Two deadly distractions

There are two distractions that each of us face in our lives - and which all church leaders fight against with those they lead. They are the distractions of the numerous options that we have for our time and attention which often keep us from intentional and Christ centered living and the distraction of selfishness which keeps our focus on me instead of Him.

I love the options that our world affords us. Options that just a few years ago were not readily available. Those options, however, are both a blessing and a curse. They are a blessing if carefully chosen but a curse if carelessly lived.

I am often reminded of Ephesians 2:10, that "We were created in Christ Jesus for good works which he prepared in advance for us to do." Each of us has a mission in life designed by God. That mission is connected with the gifting and wiring He gave to us and He wants us to use them on His behalf. This is our highest priority.

The options for how we spend out time often crowd out the very ministry that Christ created us for. Accidental living and busyness are the killers of intentionality and focus. Options are great - as long as I keep my focus first on what it is that Jesus has for me to do on His behalf. I love the options I have in this life but if our love for Jesus is primary we keep Him central, His work central and are not distracted from our central focus by all the ways we can spend out time and energy.

The second distraction is even more difficult than the first. Is life about me or about Him? The selfish natures of our hearts keep pulling us back to thinking that life is about me. It impacts my interests, my energy, my activities, my money and my priorities. Going back to Ephesians 2:10, we are reminded that life is not about us but about God.

Getting this right is a game changer in our lives. It changes everything and impacts our philosophy of life, the way we structure our lives, the world view we embrace and the daily activities we pursue.

In fact, conversion is all about recognizing that life is not about me but about God. It is not simply a ticket to eternal life but a revolution in our perspective on everything.

Each of us fights these two diversions. Our personal challenge is to get these right. Our ministry leadership challenge is to help others get it right as well.

The value of having the right people on your team

I am constantly reminded in my own organization, or those that I interact with how important it is to get the right people in the right seat in order for the organization to flourish. When we get the wrong people in place we pay a heavy price for as long as they are there and it becomes a drag on the ministry momentum.

When you have the right people:

• The job is not viewed as a job but a mission to be accomplished


• Very little supervision is needed because they take the initiative


• Bureaucracies are minimized because there is a high degree of empowerment and responsibility


• Trust is high because you have healthy people who put the mission above all else


• Cooperation is high and silos are minimized because the mission is the key glue that holds the team together


• Excellence is the norm


• New ways of doing things are regularly explored


• Turf wars are virtually non-existent

Take a moment and think about the key players you have. Do they meet the characteristics of the "right people?" With the wrong people, the opposite characteristics will often show up. There is no substitute in a healthy organization for getting the right (and healthy) people on your team. Don't neglect leadership principle 101.

Should a church be run like a business?

Often when I work with church boards to clean up crazy making governance systems someone will be concerned that we are moving to run the church like a business. How does one answer that question when we know that a church is not a business?

The first part of the answer goes to the job description of elders (or the senior leadership board of a church). Unlike a business, their job is laid out in Scripture: Ensuring that the congregation is taught well, cared for, released into ministry, protected, and led in healthy directions. And, they have a ministry of prayer for the church (often not practiced much as they are so busy doing management stuff). So, the focus of their work is very different than is the bottom line of a business - adequate profits.

The second part of the answer is that the reason business organizes itself in efficient ways is to maximize their effectiveness and minimize the waste of time and energy. This ought to be true of church boards as well. Any governance system that helps us do what we do better for the sake of the mission of the church makes sense. The simple principle is that how we do what we do matters and our way of doing board work should serve what we are trying to get done.

Think of the issues faced by many church boards:

• Inability to make decisions in a timely manner.
• Long board meetings
• Revisiting decisions multiple times
• Lack of clarity on what is staff responsibility and board responsibility
• Not enough time to prayer and thinking as time is eaten up by administrative issues
• Preponderance of day to day management issues robbing the board of time to think about the future
• Lack of clarity as to where the church should be going
• Board members who hold up the process or violate board practices
• Lack of clarity on what the board is supposed to be doing
• Inability to move through agendas in a timely manner

All of these kinds of things are time and energy wasters which ultimately hurt the ability of the leadership to lead well and which ultimately hurts the ministry of the church. So, how well a board manages itself, creates systems for its work has a direct impact on the ministry effectiveness or lack of it for the entire congregation.

Thus my answer to the question to should we run a church like a business is no and yes. The no is that the job of elders is different than business leaders. The yes is that the governance systems may well look like those in a business because they are simply good practices that help you achieve what you want to achieve. Those good practices actually help you do what God has called you to do as leaders well. 

