Which world are you living in: The world of mindset or the world of methods?

There is a major difference between the world of "mindset" and the world of "methodology." Think for instance of the last decades of the church where successful churches would market their methodology and other congregations would rush to put that methodology into place in their own church. Whether preaching style, music, small groups or some other ministry facet, many are quick to chase methodology that they think will get them to the next level.

Methodology matters but a whole lot less than we think. What matters much more is the mindset that we bring to our ministry leadership. Mindset trumps methodology every time. Let me explain.

In our rapidly changing world where we minister in different contexts (just think of the differing generations and needs of those generations in the local church or the different situations we face in missions depending where in the world we are) methodologies will need to be exceedingly flexible. Even methods that may be powerful drivers of our ministry today will most likely not be in ten years. 

When I talk to ministry leaders I am far more interested in their mindset than I am in their methods. In fact it is their mindset - the underlying philosophy of their ministry that tells me the most about who they are. Mindset determines ministry methodology, not the other way around.

I will often ask ministry leaders what the central focus of their ministry is: What do they do all the time as staff? One answer is to say, "We provide the very best programming possible and believe in excellence in all we do." Another might say, "We are always encouraging our people to develop relationships with non-believers and to have influence in their circle of relationships." 

Think about those two mindsets: The first is primarily about a methodology to bring people into the church while the second is about a mindset to get their people outside the church and into meaningful relationships. How they do it will vary but the mindset is a very different mindset than the first. Methodology should serve the mindset, rather than the other way around.

Your mindset sets the stage for the results you want in ministry. Strategies follow from mindset rather than the other way around.We often confuse the two but the distinction is critical.

The Jenga Syndrome

Jenga: (It is a fun game) how many pieces of wood can you take out of the stack before it collapses? Ironically it is often ministry success that causes us to slowly remove critical infrastructure from our lives until like the tower above, it falls into a bunch of pieces.


Ministry success brings added obligations and added obligations must crowd something else out. There is limited space in any life. We may start to crowd out key friendships, margin for rest, time with God, opportunity to think and read, time for community and any number of the very things that give our lives satisfaction, meaning and more importantly grounding. This does not happen quickly: like the frog in the kettle it sneaks up on us slowly until we wake up one day and find ourselves in trouble.

Here are the calls I get. "T.J. I can't do this any longer. I am tired, wiped out, empty and confused about what I should do next. Maybe I should leave my church and do something else." There is a weariness in the voice, and a loss of ministry passion and direction. 
And ironically it comes to very successful ministry leaders.

How do we avoid the Jenga syndrome as our ministries grow and we experience success?

First we need to be clear about what practices keep us healthy and grounded, personally, emotionally and spiritually and refuse to allow these practices or the space needed for them to go away. I have ten such practices that I intentionally make space for. What are yours and how are you doing with them?

Second, and this is a big principle. Never take on new responsibility without getting rid of another responsibility. The Jenga syndrome is largely a failure to understand that you cannot add responsibilities and obligations without jettisoning some other obligation. When we don't, a Jenga piece gets pulled out of our lives and often it is one of those practices that keep us emotionally, physically or spiritually healthy. We have limited time and space in our lives so something must give.

In fact, I believe that we ought to be able to identify a few critical responsibilities in our lives (four to five major ones) and that if something else is going to be added, one of the existing ones needs to be changed.

Third, resist the temptation to develop a co-dependent relationship with your ministry. We know what co-dependent relationships do to other relationships: they do the same thing when we allow this to happen with our ministry.

In a co-dependent relationship with our ministry, we think we are indispensable and whenever there is a crisis or a need, we are in the middle of it. We have not learned how to separate ourselves or our emotions or our person hood from the ministry we are a part of. The result of co-dependent relationships with our ministry is that we get hooked into too many situations and obligations.

Co-dependent relationships with our ministry start to suck us dry and the Jenga syndrome kicks in because something in our lives must give.

It is a rare individual who can see ministry success on a regular basis and stay grounded and healthy. I hope you are one of them. If you feel like you are suffering from the Jenga Syndrome, start backing up, get some help or counsel because the alternative is, well, the pieces coming apart and that is something you don't want.

