Tag: leadership

Leading a Program Ministry Without Losing Your Mind – Part 1

Posted on by Rich
Stop The Insanity!

Does it seem like preparation for a weekly ministry program always runs down to the wire? Is it hard to delegate prep work to volunteers so it ends up back on your plate on day of your program? Do you somehow believe that ministry is improved through chaos? Do you believe that God somehow rewards you for pulling it together in the eleventh hour?

I ran across this verse a few months ago, and it has become one of my new favorites. It talks about wisdom as applied to how we do work.

Ecclesiastes 10:10 NET

10 If an iron axhead is blunt and a workman does not sharpen its edge, he must exert a great deal of effort;
so wisdom has the advantage of giving success.

In Solomon’s day, the axe was a universal tool, used for many tasks that involved cutting and building. If I wanted to apply this verse to how we work in ministry, the axe would be the ministry team. So this series is mostly about things that we can do to “sharpen” our ministry to enable our team’s effectiveness.

Continue reading “Leading a Program Ministry Without Losing Your Mind – Part 1” →

Busy Work

Posted on by Rich

Some times we just assume things. Like whether something “on our list” really needs to be done. Some times tasks turn in to habits – and we have to ask ourselves whether the original reason we started doing “it” is still viable. It really is a question of value. How much value do I get from doing the task, and how much does it cost me to do it?

Here are some ideas to help you think about busywork in life, career and ministry… Continue reading “Busy Work” →

Authority and Church

Posted on by Rich

In my last post, I said “As I read my bible, apostolic authority ended when the full canon of scripture was complete”.  My friend Adam called me out on that – saying that he would like to see where I read that.  (Adam, these are my thoughts, more or less informed by my own bible study, however flawed, and my observations of “church”)

I am neither a theologian, nor a studied church historian.  I am just a regular Christian guy trying to parse this world through the lens afforded by the Bible.  With that disclaimer, here are my thoughts: Continue reading “Authority and Church” →

Solo Pastorates Are More Challenging Than Ever

Posted on by Rich

In a conversation with and old friend, discussing the challenges of solo pastorate churches… Years ago, before the advent of the mega-church or the corporate church, I seem to remember seminarians being placed in small pastorates, Solo pastorate churches in established communities.  I was newly saved or not saved yet, so did not understand the dynamics of ministry and expectation.

Perhaps expectations were lower then.  Perhaps the propensity of member or attenders to spectate, rather than participate were lower.  Perhaps we had more common cultural norms and value systems.  I don’t know but I think the challenges of the solo pastorate church were less then.

When I reflect on it now, the challenges of a small urban or suburban congregation are many, and as a much older person, I struggle to imagine a recent seminary graduate having the capacity to lead in this situation without burning himself out.

Here are things that have changed over the last 30-40 years that have made this more (rather than less) challenging: Continue reading “Solo Pastorates Are More Challenging Than Ever” →

Leadership Activities – Part II

Posted on by Rich

OK – I promised that I would give some how-to on leadership activities.

1) Cast Vision or Mission (at some level) for the future activities

Vision or mission can start with one person, but often things seem so obvious to that person (who had or received the vision) that it takes other leaders questioning how things work or how things happen to really flesh it out. When you share your vision, you want it to be a relatively complete and comprehensible story. Collaborating with other leaders is a great way to get feedback.

Not suggesting that the vision itself should change, but we need to become better at communication. The communicator is responsible for the content. If you send but nobody receives – that is not communication – that is broadcasting. If you are speaking English but your audience is Spanish speakers – is that going to work? How about if you are speaking martian? Or theological jargon?

Preachers can spend years in seminary developing their ability to communicate biblical truth. Yet when communicating about other things, they don’t practice with the same level or they delegate to other leaders. Leaders should collaborate around the content and communication of vision so that
a) all (leaders) are invested in the vision (there is unity).
b) the communication to the larger community is well thought out and aimed at the target audience.
c) all are able to answer questions and explain the meaning of the vision from the perspective of their role. Continue reading “Leadership Activities – Part II” →

Developing Organizational Leaders

Posted on by Rich

In a previous post, I wrote about developing disciplers and shepherds, which accounts for much of the leadership that most churches need. In this post, I turn my attention to describing organizational leaders – and how we can develop them from our own congregation:

Exploring the start of the problem

Lets take as a starting point, that most pastors have no formal training in organizational leadership. Some of them, however, are great organizational leaders. In my conversations with leaders of churches, I have discovered that most learn to lead and manage organizationally by doing. When they got their first pastorate, it came with the expectation that they would be the leader, the executive, the decision maker, the planner, the organizer, the coordinator. Most learned by trial and error. Continue reading “Developing Organizational Leaders” →

Leadership Activities

Posted on by Rich

As I said in the initial post in this series on developing leaders, organizational leaders differ from other leaders in ministry because of the activities that they are responsible for.

What do organizational leaders do?

1) cast vision or mission (at some level) for the future activities
2) establish goals
3) create plans
4) recruit and develop staff (including leaders)
5) encourage/influence others to invest (mentally/emotionally) in the vision/mission
6) execute plans
7) achieve goals
8) develop other leaders Continue reading “Leadership Activities” →

Leaders or Board Members?

Posted on by Rich

I want to write this post to reflect that ministries require leaders to accept different roles and responsibilities, and people gravitate toward one set or type. God has gifted and talented each of us with a somewhat unique set of qualities and strengths that makes some roles easier and others harder. While there is significant overlap between major role groups, passion is often the determining factor of this gravitation. Continue reading “Leaders or Board Members?” →

Developing Leaders

Posted on by Rich

Leaders are different animals. Don’t have leaders if you don’t want to be lead.

Some people lead reluctantly, they are content to be do-ers, but God thrusts them into leadership. Others are born leaders, God has baked leadership into their personality. Still others can be leaders when asked, and can let others lead and be content being contributors.

So how do you develop leaders? What does that mean? What do you mean by a leader? Continue reading “Developing Leaders” →

Intentions and Disappointments

Posted on by Rich

Leaders are judged based on certain results of their leadership. Most frequently, they are judged based on whether or not their results matched their commitments. Most of the time, I think this is reasonable. I think leaders are also frequently judged based on whether their results matched their intentions. And this I think is unreasonable if the leader did a good job of articulating commitments.

The problem is that when a leader’s results don’t match commitments or intentions, people get disappointed. Continue reading “Intentions and Disappointments” →