Thank you for making June an incredible month here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! It’s great staying connected with you through social media and hearing that these articles have been helpful. So, thank you for connecting with me through the content on this blog! You made these the top 5 Posts from this last month. If you missed out on any of them, here they are all in one place for your convenience!
#1 “7 Habits of Highly Ineffective Church Leaders”
It’s much easier to identify poor leadership in others than it is in yourself. We have a tendency to judge our leadership based on our intentions and the leadership of other based on the results.
An old Russian Proverb says it this way, “The eye cannot see the eye.”
Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to observe all kinds of different Church Leaders who are leading in different sizes and “flavors,” churches. No matter the size or the flavor of the church I’ve seen the following 7 habits come up over and over again. So in no particular order, here are 7 common bad habits I’ve seen in Church Leaders over the years:
#2 “10 Signs Your Church is Headed for Decline”
When I was young my Aunt purchased a brand new car. I didn’t have a car yet so even though it wasn’t red and it had 4 doors instead of 2 I thought it was really cool. And because she had a car and I didn’t she by default was cool too.
Everything was cool until she forgot to change the oil. Truth be told, she never changed the oil. From the day she drove the car off the lot to the day it died (which was much, much sooner than it should have), that car never experienced a single oil change. Routine maintenance wasn’t her strong suite. And most of us are just like her. We put off going to the doctor for our annual check-up, we postpone going to the dentist for our 6-month check up, and yes we put off routine maintenance on our automobiles.
We just keep going until it hurts enough that we are forced to stop and go in for a check up.
Unfortunately most church leadership teams operate the same way. They put off routine check ups and maintenance until it’s too late and decline starts to set in. What if there were early warning signs (flashing lights on the dashboard) that helped indicate that trouble was ahead? In my experience Coaching Church Leaders and Consulting with Churches across the country I’ve seen the following 10 indicators of an impending decline over and over again.
#3 “5 Common Hiring Mistakes that Churches Make”
Recruiting and hiring a new team member can be exciting! Hire the right person and the whole team benefits. When you invite the right person to join your team not only is there an infusion of new talent, but also new ideas, fresh eyes, and a new well of experiences to go to. One new hire can literally improve the performance of the entire team. On the other hand, hire the wrong person and the ministry at your church could be set back for years.
Churches are notorious for making well-intentioned bad hires. At most churches the hiring process usually goes wrong for one of the following 5 reasons.
#4 “Discovering the Leadership Culture at Your Church”
While many churches may have a list of Core Values that they’ve built, very few churches that I’ve come across have taken the time to do the hard work of defining and clearly articulating their Staff Values or Leadership Culture that they’re trying to build at their church.
Culture is tough to define. It’s the elusive, soft stuff in the organization that’s more on the art side than the science side of leadership. It takes hard work to articulate it. But it’s a must for any church that wants to actually be intentional about building a particular staff leadership culture. A clearly defined culture allows you to make decisions, hires, and take any number of other steps at a faster pace. After all as Peter Drucker famously said…
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
– Peter Drucker –
Interested in discovering the Staff Leadership Culture at your Church? Start here. Gather your Sr. Leadership Team together and spend some time wrestling with the following two questions and build some lists together.
#5 “Work Hard Give Your Best & Put Family First”
How do I balance family and ministry? It’s a conversation I’ve had over and over again as a church staff member. I’ve heard church staff express deep frustration and anxiety over this question. They want to give their best to their ministry calling and yet sometimes feel like they’re sacrificing their family to follow Jesus. But then again doesn’t following Jesus mean you take care of and lead your family well? When you’re on staff at a church it means working weekends and often times being gone multiple nights of the week at meetings when church members are available. Further, many church staff members feel like they’re on call 24/7 to meet the needs of church attenders. You can see how ministry staff members can quickly feel tension over the whole balancing work and family, especially young church staff members who are just starting out and trying to figure it out.
At Sun Valley Community Church (the church I have the privilege of serving at) we’ve defined our leadership culture with 7 clear distinctives. If you’re interested in learning more about them you can follow this link. One of them states:
Photo Credit: justin fain via Compfight cc
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