The weight of a leaders words

The two boys God gave me were highly sensitive growing up to the words and reactions of their parents. I remember one time giving one of them my "look" and he responded "Don't yell at me!" Actually I had not said anything but I had communicated with my body language and he had felt the message! 

Leaders are not parents to those they lead but like parents, their words have extra weight than the words of others.

Leaders often do not appreciate how their words can hurt, wound, lift up or encourage those in their organization. Because they are leaders their words have extra weight which means that what they say and how they say it impacts people deeply, positively or negatively in significant ways. Their words carry more weight because people don't want to let them down and staff feel it deeply when words spoken carelessly come their way.

This means that leaders have a higher responsibility than others to filter and control their words (yes emails) and reactions so that they do not negatively impact others or send messages they don't want to send. 

Leaders should remember:

• Words of affirmation are huge.
• Careless passing words that construe disappointment or cynical can hurt.
• You can say a lot with body language. Be aware and careful.
• Measure your responses to control your emotions so that your emotions don't get in the way of the message.
• Think before one speaks: both about the message and the way it is delivered.
• If you are going to say hard things because you must, think carefully about how you do it and focus on behaviors rather than on motives. 
• Your words carry extra weight so use them carefully!

When God breaks our heart

I spoke recently to an individual whose heart was turned inside out by a trip he had taken to a really tough place in our world. Knowing that I travel a lot and have seen a lot he asked me, why do you think I feel this way. My answer was this: "Because your heart just became more like the heart of Jesus and His heart breaks every day for the pain, violence, sin and hopelessness of so much of our world."

Here is a principle: We don't get to choose what breaks our heart. God chooses. We simply are asked to respond to that brokenness and choose to show up and do something about it. 

I know of people whose heart was broken by the loss of a child and chose to minister to others who suffered that pain. I know of many who have become involved in matters of justice or mercy or poverty or orphans or widows or the disabled as God broke their heart. When God breaks our hearts over something He is often asking us to respond to issues that break His heart as well.

The question is whether our hearts are open to be broken or whether we have steeled ourselves from the pain and brokenness of our world. Tender hearts are like God's. Hard hearts are not.  Such is the challenge to us from Micah 6:8: "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

What breaks your heart and what are you doing about it?

In praise of small churches and their leaders

The vast majority of churches in the United States - and around the world are relatively small - and often undervalued. Because numbers are seen as the sign of success in the United States it is the mega church that gets the praise. However, the majority of believers worship in relatively small congregations and they are led by pastors as committed as those who lead large churches.

There are many advantages to a smaller congregation. It is more like family, relationships are stronger, and it is harder to get lost in the crowd. Pastors of small churches are closer to their people and often more intimately acquainted with those they lead.

Nor is there any less creativity in smaller churches. One church I know in North Dakota is providing the preaching for three tiny congregations in rural areas that are losing population via video. They have kept the doors open in communities that would otherwise lose their church because they cannot afford a pastor. They also have a staff member who travels to those communities each week to be hands on as a pastor.

I admire those pastors who are called and faithfully serve smaller congregations. They do not get the spotlight and no one flocks to their conferences. But they pastor faithfully in circumstances often more difficult than larger congregations with their resources and staff. They join the vast majority of pastors down through the centuries who have served small congregations.

Never equate success with size! It is interesting to me that the vast majority of missionaries in our organization come from smaller churches. The larger the church the fewer people they send into full time ministry. Many smaller churches are far more missional than their larger counterparts who focus on programs and attractional ministry. It is very possible that smaller churches are better able to focus on life transformation because they are more relationally based. One can hide in a large church but not in a small or mid size church.

Living an integrated life and saying no to compartmentalization

One of the greatest challenges in life is to live an integrated life where our values, practices, spiritual commitments and convictions are the same in all realms of life. Often this is not the case and it is why many Christ followers seemingly follow one set of rules in the marketplace and another in the church and can excuse behaviors or practices at work that they know do not please God.

Stephen Green, in his book Good Values: Choosing a Better Life in Business puts it succinctly. 

