Berlin - a city of destiny

I am convinced that God has His hand on Berlin even though it may be the most post-Christian, post-modern and liberal city on the continent of Europe. A city that has been known for much evil is destined, I believe to become known for much good.

Why do I believe this? Because of a group of individuals who have been praying for the city for over ten years and who now make up a coalition called Together for Berlin. Not only are they praying but they are doing. They are networking with all evangelical and missional groups in Berlin: German; ethnic; ministries and mission organizations. 

Members of the coalition are planting churches, networking their ministries, developing ministries to the least of these, migrants and immigrants, and partnering with the social services in the city. Driven by a passion to see the name of Jesus lifted high, become the love of Jesus to those who are needy and see the church expand in this metropolis, they are doing together what none of them could do by themselves.

They want nothing less than to see Jesus transform Berlin. They pray and believe what we recite in the Lord's prayer, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," and they have the audacity to believe that Jesus can and will do this. They are men and women of faith who have a heart much larger than their own ministries and their own neighborhoods. They are praying that a city can be transformed. They have a heart like Jesus.

ReachGlobal is privileged to be a part of this effort. We believe that Jesus can and does transform cities as He did in Ephesus in Acts 19 and 20. The church there impacted the whole of Asia minor, not just a neighborhood. We are together with Together with Berlin. We want to see the reputation of Jesus lifted high and his name become well known in that city.

What about your city? Are there Christian leaders who have a heart that is larger than their ministry? Larger than their neighborhood? Large enough to reach across denominational lines and focus on what unites us (the Gospel) rather than on what separates us? I await the day when there is a Together for every major city in our world. A coalition of the willing who will pray and unite and work for the transformation of their city.

It is catching on in other cities in Germany. Let's pray that it catches on in thousands of cities around the world.

Understanding your congregation's genetic code

Every congregation has a unique genetic code. It is a complex combination of how the church began, its history, philosophy of ministry, pastors and leaders who have served and are serving, make-up of the congregation ethnically, socially and economically, its record of conflict and results, and a host of other factors.


All of these factors combine to explain why a congregation is what it is and why it operates the way it does. Churches are immensely complex organisms and organizations. The better that leaders understand the genetic code of their church, the better they are able to capitalize on its strengths and deal with its weaknesses.

Here are a number of important questions to explore as you try to understand your congregation's genetic code:

-What do you know about the founding of your church? How do you think the motives and attitudes in the church's founding - positive or negative - affect the church today?

-What was the philosophy of those who started your congregation? Is it the same philosophy the church has today, or has there been a significant shift in mission, vision or ministry philosophy? How did this shift happen?

-When there is conflict between people in the church, how do they handle their disagreements? Would you give your congregation high marks or low marks in the handling of conflict? Do you see patterns here?

-Are you aware of any significant unresolved issues within your congregation that lie beneath the surface? What are these issues, and why do you think they have not been resolved?

-How would you evaluate the unity of your board? Does your leadership board have a history of unity and love, even when faced with differences, or is there a history of conflict and broken relationships?

-If your congregation has faced significant periods of conflict in its past, what do you know about these periods? Is it possible to see trends in either the causes of these conflicts or how the conflict was handled?

-When you consider leadership, now or historically, who in your congregation has the major influence? Does the church board allow any individual (elected leaders or non-elected persons of influence) veto power over decisions of the board or the congregation? How has the power and influence structure of the church changed over the years?

-Think about major changes the congregation has made, whether related to ministry philosophy, location, ministries or staff members. Does the congregation respond to suggested changes easily, with great resistance or somewhere in between?

-Are there any subjects, people or situations related to the ministry of your church that are "off limits" for discussion? If so, why do you think these "elephants in the room" cannot be named.

Healthy characteristics of your congregation should be celebrated and affirmed regularly. We cannot do enough to affirm God's people, as He would, where they are living in His will.

Leaders should specialize in understanding the strengths of their congregations, both so they can affirm them and so they can leverage areas of strength into even greater ministry strength.

Church leadership and trust

Inherent in the American system of government is a basic mistrust of people who hold authority or responsibility. This mistrust runs deep through our psyche as a people. Once, I did a consultation for a church of 2,000 in Madison, Wisconsin that was changing its bylaws. The senior pastor offered some perspective on the culture surrounding his church: "What you have to understand is that in this community, there is huge mistrust of anyone in authority. Everyone here wants to be in on decisions because they don't trust leaders."

