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4 Ways God Shapes Us For Mission

“Dead orthodoxy cannot fuel a movement. We need a living theology.”

What powerful words on the opening pages of Chapter 5 – Missional Theology in JR Woodward and Dan White Jr.’s latest book, The Church as Movement: Starting and Sustaining Missional-Incarnational Communities. I was privileged to speak into the development of this book at a few different levels, first as an anonymous reader, and second over my kitchen table with JR. Here’s both a summary and my wholehearted endorsement as quoted from the first pages of this book:

Practitioner led, biblically based, and theologically sound. In this book, JR and Dan have been able to navigate the line between missiology and strategy by presenting a team guide for discipleship and church planting. So buy this book, gather your friends together, and learn how to start a movement that will change your city!

This article is Part 5 of a Blog Tour for this book. You can look up #churchasmovement for links to the other articles, as well as go to their website for additional resources and downloadables, churchasmovement.com.

There are four ways that God shapes us for His mission.

That pronoun, His, is key because the mission that we are on is ultimately not ours or about us. Mission is not what we can do, it’s what God is doing in this world and how we can join Him! The South African Missiologist, David Bosch, in his epic primer on all things missional, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, says this about the mission of God, or missio Dei, as he refers to it.

Missio Dei has helped to articulate the conviction that neither the church nor any other human agent can ever be considered the author or bearer of mission. Mission is, primarily and ultimately, the work of the Triune God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, for the sake of the world, a ministry in which the church is privileged to participate. Mission has its origin in the heart of God. God is a fountain of sending love. This is the deepest source of mission.

So if this is ultimately God’s mission and not ours, how can we participate in it? How does God get us ready for it? And how does this concept shape the way we need to approach ministry and mission? Here are four ways that God shapes us for mission, as outlined in Chapter 5 of The Church as Movement. I’ve built upon their ideas here.

1. He Initiates

Instead of strategizing on how your church can make the biggest missional bang in your city, the better way to join God in His mission is to first grow in your listening and noticing skills.

Join God in His mission by becoming better at listening and noticing.
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You can do this by answering questions like,

Where is God already working amongst the people that He has sent me to?
Are there any other ministries doing the work that I feel God is calling me to join into?
If so, how can I develop a kingdom partnership with them in that?

God has already initiated mission in your neighborhood, since He is missionary in His very nature. So join Him in that kingdom work.

2. He Invites

God has not merely called you to live where you live, work where you work, and play where you play for your own comfort and sake. He is inviting you to be His fragrance, His salt, and His light wherever you go. So what does it look like for you to proclaim and live out the love of Christ? How about His peace, justice, compassion, and forgiveness? How can you be a part of the work of reconciliation that God wants to do in your neighborhood?

God is at work and He is inviting you into it.

3. He Inhabits

Mission is equally about staying as it is about going out. So what are your next steps to better root yourself in your neighborhood? How can you move from posting pictures of your Bible and coffee on Facebook to actually sharing a cup of coffee over the Scriptures with your neighbors? “Incarnation is about inhabiting the place where God has called us to live, to engage in grounded missional practices in the concrete realities of life.” (124) God has and is inhabiting your neighborhood and He wants you to be a part of it.

Mission is equally about staying as it is about going out.
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4. He Inspires

Joining God in His mission is both exhilarating and taxing. Through the good and the bad, God is there and He is using those experiences not only to call others to Himself, but also to shape you into His image. So don’t be discouraged. Joining God in His mission is the most exciting and meaningful adventure in life, but here’s the thing. When God calls you into His mission, it doesn’t necessarily mean that He is going to uproot you. He might, but it’s not a given.

So with heart open wide, eyes on Christ, and feet ready to move, let’s together be shaped for God’s mission so that we can participate in His kingdom coming and His will being done here on earth as it is in heaven.

Next Steps:

Pick up a copy of The Church as Movement: Starting and Sustaining Missional-Incarnational Communities to learn more about Missional Theology, as well as practicies to engage on mission wherever you are
Read the collection of blogs on this blog tour, #churchasmovement
Download handouts and resources from this book at churchasmovement.com
Start the first three sessions for free on the NewChurches.com Missional Church Multiplication course that I co-developed with the authors and the V3 Movement.

Campus Pastor Skill #3: How to Lead Down

Leadership is often seen as leading those you have responsibility over—leading down. As we saw in Campus Pastor Skill #2, and as we’ll see in Campus Pastor Skill #4, leadership is more than just leading downwards.

