Many leaders believe that they need to know everything that is happening in their organization or on their team. It is usually a mistake! Why? Because it normally means that the leader is not empowering others to lead. In addition as a ministry grows there is no way that leaders will know everything that is happening.
While knowing everything works in a small ministry it becomes a bottleneck in a large ministry. In addition, those who need to know everything also need to control everything which means that they have not empowered others and that the more they know the more they meddle.
I know pastors who operate this way in churchs of 1,000+ and it is deeply demotivating to staff who are unempowered every time they need permission to move forward or when their work is reworked by the senior leader. His goal may be to protect the ministry but it is the wrong way to accomplish that. You protect the ministry by having great clarity and the right leaders.
My own rule is that I need to know what it is necessary for me to know, not all that I could know. I expect leaders in the organization (in my case at senior leadership levels) to tell me what I need to know. This includes major initiatives, where we are seeing significant results, significant challenges they are encountering and when things go wrong, a heads up.
What I really need to know is that I have the right leaders in place and that they have great clarity as to what the organization is about. If that is true, I can trust those leaders to lead well, deal with situations wisely and drive the missional agenda in a disciplined way. Knowing I have the right people is far more important than knowing everything that is happening. If I need to know the latter it is because I don't have the right people. If I know the former I don't need to know the latter.
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Just because something sounds spiritual does not mean that it is or that it is wise
I am always amused or bemused by folks who parse Scripture
so closely to come up with non-negotiables that sound deeply spiritual but are
in fact deeply counter productive.
Take
a church board I have been watching recently where every decision must be made
unanimously because that is what God would want. Really? First off, the New Testament
calls to unity have nothing to do with how boards make decisions. Second, even
the leaders in the New Testament did not always agree. Third, such a practice
means that one individual can hold up an entire board and church because
unanimity is required.
However spiritual it sounds, it makes for dysfunctional
boards and decision making. And in practice, the board I have been watching has
made some terrible decisions and has been unable to get its act together
precisely because everything must be unanimous. What you end up with are
decisions at the lowest denominator that can be negotiated or a board with a
few dominant voices with the rest being “yes” people. It is actually one of the
most unhealthy ways to make decisions because it puts tremendous pressure on
those who might disagree to come to agreement. After all unless they do, there
is no way forward.
Or take the practice where all pastors must be on the board
because they are elders. It sounds spiritual but in practice it makes it nearly
impossible for the senior leader to exercise leadership and authority over his
staff - who by virtue of being board members - are also his bosses. Periodically I receive calls from senior
pastors who wonder how to get at issues with a staff member who is also a
member of his board. Good question! This practice also confuses management
(what staff do) with governance (what boards do). This spiritual sounding
practice almost never works in the long run.
Then there are those churches who have a policy that they
will never borrow money because of a rigid reading of one verse in the New
Testament that does not speak to that issue clearly anyway. For some reason it
is OK to borrow money to purchase a house but not build a church. Now a
congregation may choose to build debt free but that is a choice not a
requirement dictated by Scripture.
The next time you hear something that sounds spiritual but
which causes complications ask yourself the question: Is it really a biblical
mandate or it is someone’s personal preference that they have couched in
spiritual language and with Biblical texts that do not in fact require a
certain practice. Usually it has to do with someone wanting their own way and
exercising control. The opposite of what is truly spiritual which is a
willingness to abide by the decisions of the group.
Friday, August 2, 2013
The single greatest deficit in missions today
The single greatest deficit in missions today is the scarcity of highly qualified leaders to provide strategic leadership to teams in the field. In my view, of all ministry venues, missions is the one place where leadership gifts have not been seen as important and in many cases, those with leadership skills have either chosen not to go into missions or they have not been able to use their gifts.
The reasons are many. On the local church side, there are many churches who will not support leaders in the field because "they are not doing real hands on mission work." Here is the irony: those very churches would never start a ministry in their congregation without a leader to lead it. In fact, the larger the church the more staff they have - to lead staff and volunteers in ministry endeavors but somehow that is seen as a non-value in missions.
The result? The very missionaries the church supports are often not nearly as productive as they could be because they are not deployed in teams under strategic leadership. The thinking of churches that leadership in missions is somehow not real ministry is frankly nutty! They would never operate that way and in denigrating leadership in the missions arena they hurt the very investment they are making in missions.
