Complacency or urgency?

One of the deadliest threats to any ministry, be it a church, mission, mission team or some other ministry is that of complacency.

Complacency is defined as self satisfaction accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies (Webster).

I am struck at how often when talking to ministry leaders and asking them about how the ministry is doing that the answer is overwhelmingly positive.

There is often little urgency among those I interact with that things need to be different, that not all is well or that they need to do things differently. I contrast that response with those who are business owners who give me a very realistic answer regarding the challenges they face and the difficult issues they are wrestling with.

When I talk to ministry leaders and the vast majority of their report is positive and I don't hear the critical analysis of what should be different, what real deficiencies or threats exist, I know that I am talking to someone who does not live with a sense of urgency, tends to gloss over deficiencies and likes to put a positive spin on situations - rather than do the critical analysis needed to understand reality.

And, I can safely assume that their own teams or reports live with the same complacency they do. Perhaps it is the fact that ministries have so little accountability generally and that we just assume that Jesus will do what He wants to do that we don't ask and answer the critical questions and live with such complacency. Unlike those in the business world, many Christian leaders don't have to live with a profit or loss statement and thus live more easily with contentment with where things are.

The sad thing is that the state of the church and the effectiveness of much of what passes for missions is woefully inadaquate and ineffective. That is a result of complacency and lack of urgency.

That self-satisfaction comes from a lack of critical analysis of what could be, or ministry fruit left on the table because of our satisfaction with what is.

Companies that become complacent and self-satisfied die or go into bankruptcy - so General Motors and Chrysler and a host of others who have disappeared in the last decade. Ministries simply move into decline, seemingly oblivious that anything is wrong or that things could be different.

Good leaders are never complacent or satisfied and they do not allow their teams to live in complacency either. They are always asking critical questions about priorities, strategy, opportunities and dangers. They celebrate wins but they never camp on the wins or the success of the past but are always looking at the untapped opportunities of the future.

This is about a way of thinking and living and leading.

Urgency is not about doing more or doing it faster or creating more activity. Leaders who live with a sense of urgency often engage in less activity than others but do far more critical analysis and ask harder questions and focus their attention on those things that will push the missional agenda the farthest. They are also not looking for swift wins (nice when they come) but long term ministry fruit.

The apostle Paul lived with a sense of urgency that was evident in his life and his teaching. He constantly exhorted in his epistles to the churches to never be content with their spiritual life or their ministry but to work while it is still day for the night comes.

Good leaders do less, focus on the most important and constantly communicate with their priorities and communication their sense of urgency to see the ministry they lead (or the team they lead) maximize their potential.

And they communicate their sense of urgency to their staff who easily fall into a mode of comfort (we all gravitate there) and live with a deep sense that we must always be looking for better ways to fulfill our mission.

Their calendars reflect that commitment! Their priorities reflect that commitment. Their communication reflects that commitment and their meetings reflect that commitment. The focus of their lives reflects that commitment.

Where are you living on the complacency/urgency continuum?

For a great read on this subject, take a look at John P. Kotter's book, A Sense of Urgency. Our senior team is reading it right now. I deeply desire that our ministry live with urgency not complacency.

Leadership Transitions in the church

Senior leadership transitions are the most challenging time in the life of a church and negotiating them well is critical for the success of the new leader and for establishing a healthy foundation for a new ministry “run.” Where such a transition is done well it can provide the church with significant forward momentum. When it is done poorly it can take years to regain the desired momentum.

Congregations, boards and staff rarely understand the full ramifications of a senior leadership change, particularly when the church has a healthy history and there is excitement about the future. The tendency is to assume that the future will be similar to the past – only better! In reality, in some way, large or small, a great deal changes with the change in senior leadership. The church starts a new journey with a new leader, a refocused vision and five years in it will be a different church.

In the same way, new senior leaders rarely understand the full scope of the challenge ahead of them even in the healthiest transition. They inherit a staff that they did not build, spoken and unspoken values that are part of the church’s DNA, a desire for new vision but at the same time stakeholders in the old vision, and often to their surprise, resistance to change simply because of the built in bias against change among people in general.