Unfortunately, those attitudes often carry over into our churches. But the church is not the local government, and healthy leaders in the church are to be trustworthy and followed. The writer of Hebrews goes so far as to say, "Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you (Hebrews 13:17)."

The New Testament clearly vests the senior leadership of the church with authority and responsibility in the context of a leadership for which they are ultimately accountable to God.

Ironically, when church governance is established as a checks-and-balances system, mistrust is not only built-in but is also actively fostered. The very basis of the governance system of checks and balances implies that we should question and limit one another. When authority is meted out to different groups, in the best-case scenario there is the opportunity for misunderstanding; in the worst-case scenario there is outright conflict. Here, you not only have tollbooths that decisions must pass through, but you also have the added frustration of dealing with mistrusting tollkeepers!

The church needs to see a new renaissance of trust among its people. Trust between paid staff members and boards, between boards and congregations, and between congregations and staff teams. We need to teach our people that trust is a biblical concept unless it has been violated. When violated, we need to work hard to restore it.

A mistrust of each other may reflect our society, but it does not reflect our theology.

Leadership Default

There is a principle about teams and leadership that is often overlooked and frequently violated. Simply stated, the senior team that we serve on is our most important team and is the team of our first allegiance.

For those of us who serve on a team and lead a team this is an important distinction. The senior team I currently serve on is the senior team of a denomination. The team I lead is the senior team of the global ministries of the denomination. Which of these teams demands my highest loyalty? The senior team I serve on or the team I lead?

It is always the senior team that I serve on, which in this case, is the senior denominational team.

Why? Because the global ministry team I lead is under the organizational authority of the senior team I serve on. Thus the senior team requires my highest loyalty. That means that while I lead a team, everything I do with 'my' team is always in alignment with the senior team. I am first a spokesman for the senior team rather than first being an advocate for the team I lead.

Understanding and living out this principle prevents conflicts between the two teams and ensures organizational alignment because my loyalty to the senior team ensures that I lead 'my' team from the perspective of the senior team. In my leadership of the global team, I am first and foremost a spokesperson for the senior denominational team. As such I will never allow the team I lead to develop an 'us/them' mentality with the senior team, nor will I ever criticize the decisions or direction of the senior denominational team (I helped make them).  Remember, I am first and foremost a spokesperson for the senior team on which I serve.

Some leaders push back on this position thinking that it limits their ability to have robust discussion on their team or to deal with issues that affect their team. Not so. The issue is where I deal with the issues. On the senior team, I have all the opportunity in the world to deal with issues that potentially impact my team. But that is the correct place for me to air them. Once I leave that room, I am a spokesperson for any decisions made there. With the team I lead, I have an obligation to explain, support, defend and finesse those decisions so that those I lead can understand and work within the parameters of decisions made above our team. Not do to so is to create deadly divisions within the organization that hurt the organization and its ministry, and negatively impacts its missional effectiveness. If we cannot follow well, we cannot lead well.

Lets apply this to the church. In most churches, the senior pastor is on the leadership board of the church. This would be his or her senior team which would demand their highest loyalty. They would typically then lead a staff team. If they understand this principle, they would never take a position with their staff against direction or policies of the board. To do so is to engage in 'leadership default' with a resulting us/them mentality and to have violated their fist loyalty and responsibility.

At the same time, those staff members who serve on the senior pastor's team must realize that this is their senior team and they cannot allow the teams they lead to be at odds with the senior staff team. As leaders they are always first and foremost spokespersons for that senior staff team rather than being 'advocates' for the team they lead. Not only is this good leadership but it prevents an us/them mentality which is all to common in the church and ministry organizations.

The neglect of this principle causes no end of conflict between boards and senior staff or between senior staff teams and lower level ministry teams in a church or organization. It is an authority issue, an alignment issue and a leadership issue. This does not mean that there is not healthy, robust discussion on any team. What it does mean is that the team leader will not default in his or her leadership by allowing their team to be out of alignment with the senior team they are on (the team above).

Rethinking the relationship between pastors and lay leaders

If you are a pastor you have high expectations placed upon you to preach, to be a great administrator and lead well. That you must lead is usually a non-negotiable. But, let's face it, many of us are not wired very significantly in the leadership area - and that's not what we signed up in ministry to do. Yet in most of our congregations there are highly skilled leaders from the business world who are just waiting to be tapped and their skills used in the ministry arena but they are left on the sidelines or asked to usher or serve in a role that is not in alignment with their significant leadership gifts.