On the mission side, for many years, missionaries have seen themselves largely as "independent contractors" doing their own thing in their own way largely independent of oversight, accountability, strategic considerations and even in many cases direction from the mission agency they serve. That is pretty amazing given the amount of money it takes to keep a family on the field. We would never allow someone to operate that way on the home front.
This mentality has historically not only marginalized leadership gifts but has convinced leaders that they are not welcome in the missions arena. That they are not desired. There are a substantial number of missionaries who like doing their own thing and don't value accountability or leadership. Non leadership and full independence has become a part of the mission culture in many circles.
Yet leadership matters in every arena. We know it does in the church. We know it does in our places of work. We know it does in government. In fact, nearly all of us have experienced the pain of poor leadership at some point in our lives and those of us who are fortunate have experienced the gift of good leadership.
Under good leadership teams flourish, clarity and focus are defined, there is alignment and cooperation and there are results that are tangible. If these characteristics are needed anywhere they are desperately needed in missions where the eternal stakes are so high and the financial investment supporters are making is so substantial.
The leadership of ReachGlobal, the mission I have the privilege of leading is convinced that the key to every team (and we are all deployed in teams) is a good leader. Without good leadership at all levels we cannot move forward. With good leadership we can develop, empower and release our own staff and indigenous leaders. We are so convinced of this that we have made the recruitment of leaders one of our highest priorities. It has Kingdom implications.
In recent years we have seen key leaders from other agencies come into ReachGlobal precisely because the agency they were with was not leadership friendly. It is a loss for those agencies and a gain for ReachGlobal who not only values good leadership but empowers those leaders to lead. Ironically, those agencies who do not value leadership are also floundering in a changing missions environment.
Here is our commitment: High Impact Ministry Teams on the field wherever we work. A high-impact team is a group of missionally aligned and healthy individuals working strategically together under good leadership toward common objectives, with accountability for results. This is not possible without skilled and empowering leaders. Leaders matter in missions - a lot. The lack of them is hurting mission endeavors globally.
Never underestimate the need for leadership in missions and if you have a passion for missions and have leadership gifts we are one mission that wants to talk with you. We know how important leadership gifts are to the missions task.
The reasons are many. On the local church side, there are many churches who will not support leaders in the field because "they are not doing real hands on mission work." Here is the irony: those very churches would never start a ministry in their congregation without a leader to lead it. In fact, the larger the church the more staff they have - to lead staff and volunteers in ministry endeavors but somehow that is seen as a non-value in missions.
The result? The very missionaries the church supports are often not nearly as productive as they could be because they are not deployed in teams under strategic leadership. The thinking of churches that leadership in missions is somehow not real ministry is frankly nutty! They would never operate that way and in denigrating leadership in the missions arena they hurt the very investment they are making in missions.
On the mission side, for many years, missionaries have seen themselves largely as "independent contractors" doing their own thing in their own way largely independent of oversight, accountability, strategic considerations and even in many cases direction from the mission agency they serve. That is pretty amazing given the amount of money it takes to keep a family on the field. We would never allow someone to operate that way on the home front.
This mentality has historically not only marginalized leadership gifts but has convinced leaders that they are not welcome in the missions arena. That they are not desired. There are a substantial number of missionaries who like doing their own thing and don't value accountability or leadership. Non leadership and full independence has become a part of the mission culture in many circles.
Yet leadership matters in every arena. We know it does in the church. We know it does in our places of work. We know it does in government. In fact, nearly all of us have experienced the pain of poor leadership at some point in our lives and those of us who are fortunate have experienced the gift of good leadership.
Under good leadership teams flourish, clarity and focus are defined, there is alignment and cooperation and there are results that are tangible. If these characteristics are needed anywhere they are desperately needed in missions where the eternal stakes are so high and the financial investment supporters are making is so substantial.
The leadership of ReachGlobal, the mission I have the privilege of leading is convinced that the key to every team (and we are all deployed in teams) is a good leader. Without good leadership at all levels we cannot move forward. With good leadership we can develop, empower and release our own staff and indigenous leaders. We are so convinced of this that we have made the recruitment of leaders one of our highest priorities. It has Kingdom implications.
In recent years we have seen key leaders from other agencies come into ReachGlobal precisely because the agency they were with was not leadership friendly. It is a loss for those agencies and a gain for ReachGlobal who not only values good leadership but empowers those leaders to lead. Ironically, those agencies who do not value leadership are also floundering in a changing missions environment.