This is complicated by the fact that whenever a church must re-in vision for the next ministry “run,” there is a refocus of ministry with the inevitable need to evaluate current ministry paradigms and current staff. Hard decisions will need to be made on both counts that will require ministry and staff changes to some degree – often a greater degree than is anticipated at the time of transition.

The critical period for a leadership transition in a church is the first twelve to eighteen months where the foundation for the next ministry run is being established. The church will experience significant change! The question is whether the change process can be navigated in a way that enhances its opportunities for the future or alternatively, complicates and prolongs the time it will take to get to those future opportunities.

If the incoming leader has not managed a major transition before it is very helpful to use an experienced coach who can help them navigate the inevitable change process. That may be another pastor who has negotiated a similar transition in a healthy manner or an outside consultant. A coach can help the new leader, the board and senior staff understand the issues they will face from a neutral and non-stakeholder perspective.

Transitions can be a wonderful time of envisioning and retooling for the next run - as long it is handled with care so that momentum is gained rather than lost due to transitional issues that are handled poorly. The former launches the church into a new future, the latter can cause momentum and opportunity to be lost.

White Board Sessions

I am a fan of white boards. I have two of them in my conference room and there is nothing I love more than to get some good people in there with me and tackle a problem. I am always amazed at the nuggets we discover, some large, some small when we do a blue sky session with a white board.

It is amazingly easy to get caught up in how we have done things and not ask the question, how could we do them better? What are the barriers to growth? How could we organize for more strategic ministry? Could we reposition someone and help them become more effective?

The synergy of a group of the right people asking those questions is huge. Often I will leave our session on the board for a while so that I can mull on it and seek to further clarify issues we have worked on.

If you are not in the habit of doing so, or if it has been a while, take a key issue for your ministry, get some good minds in a room, even people who may not have direct responsibility for the issue you are thinking through, but people who are good thinkers and do a white board session. I have never done one that didn't yield something valuable.

It fosters creativity, a new look at old issues, and the synergy of ideas. It is often a huge return for just a few minutes.

Simplifying Spiritual Gifts

My son Chip's spiritual gift is that of the "pied piper." Really! Just watch him. Everywhere he goes kids, young people and animals follow him around and he engages them and befriends them and talks to them (the human ones) about God. So it stands to reason that on summer break he leads inner city kids in the wilderness of northern Minnesota and ministers to them physically and spiritually. He is after all, the pied piper.

Then there is my wife Mary Ann who has a radar for hurting people and extends practical help and grace better than anyone I know. She sees a need and she meets it. She obviously has a gift of help and mercy.

Another friend is one of the most strategic thinkers I know. He can make sense out of almost any problem, think of solutions, and like a chess player, anticipate unintended consequences to those solutions. His gift is strategy and generosity and you put those two together and it is a powerful combination as he strategically funds Christian ministries.

His wife has the most awesome gift of hospitality and can make anyone feel at home from any walk of life. That with a gift of prayer combines to influence huge numbers of people over the course of a year.

We often complicate the spiritual gifts when most often they are pretty obvious if you just watch people, see where they are most effective, watch how they are wired and then encourage them to use those gifts and skills for Jesus - in their neighborhood, circle of influence, workplace and church. Notice that the church is just one place we ought to be joining Jesus, not the primary place.

Jesus wired us a certain way in order to accomplish a certain task. He wired me for strategy, leadership and communication. Everything else is, well, a weakness. What he wants me to do is to use the wiring he gave me for his purposes where he gives me influence.

I love to watch people to see how God uniquely wired them - God's creativity in that regard is amazing. Even with pied pipers. And then I love to encourage those I watch to use that wiring for His purposes, wherever God has placed them. If we all did that, and encouraged one another we would see small pieces of God's character unleashed in a million corners of the world.

Did you know?

