! They address issues they see in a loving and kind manner but they challenge one another to better living and better followership of Jesus.

Do you have such friends? Are you such a friend to others?

TJ Addington (Addington Consulting) has a passion to help individuals and organizations maximize their impact and go to the next level of effectiveness. He can be reached at tjaddington@gmail.com.

"Creating cultures of organizational excellence."

Three reasons to be reconciled with those we have had conflict with in the church

There is no way around conflict in the local church. In fact, it is only the presence of the Holy Spirit that keeps churches from devouring themselves. Coming from all kinds of backgrounds, with our own dysfunctions and issues, it is the Cross of Jesus that gives us a common bond - which we would not otherwise have. And it is the common Holy Spirit that unites us as members of the family of God. 

So why should we be reconciled to one another when there is conflict in the church? We may violently disagree with one another, we may hold grudges against each other. And it is very easy to pick up the offences of others and carry them ourselves. And those we disagree with don't deserve our favor or forgiveness unless they "repent" and choose to agree with us. So why should we be reconciled to each other?

Let me suggest the following reasons to consider. I don't do this lightly as I have been at odds with others in the local church. In fact, I need to do this with great humility. I have had to forgive and be forgiven too many times so this is not a treatise from strength but one from having to face myself too many times. And one from having faced truths from Scripture that I have had to grapple with.

First: We forgive because Jesus chose to forgive us. Ephesians 4:32 says it this way: "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you." No matter how much animus I have, I cannot get around the fact that Jesus chose to forgive me and therefore commanded me to forgive others. 

Such forgiveness is not predicated on the confession of others (and in conflict we are often all guilty in come way). Nor is it predicated on having hashed through all the issues (it is often not possible). What it is predicated on is that Jesus forgave us when we did not deserve it and by implication we are to forgive others even if they do not deserve it (in our view).

I fully believe that Christ will hold us accountable for every unresolved relationship we choose to live with when we see Him. What do we say to the one who bore our sin and failure on Himself and chose to forgive us against the fact we chose not to forgive others? The truth is that we will have no answer in the face of his amazing and unmerited forgiveness of us. How can we not forgive others when we have been the recipient of so much grace?

Second: In church conflict we often do not know the full story. There are always two sides and we often are privy on only one. We need to remember that we only know what we know and frankly we usually don't know the whole story. 

Third: Forgiveness and reconciliation do not mean that we need to be best friends with those who we extend it to. It does not mean that we agree with the course of action that was taken. Nor that we must stay in the church. 

It does mean that whether we choose to stay after conflict or leave that we do either with a happy heart and a clear conscience based on reconciled relationships and the lack of unfinished business. Living with ongoing animus or anger is both unbiblical (do not let the sun go down on your wrath) and it is a prison of our own making that we live with and that separates us from others. What reconciliation and forgiveness does mean is that we are willing to live at peace with those we had a disagreement with.

TJ Addington (Addington Consulting) has a passion to help individuals and organizations maximize their impact and go to the next level of effectiveness. He can be reached at tjaddington@gmail.com.

"Creating cultures of organizational excellence."

A lesson we all need to learn: Godly people can disagree from Quintin Stieff

Godly people can disagree

Quintin Stieff

TJ Addington (Addington Consulting) has a passion to help individuals and organizations maximize their impact and go to the next level of effectiveness. He can be reached at tjaddington@gmail.com.

"Creating cultures of organizational excellence."