But for the campus pastor, leading your leaders, staff, and your campus are the three broad areas that you need to pay attention to.

Let’s take a look at each of these areas:

1. Lead your leaders

In the NewChurches.com Q&A Podcast that I host with Ed Stetzer and Todd Adkins, we often tell pastors that there are two groups of people they always need to prioritize and spend the majority of their time with: leaders and the lost.

If you don’t take control of your schedule, and prioritize spending time with leaders and the lost, then others will grab hold of it and do it for you. There’s always more to do than we have time for. There’s always a crisis going on, someone getting married, another funeral to lead, and more opportunities to play golf than we have time for, so take control of your schedule and prioritize leaders and the lost.

If you don’t take control of your schedule, others will do it for you.
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No, I’m not talking about neglecting your congregation or forsaking your pastoral responsibilities to shepherd your congregation. In fact, it’s a healthy thing to occasionally do visitations with shut-ins, hospital visits, weddings, and funerals, but do not make this your priority!

You are called to be an EQUIPPER of those who will do the work of ministry, rather than the DOER of the ministry that impresses those who are watching.

The problem with this is that it feels good to DO ministry, doesn’t it? It feels good to disciple, to pray for others, to be wanted, needed, and respected, but don’t give into this!

Your real DOING is actually the task of EQUIPPING others who will DO the work of ministry.

When you do this, you will see the promises in Ephesians 4:11-16 come alive! Unity in your church. Maturity in Christ. Discernment. Love. Truth.

So let’s heed the advice that Jethro gave Moses in Exodus 18 and start with the fact that “You can’t do it alone.” Instead, you need to raise up leaders and teams who will do the majority of the pastoral care. You need to do the same with your children’s ministry, students, community groups, and guest services. Fortunately, being a campus pastor, you don’t need to worry as much about finances, operations, marketing, and HR since those typically fall under central services. You do need to know how to work with them though! See the previous article for tips on how to do that.

Leadership. You can’t do it alone.
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So take a piece of paper out and list out everything that you DO. In fact, list out all the hats that you’re wearing, and commit this next year to pray for, develop, train, and equip faithful volunteers who will take those hats from you and lead those areas. You are not shirking your responsibility, you are actually fulfilling it when you do this.

Now when you give one of your roles or responsibilities to someone else, don’t dump it on them! Instead, equip them using the gradual release of responsibility of model. Here’s my version of it tweaked for pastoral ministry.

Intentional Ministry – This is when you are doing the work of ministry and your future leader is watching you. I do, you watch.
Guided Ministry – This is when you are still doing the work of ministry, but you are guiding them through the steps so that they know how to do it themselves. I do, you help.
Collaborative Ministry – This is when you are now doing the work of ministry together, but you are letting them take charge. You are there to help, when needed. You do, I help.
Equipped Ministry – This is when you have fully equipped the leader and they are now leading the ministry. You are there to watch, but you have essentially moved onto repeating this same process with another future leader. You do, I watch.

If you repeat this process over and over again, then you will eventually have a team of ministry leaders that you can together lead the campus with.

2. Lead your staff

Whether small or large, multisite churches often have a staff team. Your team might be paid, volunteer, or a mix of the two, but the fact is you have a team. How do you view them? Do you see them as hirelings there to do what you say? Or are they often coming up to you with new ideas? How often do you play the veto card? Do you need to motivate them forward, or hold them back?

Ken Blanchard is most famously known for his Situational Leadership model as illustrated in the diagram below and in his book, Leadership and the One Minute Manager. He describes four different styles of leadership that you can use with those you manage and lead. However, the important thing here is movement. If one of your team members is in the S1 quadrant and you find yourself telling them exactly what they need to do, every step along the way, don’t feel like you made a bad hire and that they’re going to be stuck there for the rest of their life.

As you and your team member get to know one another, grow in trust, and good work is produced, then your relationship with them will move to the S2 quadrant where they will begin to pull a bit of their own weight, though you will still be giving them detailed instructions.

If performance improves and trust continues to increase, then the relationship could move to either S3 or eventually the S4 quadrant. However, don’t expect a time where all of your team members will be S4 because there will always be staff turn-over in the life of a church.