“Compartmentalization -– dividing up life into different realms with different ends and subject to different rules –- is a besetting sin of human beings.

"Compartmentalization is a refuge from ambiguity; it enables us to simplify the rules by which we live in our different realms of life, and so avoid – if we are not careful – the moral and spiritual questions. One of the most obvious and commonplace manifestations of the tendency to compartmentalize is seeing our work life as being a neutral realm in which questions of value (other than shareholder value) or of rightness (other than what is lawful) or of wisdom (other than what is practical) need not arise. 

"But there are many other ways in which we compartmentalize our lives. Work, family, friends, society – these are different (though often partially overlapping) realms of life, and it is all too easy, in a thousand ways, to play to different rules in each of them. 

"These different realms of being also overlap with the inner realm of the self (though none of them completely): by what star does that inner self navigate? And would it even know when it is off course? Compartmentalization helps to shut such questions out"

Compartmentalization creates a divided self because it allows inconsistency within our own lives. A divided self is not a whole or healthy self for it is by definition at odds with itself. That dissonance creates issues of conscience in the short run and a dimmed conscience in the long run. Eventually the dissonance becomes normal and we are no longer sensitive to what is truly right and what is truly wrong.

It is easy to spot compartmentalization in the lives of others. It is harder to spot it in our own and is one of the reasons we need to surround ourselves with others who can and will challenge us to follow Jesus in all areas of life.

Compartmentalization is responsible for giving Jesus a bad name as those who watch us see that our espoused values are not lived out in our lives. One of the best things we can do is to identify a set of values that we believe reflect Jesus well and live them out in every sphere of life. No compartmentalization, no dissonance, just wholeness! 

How self defined are you?

A key component of good EQ is the ability to be “self defined.” A self defined individual is one who understands who they are, is comfortable with who they are and can clearly articulate their own positions in a way that does not force others to agree and does not demonize those who disagree.

It is the ability to say, “This is what I think, (and why), now tell me how you see it.” In doing this the leader has made his or her position clear along with their rationale and has opened the door for honest conversation that can hopefully lead to a shared understanding.

Central to being self defined is to do so in a way that allows dialogue to take place even with those who might strenuously disagree with us. Some leaders cannot do this. They can state their position but cannot stay connected relationally with those who disagreed with them – thus the conversation is over without any resolution.

The ability to have a position and stay connected with others who disagree is a key component to healthy relationships. It is usually in on-going dialogue that one comes to mutually acceptable conclusions as long as we are dealing with people who also have a level of EQ health. Discussions with those who lack EQ often go nowhere. Thus our ability to understand the EQ of those we are dealing with becomes a factor in how we deal with them.

Self definition requires leaders to think well before they state a position. But their flexibility and invitation for dialogue also leaves the door open to further discussion and modification of their views. This is why a non-defensive attitude on their part is so critical. If staff know that they can honestly push back without repercussions and know they will also be heard it is often possible to come to a more refined position that works for everyone.

Self definition is a powerful leadership tool because it goes to the values, convictions, attitudes and actions that a leader has and the more consistent these are the more security those who work for them have. They know what to expect, they know what the guiding principles and convictions are and they know that these are not going to change.

For instance, all of my staff know that when something really needs to get done I will say “Whatever it takes.” Part of my own self definition is the conviction that when it is the right thing to do I will always default to that principle. Therefore, they know that they have the permission to do the same when something critical needs to happen.

The more defining the leader is the more clarity staff have on how they operate within the organization or team. My convictions on partnerships, multiplication, empowerment and team, for instance are clearly understood and become guides to staff on how they operate. My own self definition as a leader is a secure foundation for those who work with me.

Leaders who lack such definition, and are unpredictable are difficult to work for because there is not an accurate compass for others to follow. This is the case with leaders whose idea of the day becomes their mantra until the next idea pops up. Unpredictable leaders are difficult if not impossible leaders to follow.

Being self defined also means that we can separate ourselves from the issues of others and not fall into the trap of enmeshment or triangulation in relationships. We take responsibility for the issues we have with others and seek to help others resolve what they need to resolve but we are able to separate ourselves from those issues and not become drawn into them.