Did you know that according to the UN, over 27 million people are enslaved in various forms of sexual and labor exploitation, more than at the height of the (historic) trans-Atlantic slave trade? (Salvation Army's Anti-Trafficking Network).

Did you know that over 100,000 eastern European women are coerced into prostitution or labor or forced marriages?

Did you know that destination countries of trafficked persons includes Belgium, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Thailand, Turkey and the United States (UNODC, 2006)?

Did you know that the countries girls are most trafficked from are Belarus, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, Albania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Romania, China, Thailand and Nigeria?

It is impossible to imagine the fear, pain, broken dreams, emotional and physical damage done by human trafficking as helpless individuals are forced against their will into a life of prostitution, misery, and enslavement. We celebrate the abolition of slavery yet there are more modern day slaves being trafficked today than at the height of the trans Atlantic slave trade.

There is a good chance that there are modern day slaves in a city near you, or in which you live!

To learn more, check out these resources:

Salvation Army Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking

http://salvationarmyusa.org/trafficking

International Justice Mission

http://www.ijm.org/

Faith Alliance against Slavery and Trafficking

http://www.faastinternational.org/

The Evangelical Covenant Church

http://www.covchurch.org/humantrafficking

C.H.A.S.T.E. Churches Alert to Sex Trafficking in Europe

http://www.chaste.org.uk/

United Nations "Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking"

http://www.ungift.org/

U.S. State Department "Trafficking in Persons Report (by year)

http://www.state.gov/g/tip/ris/tiprpt/2008/

(With thanks to ReachGlobal staff member Sarah Bennetch)

Assimilation and New Believers

Assimilation of new believers into the life of the church is a high priority for many church leaders. Think about that for a moment!

My observation in the American church is that we put far more energy into assimilating new believers into the subculture of our church than we do in seeking them to assimilate into the likeness of Christ - and the two goals are not synonymous.

We are gratified when our new believer comes to a Bible study or small group, learns that they should be involved in some sort of ministry in the church, serve on a committee or be present on family night. All well and good - maybe.

What would happen if instead we concentrated on helping them understand what it means to become like Jesus and follow him more closely and allow Him to transform their hearts? I know we assume that those things will happen once they become involved in the church. Often it does not because our focus is in the wrong place. Assimilation into our church subculture is nice but assimilation into the likeness of Christ is far more important.

Where is the emphasis in your church for new believers? Is your strategy for helping new believers grow spiritually as robust as your strategy to hook them into your congregation?

Ultimately the goal of the Christian life is not to become like the people around us but to become like Christ. And people who become like Christ are also committed to His family in a local church. Our focus on the right assimilation will make all the difference.

The Church: God's Chosen Instrument to reach the World

On any particular day I can be optimistic, energized, discouraged or pessimistic on the state of the church. It largely depends on churches that I am working with at the time.

The New Testament shares such sentiments with Paul writing to the Corinthians (they had a lot of problems) or the Ephesians (they seemed pretty healthy) or the letters of Jesus to the churches in Revelation three (a mixed bag).

Many today are giving up on the church and simply leaving or choosing to stay home. I sympathize and empathize. There are a lot of unhealthy churches. Healthy and vital churches are vastly outnumbered by unhealthy or problematic churches.

But: regardless of our analysis, the local church is God's chosen instrument to reach the world as the local manifestation of his universal church made up of those who are his children. That is why I will never give up on the church and why I will never stop trying to help the church and why I will devote my life to multiplying healthy churches among all people.

It is frankly amazing to me that the church is as resilient as it is. That is not a testimony to man but to the power of the Holy Spirit who is present in small, large, poor, wealthy, underground and above ground churches. It is His church and the forces of hell will never prevail against it.

The church is flawed because it is led and attended by flawed people. The church is powerful even with flawed people when empowered by the Holy Spirit who powerfully changes lives and empowers people for meaningful ministry and brings life change.

The church is His bride and He loves it and died for it. Given that I will never abandon it or cease to help it be all that it can be. As long as Jesus believes in His church, I will too.