the reluctant leader

Are We There Yet?

I've heard this quote a lot lately: “What got you here will not get you there.” It's the title of a book by Marshall Goldsmith. I read the cover, but not the book. 
 
If what got us here will not get us there, then we need to ask and answer the following 5 questions:
 
1. Where is here?
 
2. What got us here?

3. Is here a good place?
 
4. Where is there?
 
5. What will get us there?
 
Had a lively discussion with some Victory-Manila pastors this morning, answering these 5 questions.  Time well spent. Try it with your team.

Because of today's honest “round table” discussion, I think we will get there, together. And, we kinds figured out where there is.
 
What are your answers to the 5?

Ministry: It's Not Supposed to be so Complicated

Ministry can be complicated. But it's not supposed to be.

So many books, podcasts, blogs, tweets, seminars and conferences telling us what we should be doing to grow our church, change the world, serve the community, win the lost… Complicated.  

I specialize in making things simple.   Here’s a simple and biblical job description for a pastor (church leader):  

1. Equip all members to do ministry

2. Live a live that’s a godly example

3. Lead with the attitude of a servant

4. Feed the sheep (ie: teach the Word)  

That’s it. Live. Lead. Feed. Equip. As I said before, Leadership is not rocket science.  

How are you doing with these 4? Are you, like many leaders, spending way too much time doing everything but these?

Clarification for my OCD Readers

It seems my last blog - "Leadership is Not Rocket Science" - was not clear. In it I mentioned Paul Barker's "5 Foundations of Productive Teams" seminar (which I called a faith-man's version of Patrick Lencioni's "5 Dysfunctions of a Team" book) Then I listed the results of a Gallup poll describing the top 4 characteristics of the kind of leaders they want to follow.

According to Gallup, people want to follow leaders who... 

    1. Build Trust

    2. Show Compassion

    3. Provide Stability

    4. Create Hope

5 Dysfunctions. 4 leadership qualities. Ah, there lies the confusion. Some of you thought I meant to list the 5 dysfunctions, and left one off, when actually I was listing the 4 qualities of good leadership.

So, for those who need to see the list of 5, here they are, "The 5 Foundations of Productive Teams" 

1. TRUST - Team building starts with trust.

2. CONFLICT - Trust produces an atmosphere where people can voice disagreement, thus creating positive conflict.

3. COMMITMENT - Deeper commitment is the result of trust-based conflict.

4 ACCOUNTABILITY - Next to nothing gets done without accountability.

5. RESULTS - This is the bottom line, isn't it?

I hope that helps all my OCD readers who have been losing sleep over point #5 not being in my last blog. What do you think?

Leadership is Not Rocket Science

My friend, Paul Barker is in Manila for a couple of weeks working with our pastors and key admin leaders.
 
Yesterday Paul led a seminar he calls “The 5 Foundations of Productive Teams.” That’s a faith-man’s version of Patrick Lencioni’s “The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team.”
 
I think I like the faith version better than the dysfunctional version, because if we talk about all of our team dysfunctions, it is impossible to put them in only 5 categories.
 
Paul sited a Gallup poll of 10,000 followers about the kind of leader they want to follow. Here are the results, people want to follow leaders who…
 
1. Build Trust – it is easy to follow people we trust, difficult to follow those we don't trust
 
2. Show Compassion – after all, we are leading PEOPLE, not just organizations and departments
 
3. Provide Stability – random, unplanned and poorly communicated change makes organizations unstable
 
4. Create Hope – no matter how difficult current reality is, hope enables us to stay in the game
 
Leadership is not rocket science. If a leader simply does these 4 things, plenty of people will follow.
What do you think?

Coaching 101

Every Nation’s Yoda of church planting, Kevin York, is conducting a three-day “Coaching 101” seminar at our Asian Pastors Equipping Conference (APEC’09) in Singapore with 160 Asian leaders from 26 nations.
 
Here are some quick coaching quotes from Kevin:

1- Stats show that church-planters with a coach, build churches double the size of those without a coach in the first four years.

2- There are smart people everywhere who have all the answers, but the great need is for wisdom.

3- Smart people are known by their answers. Wise people are known by their questions.

4- Coaching is not about giving the right answers, but about asking the right questions.

5- Asking good questions forces people to think and come up with their own solutions, and it forces them to own those solutions.

6- People with all the answers are often frozen, indecisive and do nothing.

7- There were five frogs on a log. Four decided to jump off. How many were left? Five, because deciding and doing are two different things.

8- Coaching provides the accountability that helps put good decisions into action. Coaching gets the frog off the log.

9- Silence is NOT the same as listening.

10- Some silent people are not listening, but quietly plotting their response, ready to win the argument as soon as their opponent shuts up.

How to be Professional & Spiritual at the Same Time

This morning, I spoke to our Every Nation and Victory Admin and management teams during our two day skill development and team building retreat on top of a mountain in Antipolo. Message theme: “How to be Professional and Spiritual” at the same time.