When business is not led well they go out of business. When churches are not led well they plateau and go into decline. How we lead matters in both business and ministry settings. We change our leadership practices in churches in order to maximize our ministry effectiveness. What we do in ministry is very different than in business. How we do it may look very much like how we do it in business.

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Partnerships in missions: Five key principles

I am a huge proponent of partnerships in mission efforts. One of the guiding principles of ReachGlobal is that "We are partnership driven." Those partnerships can be with local churches in the United States, churches internationally, other ministries and missions and church planting movements. 

Partnerships, however, are delicate things and hard work. Here are five guidelines to consider for healthy partnerships. 

One: Partnerships are worth pursuing when we can accomplish more together than we can alone. The silos that exist in local church, denominations and mission agencies simply because we are focused on our particular brand are not healthy. If we are going to reach cities and regions for the gospel it will be with a coalition of the willing, not by ourselves. 

Often we don't pursue partners in ministry because our own vision is so small we think we can do it alone. That is unfortunate. We ought to have a God sized vision that only He can make possible and which often requires the efforts of several rather than just one party. 

Two: Healthy partnerships are not based on well written MOU's but on deep relationships of trust. When groups move toward common efforts before there is a high level of trust and relationship those efforts are in jeopardy.  In ReachGlobal we are far more interested in relationships with our partners than with MOU's which in the end are only as good as the relationship anyway. While a memorandum of understanding may be helpful for clarity, it is a secondary issue to trusting relationships.

Too often in ministry partnerships there is management of the strategy without adequate management of relationships. When there are tension points in the partnership it is the trusting relationships which help the parties move forward and solve the issues. Thus relationships must be nurtured in any good partnership.

Three: Partnerships only work when there is both theological and missional compatibility. We don't have to agree on all fine points of doctrine but we do have to have evangelical orthodoxy along with a missional mindset to see the Gospel expand in a significant way. We will not move forward with any partner unless there is compatibility in both areas.

Four: Healthy partnerships respect the autonomy of each party. Here is how we define our "Partnership Driven" guiding principle: "We are committed to carrying out the Great Commission in partnership with local churches, national partners and like minded evangelical organizations. Healthy partnerships include mutual cooperation without either party losing its identity or ability to work toward its intended objectives." When either party seeks to control the other the partnership becomes unhealthy. 

This requires a level of humility on the part of both (or all) parties because in healthy partnerships there is mutual collaboration on how we will together reach our intended objectives. Whenever one party tries to impose its agenda on another it is no longer a true partnership. Organizational and personal humility is a prerequisite for healthy partnerships. It is not about us but about the vision that we are pursuing together.

Five, partnerships are based on clear, common objectives that all parties are committed to pursuing. Where there is ambiguity on objectives, partnerships will inevitably become murky and ultimately fail. The glue that unites like minded partners is both trust and a common vision. It may well be that different parties play different roles in achieving that vision but common vision cemented with trust and relationship is a strong combination. In addition, when that common vision is the result of ongoing concerted prayer together it moves from our vision to His vision and captures the hearts and imaginations of all concerned.

We need to think partnerships far more than we do. But, we need to  build those partnerships for health and strength based on these five criteria.

The humility to be just us

The real, unadorned, us! Are you comfortable with you? Do you try to hide the real you out of fear for what people will think or see? Or are you OK with how God made you and not trying to be something you are not?

Good questions. Paul wrote "For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly then you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you."

Paul writes this in the context of a discussion of spiritual gifts in Romans 12 where he makes the point that humility is needed because each of us has a unique set of gifts and by definition whatever gifts we don't have are weaknesses. I have three strong strengths: everything else is a weakness. Thus by definition I need others because my gift set is a narrow one - as is yours.

Pride places undue emphasis on me. Humility places proper emphasis on the gifting we have been given and the necessity of having others around us to be all we can be - together. It is not about me! It is about us - together.

This means I don't have to pretend to be something I am not. I know God has gifted me in certain areas and others in other areas and it is the combined gifting that makes for the healthy whole. It means that we can be comfortable in our own skin, knowing that God made us the way he did for a reason.

Walking in humility also means that I will not seek to be something God did not make me to be - in other words I will understand my gifting and wiring and stay in the zone of strength that God gave me. When we move out of our zone of strength we often have to pretend - because we are not walking in the gifting that God actually gave us. Wise men and women use the "sober judgement" Paul speaks of to understand where they can and will be successful given the gifts God granted them and then seek to stay in that zone - in humility and self confidence, knowing they are in the right spot.