God never asked us to be what we cannot be. All of us are wired and gifted in a few specific areas and everything else is a weakness. Our weaknesses will never be our strengths. We need to bring around us a team of qualified individuals who can play to strengths that we do not have so that we can play to strengths that we do have.

The most untapped resources in our churches are lay leaders who could use their leadership skills in the church, come alongside pastors who may not be wired to lead, and as a team, bring a level of leadership to the congregation that would infuse it with huge energy, creativity and missional impact. When we don't tap into those resources we leave much of that impact unused on the table.

What gets int he way of this happening? First, I think it is our assumption that as the pastor we must be the leader. Why? God gave different gifts and if that is not our primary gift we are fooling ourselves that He thinks we can be the prime mover. Certainly we must be a primary spokesperson for the vision but why would we expect that we must be the primary developers of mission, vision and strategy if that is not our gift? It is theologically contradictory.

Second, I think it is often an ego issue. We look at leaders who pastor large churches and we think we should be able to do that (by the way not all of them are good leaders either). Our ego can get in the way of realizing that their gifts are not our gifts. We forget that the mission and effectiveness of our congregation is more important than our ego and that we need help. Yet, surrounded by people who could help us, we sometimes are reluctant to share the leadership ministry of the church in any substantive way or to seek other's counsel, advice or invite them to help us lead more effectively. One day God might ask us way.

Churches need good leadership. I am an advocate of finding the best-possible people and asking them to serve on the senior leadership board of the church and then to take the best of those leaders and bring them to the table to help craft the most missionally compelling ministry paradigm the church could possibly have. It is not about us - it is about Jesus and His Kingdom and bringing the maximum number of people to Him and deploying them in meaningful ministry so that we reach maturity in Christ (Ephesians 4).

The alternative to this kind of Biblical view of gifts and the humility to admit we need help is found in the ineffectiveness of so many churches today and in ministries that founder. Bill is an example. He is the quintessential shepherd/pastor: high relational skills and great caring skills. His preaching skills were good enough that the church he led grew to about 500. Each time it reached the 500 level it was like it hit a ceiling, would level off for a while, then decrease.

The church was filled with highly trained professionals, many of whom had strong leadership gifts and several of whom led huge organizations. Over time, Bill invited many of these onto the board but once there, they experienced huge frustration because they were not invited to help lead the church in any strategic way. That was Bill's prerogative and he saw himself at their level and could not admit that he needed help (and these were his friends who desperately wanted to help him).

When a crisis developed over the lack of congregational direction and people started to migrate out of the church (lack of missional direction will do that), Bill clung to the belief that he was a leader and could solve the problem. He could not and eventually resigned, bitter and angry, under the pressure of a church leadership crisis. Six months later he found himself another congregation to lead where the scenario played itself out again and two years later was asked to leave over failed leadership.

Bill and the two congregations could have been saved a whole lot of pain if he had admitted that missional and directional leadership were not strong suits and had surrounded himself with willing leaders who would have played to their strengths while he played to his and together led their congregations to places of missional effectiveness. But his ego would not let him do this and the churches suffered because of it. Ultimately it is the kingdom that suffers when we don't engage other highly gifted leaders!

Charting a healthy change process

When you are going to propose major changes to an organization it is important to have a clearly defined process up front that you intend to follow and that will help the organization negotiate the whitewater that will result.

Prepare people for coming changes

People do not like surprises. Once you know that you are going to enter into a process of change, let people know and let them know why. You are not communicating final decisions; you are paving the way for changes that are going to come.

Always tie your process and proposed changes to your mission, guiding principles, central ministry focus or culture.

Remember that people are naturally change resistant. Thus if you are going to bring change you must appeal to values that are a higher value than their resistance to change. The discussion is not fundamentally about structure or programs; it is about mission fulfillment (ROM: return on mission). The more you communicate this, the more people will 'get it.'

One of the gurus on change processes, John Kotter, suggests that in order to get people's attention and convince them of the need for change, you need to "create a crisis." In the absence of a crisis, why change anything?

In ministry organizations, the "crisis" is that the lack of change will compromise (or is already compromising) our ability to do what Christ has called us to do. The result of change will be greater return on mission. Again, it is all about mission.

Recruit a guiding coalition

In any key change you are going to make, you want to have a guiding coalition of individuals who are on board and will publicly and privately support the process. This certainly should include all board members and key ministry staff members. (If you have board members or staff members who are not publicly supportive, you have other issues to deal with).