Here is our commitment: High Impact Ministry Teams on the field wherever we work. A high-impact team is a group of missionally aligned and healthy individuals working strategically together under good leadership toward common objectives, with accountability for results. This is not possible without skilled and empowering leaders. Leaders matter in missions - a lot. The lack of them is hurting mission endeavors globally.
Never underestimate the need for leadership in missions and if you have a passion for missions and have leadership gifts we are one mission that wants to talk with you. We know how important leadership gifts are to the missions task.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Why church boards can be so frustrating to serve on and how to solve it
Straight up, let me say that I believe in a plurality of leadership for the church. It is how God designed it, and when it functions well it is a beautiful thing. However, having been a pastor, church leader, board member, and consultant to church boards for over 30 years, I know they can be deeply frustrating. Most of that frustration is self-imposed in that we don't pay attention to some fundamental principles that, if followed, would move the experience of many from deeply frustrating to deeply satisfying.
What are those fundamentals?
1. Guard the gate to who gets on the board! Get the wrong people, and you sabotage the board. The most powerful group in the church, bar none, are those who make leadership board selections. Healthy boards always insert themselves into that process to ensure the wrong people don't get on. Three to six years with the wrong individuals is deadly to boards. Be smart in how you choose leaders.
2. Understand your role. Boards are responsible for ensuring that the congregation is taught, protected, led, empowered and, released, cared for and that the spiritual temperature in the congregation is kept high. Many boards don't even have a job description, let alone focus on the right things. A focus on the wrong things hurts the board and the church. My book, High Impact Church Boards can be a help.
3. Spend quality time in prayer together. Most boards don't! They get so caught up in the minutia of details (that someone else could do) that they don't have time to pray, think, study the word together, and seek the counsel of the Lord of the church they serve as undershepherds. When business and administration crowd out prayer, it is a sign that the board is moving in a dangerous direction.
4. Use an agenda and allow the chair to prioritize what is important and what is not. Not all rocks are big rocks. Some are pebbles and sand that someone else should deal with. Leaders deal with big rocks and delegate everything that can and should be delegated. Many leaders serve their "time" and then retire from church boards precisely because they don't focus on what is important, and as leaders, they want to do that.
5. Always operate with a board covenant that spells out how members relate to one another, make decisions, and handle conflict and members' expectations - including how to handle recalcitrant board members. Boards operate without such a covenant at their own risk.
6. Lead boldly and help the congregation become the people God wants them to be. Timid leadership in the church in epidemic! And deeply sad. One of the reasons many congregations have so little spiritual influence beyond the edges of their parking lot goes right back to the timid leadership of their leaders. Remember, we lead on behalf of Jesus.
7. When there are elephants in the room, name them and deal with them honestly and sensitively. Too many church boards ignore the true issues of the church because we don't want to offend anyone. The irony is that we all know they exist and need to be dealt with, so we might as well name them because once named, they are no longer elephants but simply issues to be dealt with.
8. Evaluate how you are doing as a board. Here are 15 simple questions that will tell you a great deal about the health of your board. Have your board spend ten minutes answering the questions, and you will have some fodder for discussion that can help you improve your board, its leadership, and your experience.
What are those fundamentals?
1. Guard the gate to who gets on the board! Get the wrong people, and you sabotage the board. The most powerful group in the church, bar none, are those who make leadership board selections. Healthy boards always insert themselves into that process to ensure the wrong people don't get on. Three to six years with the wrong individuals is deadly to boards. Be smart in how you choose leaders.
2. Understand your role. Boards are responsible for ensuring that the congregation is taught, protected, led, empowered and, released, cared for and that the spiritual temperature in the congregation is kept high. Many boards don't even have a job description, let alone focus on the right things. A focus on the wrong things hurts the board and the church. My book, High Impact Church Boards can be a help.
3. Spend quality time in prayer together. Most boards don't! They get so caught up in the minutia of details (that someone else could do) that they don't have time to pray, think, study the word together, and seek the counsel of the Lord of the church they serve as undershepherds. When business and administration crowd out prayer, it is a sign that the board is moving in a dangerous direction.
4. Use an agenda and allow the chair to prioritize what is important and what is not. Not all rocks are big rocks. Some are pebbles and sand that someone else should deal with. Leaders deal with big rocks and delegate everything that can and should be delegated. Many leaders serve their "time" and then retire from church boards precisely because they don't focus on what is important, and as leaders, they want to do that.