Here are some summary statements from my talk:

- Working here is more than a job – it's a calling. Every day we deal with life and death matters, actually eternal life and eternal death. Therefore, we must be professional and spiritual people.

- We are committed to hiring only the BEST at every position in this organization. That’s why we hired YOU.

- Over the years we have had to release (fire) people who were very spiritual, but their professional skills did not keep pace with the growth of this organization. We have also released (fired) people who were at the top of their game professionally, but their spiritual life didn't honor God. We must continually grow both professionally and spiritually.

I talked about 3 areas of tension and conflict as we attempt to grow professionally and spiritually:

1. People vs. Policy
While policy, principles, process, facilities and systems are all valuable– people are more valuable. After all, Jesus did not shed His blood for our policies, principles, systems or facilities - he died for people. Our decisions must reflect the value of people.

2. The Whole vs. My Part
Twenty years ago, every staff member had the same job description: “whatever needs to be done, whenever in needs to be done, however long it takes – it is your job.” As we grew as an organization, we began to hire highly skilled specialists with specific areas of expertise and detailed job descriptions. The challenge is to keep the servant culture and the “whatever it takes” attitude in an age of focused specialists. It is easy to cover laziness and selfishness under the cloak of “that’s not in my job description” or “that’s not my department.”

3. Church vs. Work
Almost every member of our admin/management team is leading a church-based small group and many also serve as kid’s church volunteers, worship team members and ushers. What happens when your church’s morning prayer meeting causes you to be late for work? What if your pastor’s discipleship group, which includes you, has a time conflict with your office hours? When is it appropriate to do discipleship, crisis ministry or church volunteer work during office hours?

Painful but powerful discussion points. If you are leading a church or ministry, you will have to wrestle with these and other tough questions. Let me know how you deal with them.

Creating & Maintaining a Healthy Church Culture

In order to lead healthy churches, leaders must intentionally build the right culture. But too many of us spend all our time working on sermons, programs, budgets and facilities. Those are all important, but not as important as culture.  

Here’s the culture we try to build at Victory-Philippines:
    - the relational community of a spiritual family
    - the spiritual life of an international church movement
    - the professional excellence of a multi-national corporation

Being relational, spiritual and professional all at the same time is difficult, but vitally important for us to be all God wants us to be.

Spiritual Leaders for Sale

O.T. dude named Micah bought himself a Levite for “10 shekels and a shirt” and assumed that because he was connected to the “man of God” that the Lord would be good to him. (Judges 17:10-13)

Some of you are old enough to remember Reaganomics and the "trickle-down" economy. The current "man of God syndrome" with it's "trickle-down spirituality" is sorta the same. The basic idea is that you  connect with God by giving money to the man of God. This trickle-down theology appeals to the shallow, the ignorant and the lazy. 

All was well until Micah’s “man of God” got a better offer and followed the money. (Judges 18:19,20).

Modern “men of God” are often bought for less than 10 shekels and a shirt. But real leaders serve God, not man and not money.

May God give us a new generation of leaders who do not repeat the mistakes of the past, who are not for sale and who lead with humility and integrity.

*** this blog inspired by reading the Bible and listening to this sermon classic.

Church Leadership & Church Growth

I know it is not so popular these days to talk about church growth, but i've never really cared what was popular or trendy, so here's a post about the role of leadership in the growth of a local church.

1. The senior leader (the lead leader?) is the main reason a church grows or does not grow.

2. Don’t assume all growth barriers are spiritual and thus can be solved with more prayer and fasting. Many growth barriers are logistic, demographic, managerial, strategic, relational…

3. People skills grow a church to about 150. Ministry skills grow a church from about 150 to 800. Leadership skills grow it from 800 to 2000. But it takes a highly skilled functional team to grow beyond 2000. Only 10% of pastors in the world lead their churches beyond 200.

4. Ministry skills and leadership skills are easy to learn, if we are hungry and teachable and find the right mentors.

5. As long as there is one lost person in your community, your church needs to grow - even if growth is not the idea of the moment among the cool, relevant, missional, emerging, untucked shirt, gotee growing, high-lighted hair, podcasting, blogging, twitting, tofu-eating, latte-sipping, save the planet, Pria-driving, $500 hole in the jeans wearing, stay small, know-it-all religious pundits. If a church reaches people who don't know Jesus - like it or not - it will probably grow.

*** Japan pix posted here ***

Who are the VIP’s at Your Church?

Looking at the “Reserved for Pastor” signs blocking the best slots in most church parking lots, I often wonder who the real VIP’s are. Why do we treat “spiritual leaders” like rock stars?

Jesus seemed to value lost people and young people – and placed little value on religious titles and spiritual celebrities. He told us to leave the 99 and go after the lost 1, because the lost 1 matters.

I wish the Church would treat lost people like VIP’s, rather than creating and perpetuating a weird religious counter-culture of celebrity (“man-of-God”) worship.

I call this unhealthy church-crippling spiritual celebrity sub-culture the “man of God syndrome.” More on MOGS in an upcoming blog.

Other RL bogs on this topic here and here.  

(Same post on the "accidental missionary" site)