Always be sure to fight for your team!
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In addition, be sure to fight for your team. Defend them, care for them, and never leave them out to dry when you are with your peers or with their peers at other campuses. Give your team members the benefit of the doubt until they prove that they don’t deserve it. If you feel like you can’t trust one of your staff members for one reason or another, then bring them back to the S1 quadrant and work toward building that trust again. If, the issues that led to mistrust cannot be solved, then let them go and find another person for your team.

Trust is the foundation of every healthy team, so don’t think that you can build yours without it.

3. Lead your campus

Here are a few questions to help you reflect on how you’re doing leading your campus:

Does your campus see you as their leader and pastor? Or do they see you as a glorified emcee?
When you have a campus Sunday, where you cast local vision specific to your campus and neighborhood, does your attendance drop, or does it stay consistent?
Do you advertise and participate in events happening at other campuses?
Do you feel ownership over your campus?
Do you feel personal responsibility over both the problems and the success stories at your campus?

The fact is, as the campus pastor, you represent the church to everyone who comes to your campus. So if you are not on the same page with the lead pastor, executive pastor, central services staff, or a fellow campus pastor, then it’s the unity of the church that suffers, not your ego.

The campus pastor represents the church to everyone who comes to the campus.
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Bury your ego and submit to the fact that almost every leader, no matter how high up you go, still needs to learn how to be under authority (Matthew 8:9). Even when you are a lead pastor, you still need to answer to your board, elders, or denomination. If you don’t have anyone you ever answer to, then you’re in a dangerous position, and ripe for spiritual attack and mayhem.

Be accountable and be under authority—for your sake, for your family’s sake, for your church’s sake, and for the sake of the Church.

When there are global discipleship initiatives or events being held at one of the larger campuses, or the main one, don’t be afraid that the members of your campus might get lured away by the big shiny lights. They’ve chosen your campus for a reason, so don’t worry. And don’t try to unnecessarily host those seminars or events yourself, while waving the flag of contextualization—especially when the leadership has already decided that they were going to be global events! Essentially, don’t deprive your campus from the benefits that come with being a campus in a multisite church.

In the same way, be a unique campus to your neighborhood!

Be strategic and opportunistic when it comes to being salt and light in your neighborhood. Plan together with the other campuses as to how you’ll strategically minister to and have outreach initiatives across the city. Have standards for how you’ll evaluate partnerships as well. But at the same time, be open to the move of the Holy Spirit when an organic opportunity comes up to share the gospel and meet a local need around your campus.

Join me next time as I address Campus Pastor Skill #4: How to Lead Up.

Be sure to check out Campus Pastor Skill #1: How to Close a Service, and Campus Pastor Skill #2: How to Lead Across. I’ve been receiving great responses on these and have already heard of churches beginning to use them.

Be strategic and opportunistic when it comes to being salt and light in your neighborhood.
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Campus Pastor Skill #2: How to Lead Across

Campus pastors are leaders.

First and foremost, campus pastors need to start by leading themselves well so that they do not disqualify themselves for ministry. Putting yourself up against 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 on a regular basis is a healthy exercise. Reading books like Paul David Tripp’s Dangerous Calling: Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastoral Ministry, John Piper’s Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry, and Ruth Haley Barton’s Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry are necessary to keep our hearts pure, our motives clean, and our skills sharp.

Campus pastors also need to learn how to lead across—the topic of today’s article—as well as down and up, which are the topics of future articles in the coming weeks. If you missed it, take a moment to read the first article in this mini-series on Campus Pastor Skills, “How to Close a Service.”

So I like I said earlier, campus pastors are leaders. They are leaders because they need to learn how to lead laterally. They need to learn how to lead those they don’t have any formal authority over. They need to learn the basic skills of influence. Well, actually, let me correct myself and be crystal clear. Campus pastors don’t need to learn how to lead laterally, but the best ones know how to. So if you want to excel at this role that God has called you into, take a look at the following three environments and relationships that you can do this in.

Campus pastors don’t need to learn how to lead laterally, but the best ones know how to.
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1. Lead fellow campus pastors

Before you take out your job description, read through it, and tell me that this is not your responsibility, stick with me for a bit. Place yourself in one of your other campus pastor’s shoes. If you were struggling with meeting a few metrics, like baptisms, offering, and newcomer assimilation, wouldn’t you rather get some on-the-go coaching from one of your peers, rather than from your supervisor?

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying to be dishonest with your supervisor. In fact, you might have an excellent relationship with him or her. But, before these issues ever become an official issue, the best leaders are constantly tweaking and problem solving, which would include getting on-the-go coaching from others. Click here to read an article that I wrote on Two Ear Active Listening.