Humility and self knowledge lead wise men and women to build ministry teams of gifted individuals so that the deficits of one can be made up by the gifts of others. And, they are not afraid to admit areas of weakness and the need for the help of others. Pride does not ask for help in an area of weakness. Humility does. Pride does not bring other gifted people around us, humility does. Pride turns the spotlight on us, Humility turns it on the group. Pride says, I am good at all things, Humility says I am good at some things.

How are you walking today? In humility - being the real you - or pride - trying to be the you God did not make you to be?

When a great idea didn't work: dealing with failure

There is a saying, If you always do what you always did you always get what you always got. Leaders and teams know that innovation is key to staying sharp and working toward greater effectiveness.


Of course it is not blind innovation for innovation sake. We take calculated risks in ministry after thinking through the unintended consequences and trying to minimize our "dumb tax" by talking to others who may have tried what we are thinking of doing. But sometimes our best intentions fail - sometimes miserably.

How can we best handle great intentions that went very wrong? Dealing with the aftermath is important because it will either promote or prevent future innovation or risk taking.

Consider these suggestions:

1. Pull the plug if your gut says it is not going to work
A great "new idea" will probably be taking resources, either people or financial. Once you come to the conclusion that it is not going to work, don't continue to throw good money after bad. Minimize your losses and shut it down. Sometimes that takes a bit of courage, especially for those who sold the idea and desperately want it to work. Leaders may need to step in and make the call. 

2. Conduct an autopsy without blame
When something goes south, it is important to conduct an autopsy to see what lessons can be learned. How one does it is critical. If you kill the innovator you will also kill future innovation. If you conduct an autopsy without blame everyone learns but you don't create an ethos of fear. As you evaluate what went wrong, do not minimize the lessons that need to be learned. Failure is great soil for growth.

3. Be transparent
Our tendency is to "protect ourselves" when something we have tried fails. But there are stakeholders whether they be donors, participants, congregations or whoever. Minimizing or spinning the situation will come back and bite you. Be transparent with those you need to be transparent with, even if you take a few "licks" for it. Honesty is the best policy and good people will generally give other good people the leeway they need.

4. Ask whether the idea was a bad idea or whether the failure was in the execution.
Often the idea was a good idea but the process, execution, roll out or staffing were the key factors in the failure. If the problem was in the execution, consider how you can solve that issue before you try again.

5. Create a culture where failure is OK
Too many ministries are so failure adverse, or fearful (because failure is seen as a negative) that they don't try new ideas. If you are going to be most effective you will need to take measured risks. You will fail from time to time. That means you are willing to take a risk for the sake of ministry effectiveness. 

Failure is not a bad thing - it can actually point you in the right direction as you learn from the experience. The key is learning from it, and handling the aftermath with wisdom and transparency. After all, sometimes you have to throw some stuff at the wall and see "what sticks."

Can the great cities of Europe be re-evangelized?

I believe that the answer is yes - with certain qualifications. There is no question that God desires this and there is no question of the needs among these post modern and post Christian cities. Nor can we every abandon the effort on the missions front until Christ returns. 

My answer is a qualified yes, if.....

If God's people will pray for His Spirit to move in the cities of Europe. All movements of God start with movements of prayer. 

If local ministries, denominations and mission agencies will work together to reach specific cities in Europe. No one can do this alone and there is unlikely to be a significant movement of God in any city until God's people genuinely come together with a common vision, common dependence on Him and declare that they will set aside their differences for the sake of the Gospel. 

If the ethnic groups who know Jesus can be partnered with. There is a great deal of spiritual energy among ethnic populations in Europe. They may well be a key to the re-evangelization of Europe but this means that we need to engage them, work with them, envision them and bring them to the table of cooperation.

If there is humility among all concerned that we need one another and we need the Spirit of God. Pride and self sufficiency will kill our efforts while humility will fuel them. A Christian leader in London, for instance, told members of our staff planning to come to  London that we had no right to be there and they didn't need us. Really? With the spiritual statistics of England? All of us need a great dose of humility if we are going to make a dent in the secularism of Europe. It is not about us. It is about Jesus. God does not honor pride. He does honor humility.

If we can be bold with the simple Gospel message. The Gospel has power because God's Spirit empowers it. We are called to proclaim it without apology and without needing to defend it. Simple Gospel proclamation has power in and of itself.

If we are willing to be the hands and feet of Jesus by helping to meet the massive social needs of Europe's cities. People are far more likely to hear the Gospel when they have seen the Gospel in action. If all men and women are made in God's image, however marred, we ought to care about them and their needs. Simple acts of kindness and help go a long way in authenticating the words of the Gospel.

Many people are pessimistic about God's ability to penetrate Europe once again. I am not.... with these qualifiers.