5. Always operate with a board covenant that spells out how members relate to one another, make decisions, and handle conflict and members' expectations - including how to handle recalcitrant board members. Boards operate without such a covenant at their own risk.
6. Lead boldly and help the congregation become the people God wants them to be. Timid leadership in the church in epidemic! And deeply sad. One of the reasons many congregations have so little spiritual influence beyond the edges of their parking lot goes right back to the timid leadership of their leaders. Remember, we lead on behalf of Jesus.
7. When there are elephants in the room, name them and deal with them honestly and sensitively. Too many church boards ignore the true issues of the church because we don't want to offend anyone. The irony is that we all know they exist and need to be dealt with, so we might as well name them because once named, they are no longer elephants but simply issues to be dealt with.
8. Evaluate how you are doing as a board. Here are 15 simple questions that will tell you a great deal about the health of your board. Have your board spend ten minutes answering the questions, and you will have some fodder for discussion that can help you improve your board, its leadership, and your experience.
9. When you need to change direction or deal with known issues, don't try to tweak your way out of a crisis. Tweaks don't work in a crisis. Change does, with candid communication with the congregation.
10. Be candid with the congregation. Spin in the church is ubiquitous, creating disillusionment with leadership and the church itself. Don't contribute to that disillusionment.
Effective boards are a joy to serve on. Ineffective boards are a major frustration. Which one do you have?
Effective boards are a joy to serve on. Ineffective boards are a major frustration. Which one do you have?
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Everyone who finds their purpose in life is a genius
The quote is not original - it came from a twenty something Christian leader in Berlin but it certainly caught my attention. Jesus created every one of us for a unique purpose and wired and gifted us so that we could achieve that purpose (Ephesians 2:10). When we discover our the lane God made us for we live with great purpose and satisfaction. When not, we miss the joy!
If God made us for a purpose it makes sense that we would be intentional in discerning what that is. In my book, Live Like You Mean it, I suggest that we need to ask ten crucial questions about our life. The first one is "Why am I here?" It is a question worth pondering because life is not random and God is not random. Therefore we ought not live random lives. God has a unique and wonderful purpose for our life that when discovered gives us great joy and satisfaction.
The good news is that while everyone who finds their purpose in life may be a genius, you don't have to be a genius to discover it.
Ask the question, where do I find the greatest joy? What fills me up when I do it? What do others tell me I am really good at? What does a really good day look like for me? Where do I contribute the best to what God is up to? What do I wish I could do that I am not? In addition, simply ask God for insight into what He made you for. He is the creator and He knows and He wants us to be in our lane for our sake and His.
God created me to teach, preach, write and lead and help build his church globally. When I am in those lanes I am fulfilled. When I get out of those lanes I am pretty ineffective. I am no genius but I understand why God made me. Why did he make you? Are you running in the right lane or trying to be something you are not?
If God made us for a purpose it makes sense that we would be intentional in discerning what that is. In my book, Live Like You Mean it, I suggest that we need to ask ten crucial questions about our life. The first one is "Why am I here?" It is a question worth pondering because life is not random and God is not random. Therefore we ought not live random lives. God has a unique and wonderful purpose for our life that when discovered gives us great joy and satisfaction.
The good news is that while everyone who finds their purpose in life may be a genius, you don't have to be a genius to discover it.
Ask the question, where do I find the greatest joy? What fills me up when I do it? What do others tell me I am really good at? What does a really good day look like for me? Where do I contribute the best to what God is up to? What do I wish I could do that I am not? In addition, simply ask God for insight into what He made you for. He is the creator and He knows and He wants us to be in our lane for our sake and His.
God created me to teach, preach, write and lead and help build his church globally. When I am in those lanes I am fulfilled. When I get out of those lanes I am pretty ineffective. I am no genius but I understand why God made me. Why did he make you? Are you running in the right lane or trying to be something you are not?
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
It is not a time of methods but of mindset
As an organizational leader I am committed to creating an organizational mindset around those things that I believe to be integral to a healthy organization. What I am not committed to is defining specific strategies for how we get to where we want to go. When one confuses mindset with methodology one has focused on the wrong thing.
Our mindset is described in the four sides of the ReachGlobal sandbox: mission/vision; guiding principles; central ministry focus and our intentional culture. All of these are about a mindset around things like health, team, multiplication, innovation, the developing, empowering and releasing of healthy national leaders, Spirit empowerment and being biblically based to name a few. All of these are principles and habits that if practiced become the mindset of the organization.