This should also include other people of positive influence in your organization - those who can help the early or late majority who may not understand the need for change. This is not about a lobbying exercise but recognition that people influence people and that within every organization there are key influencers. If these key influencers understand where you are going and the reasons for it, they become voices of reason and encouragement to the rest of the organization on the merits of moving forward. If you find that your key influencers are opposed, you may want to do more homework and groundwork before you move forward. After all, wise leaders are not going to propose something that they think will not have the support it needs to succeed.

A best practice is that before you propose major change, know that it is going to succeed to the best of your ability. You can test the waters by sounding out those who you need to be in the guiding coalition to influence others.

Provide ways for those in your organization to have input.
The higher the stakes in proposed changes, the more critical it is that you provide forums for members of the organization to ask questions and provide suggestions. The more open that leaders are perceived to be, the more likely the organization will be supportive of the process and outcome.

At this stage, proposed changes are seen to be in 'wet cement.' There may well be feedback or suggestions that would cause leaders to tweak or modify certain proposals before the cement hardens. This also allows those who will be affected by the change to speak into the process although they are not the prime movers in the process.

In the process...over-communicate with the organization.Possibly the greatest failure of leaders in a change process is the failure to adequately communicate with their organizations. This does not usually happen intentionally. Leaders already know what is going on and assume others do as well. In addition, once they have communicated, they feel that the job is done. This underestimates, however, the number of times necessary to communicate to a group before a message is heard. When there is not adequate communication, leaders are seen as aloof, arrogant, unaccountable, power hungry - all of which are probably far from the truth.

Trust is gained by leaders, in large part, by three simple disciplines: being missional, communicating well and listening.

Do everything you can to keep anxiety and conflict over possible changes low

As we have noted, anxiety over change often brings out the worst in people - much like weddings and funerals do within family systems. Leaders have a lot invested in major proposals they make and it is normal for them to become defensive when people push back hard or even attack. Whenever anxiety is present in a family system - and organizations are family systems - one of the jobs of leaders is to lower anxiety wherever possible. A key to this is a non-defensive attitude when challenged. If one responds low key and gently to emotional attacks, the level of conflict is usually lowered.

Do not neglect a prayer strategy for change initiatives

Our battle is not against "flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12)." If you are proposing change or a ministry initiative because it will give you a greater return on mission, know that the evil one will oppose you at whatever level he needs to, to keep it from being successful. The bolder your plans, the bolder his response.

And if Satan can bring division in the process, or encourage bad attitudes or sinful junk to surface, he will. Why? Because your changes will make your ministry more effective. Sorry, but he doesn't want that to happen.

Relax, persevere and lead boldly

Change is not about us. Ministry advances are not about us. God has called us to lead boldly, and even more so when leading is not easy. Leaders need to be wise, to respect process and people, and to trust God for the outcome. What will surprise us more often than not is that when we do this right, the vast majority of those we lead will respond positively - even when they are not innovators or early adapters. Why? Because they have the same desire to see Christ honored and His kingdom expanded as we do.

Pursuing wise men and women

Real wisdom is in short supply today. Too few people think deeply and equally few people have so saturated their thinking in Biblical paradigms that wisdom emerges from their lives. When you find a wise person, that individual is a treasure. When we are able to provide wisdom to others we become a treasure and gift to them.

Biblical wisdom is first of all grounded in "the fear of the Lord." It is an acknowledgement that God is above all and that the wise individual takes God into account in all of their thinking, actions, strategies and decisions. For the wise individual, God and the things that matter to God are central to everything!

That means that wisdom is not simply pragmatism. A course of action can be pragmatic but not take into account God's view of the matter. God's perspective, whether practical or pragmatic is central to a wise individual.

Wisdom is also the ability to understand a situation and know how to respond in a way that would please God, demonstrate mercy, fairness and righteousness, and accomplish what God has given us to accomplish.

Wise people are able to take complex issues and many moving parts and find a solution while keeping God's perspective or character in the center of the equation. That is a gift indeed.

Not all of us are given that gift but all of us have access to people who God has gifted in that way. Where you find them, get to know them, dialogue with them, ask them questions and look for their perspective. They will in turn ask you questions that will help focus the issues on what is most important and help you get to a wise solution.

Who are the wise people in your life? Do you spend enough time with them? I have a handful of wise people around me and they are a huge gift.