How that mindset is lived out goes to strategy which will differ for our staff depending on where they work in the world. Strategies should never become the focus because strategies change as situations change. A mindset should be the cultivated focus. The mindset defines the culture and non-negotiables of the ministry and any number of strategies might suffice to align with and achieve the goals of that mindset.
In our organization we have a mindset of multiplication, for instance. That permeates all of our thinking but how to achieve it depends on the circumstances in which we are working. It is about mindset, not method.
Focusing on methods ultimately locks you into paradigms that hurt you. Focusing on mindset gives you flexibility to achieve your deeply held convictions but in different ways in different circumstances.
Our mindset is described in the four sides of the ReachGlobal sandbox: mission/vision; guiding principles; central ministry focus and our intentional culture. All of these are about a mindset around things like health, team, multiplication, innovation, the developing, empowering and releasing of healthy national leaders, Spirit empowerment and being biblically based to name a few. All of these are principles and habits that if practiced become the mindset of the organization.
How that mindset is lived out goes to strategy which will differ for our staff depending on where they work in the world. Strategies should never become the focus because strategies change as situations change. A mindset should be the cultivated focus. The mindset defines the culture and non-negotiables of the ministry and any number of strategies might suffice to align with and achieve the goals of that mindset.
In our organization we have a mindset of multiplication, for instance. That permeates all of our thinking but how to achieve it depends on the circumstances in which we are working. It is about mindset, not method.
Focusing on methods ultimately locks you into paradigms that hurt you. Focusing on mindset gives you flexibility to achieve your deeply held convictions but in different ways in different circumstances.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Eight kinds of people who should not serve on a church board
Not everyone is qualified to serve on a church board, and choosing the wrong people condemns the board to dishealth and frustration for years to come. Putting someone on a board is easy and hard to remove. So, who should not serve on a church board?
Those who have a personal agenda for the church. Jesus designed church leadership as a plurality of leaders, not an individual leader. That, by necessity, means that we intend to seek God's face together regarding the direction of the church. Rather than a personal agenda, we are committed to a corporate agenda based on seeking God's will. Those with individual agendas will sabotage that corporate pursuit of God's will.
Those who cannot submit to group decisions. The humility to seek God's will as a group and then submit to that direction is a natural extension of the comments above. Regardless of their reasoning, people who need their own way are not qualified to serve in church leadership. Divided boards ultimately create divided congregations.
Those who are black and white and inflexible. Group leadership requires flexibility in the opinions of others and the ultimate decisions of a group. Those who draw fine lines on issues and cannot be flexible will find it difficult, if not impossible, to serve well in a group setting. This includes legalists who draw fine distinctions in lifestyle and fine points of theology where there is legitimate room for disagreement.
Those who cannot deal with conflict. High, high mercy types are better off serving on care teams than leadership boards, as every key ministry decision has the potential to make someone unhappy. That requires that one has the ability to negotiate conflict and even live with the fact that not everyone is happy. It is hard to do if one is extremely high on the mercy scale and does not want to make anyone unhappy.
Those who cannot think conceptually. Some people can only deal with details and love to drill down to the details of anything under discussion. Leaders, however, are responsible for a higher level of discussion and leadership requiring conceptual thinking. Concrete thinkers will always find it hard to do the needed higher-level thinking of a leadership board.
Those who have a history of conflict or relational dysfunction. Healthy boards are built on healthy relationships. Anyone with a history of creating conflict or relational issues should not be put on a leadership board where healthy relationships with God and one another are the coinage of leadership. Leadership is always about helping people become what God wants them to become. It is hard to do if one has a history of conflict and relational dysfunction.
Those who like power. Unfortunately, Power brokers are a fact in many congregations and are always a sign of dishealth. Power brokers are people with a personal agenda that is of higher value to them than a board's corporate decision-making process. Power brokers create factions for their side, which creates division in the board and church. They are dangerous people in any church.
Those who don't truly pursue God fully. Church leadership is about Jesus and where He wants to lead a church. That requires a higher degree of followership to the one on whose behalf one leads and a deep sensitivity to His direction and will. That is only possible with individuals who pursue Him. In defining the character qualities of those who should serve in leadership, the New Testament naturally rules out those whose spiritual life is not healthy or mature.
TJ Addington (Addington Consulting) is passionate about helping individuals and organizations maximize their impact and reach the next level of effectiveness. He can be reached at tjaddington@gmail.com.
"Creating cultures of excellence."
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