Here’s another example. Let’s say a fellow campus pastor isn’t closing their service as they ought to. What do you think would be a better scenario for them? The two of you sharing best practices on how to close services over a coffee, where you could peer coach each other? Or, church members complaining, and better yet, leaving their campus for another, and then this eventually being escalated to the campus pastor’s supervisor after it’s too late?

In this case, I believe it’s the role of the other campus pastors to coach, guide, and teach that campus pastor the more effective way before it’s too late. No, this is not an intervention, and for gods sake, don’t gang up on the poor soul. Instead, share best practices and peer coach one another.

The BEST campus pastors will notice and lead across, rather than turning a blind eye.
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In addition, let’s say a fellow campus pastor is spending the majority of their week—every week—addressing pastoral care issues, rather than with leaders and the lost. Before this becomes an issue of “performance” and not meeting whatever metrics your church has determined for their campuses, I believe it’s the responsibility of other campus pastors to speak up and help. Once again, share best practices for time management with one another, or go to a conference together. You could even try a learning exercise like shadowing one another to see what you can learn from one another.

While these two issues might formally be the responsibility of the campus pastor’s supervisor, the BEST campus pastors will notice and lead across, rather than turning a blind eye and saying, “It’s not my responsibility!” When the best campus pastors see something, they do something—especially when it comes to their peers.

2. Lead peers at central services

One of the benefits of a multisite or multi-congregational model is central services, or shared services, as some like to call it. Typically, finance, operations, HR, communications, and marketing are core. If your multisite church is a bit larger, then you might also have full-time “global” staff that lead evangelism, discipleship, and ministry programming for all campuses. If your church has fewer campuses, then you might have a few individuals who are wearing dual hats where a portion of their job is dedicated to a campus, and the other portion is dedicated to all campuses, or central services.

When it comes to leading peers at central services, I like to divide them into two camps: administrative and ministry staff. This is because the way that you lead both are nuanced differently.

The chip system is the best way to lead administrative central services staff that you don’t have any formal authority over. These staff have their plates full and need to serve the entire church. In their schedule, they will have things that they are doing for you on a regular basis. For example, processing your expense reports, giving you quarterly budget statements, taking care of your facilities, providing you with posters and graphics, etc.

However, there will come a time when you need to lean on them for an extra request, or an urgent one because you forgot to do something. For example, you might need a new A-Frame sign for your campus within the week, even though the regular process to get one takes a month. Or, you might have forgotten to get your numbers in on time, so your campus specific metrics report won’t be ready in time for your next meeting with your supervisor.

In anticipation of these moments, you need to build up chips in your pocket that you can later cash in when the time comes. In other words, spend time in advance building up credibility, relationship, and rapport with them (chips) so that when the time comes, you have chips in your pocket that you can cash in.

Now hear me on this one. Don’t just be friendly so that you can ask someone for a favor. That’s being manipulative and most people can see right through it. Instead, genuinely serve the administrative central services staff as Jesus would. Treat them like your boss, and love them the way Jesus does. If that’s your focus, the chips will inevitably come, and you will grow in influence.

When it comes to leading peer ministry staff at central services, the above example is also a good place to start. The only thing that I would add is to regularly schedule a community of practice with them. In other words, when you meet with the global staff member in charge of discipleship, ask them what they see is and isn’t working at each of the campuses and around the country. Do the same with others.

By virtue of asking someone else a question, you are showing them respect and demonstrating that you appreciate their input and leadership. The more you do this, the more your credibility grows, and at the same time, so does your ability to lead them when the moment comes.

3. Lead staff at other campuses

Lastly, the BEST campus pastors not only lead their fellow campus pastors and peers at central services, but they also lead staff at other campuses. This is not downward leadership since you don’t have any formal authority over them. Nor is this unnecessary, since you probably already have a lot on your plate. More than anything, this is a strategic move.

Don’t just lead those you are formally responsible for.
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Let me explain.

Oftentimes, your staff is so busy with what they need to do, especially if they’re part time, that it’s hard for them to feel connected to central and the other campuses. In fact, you are probably the most connected since you have regular meetings with the other campus pastors and see what’s going on at a high level. You’re in meetings with staff from other campuses much more than your staff are.

As a result, let’s say you connect with the worship leader or children’s minister from one of the other campuses in the hallway, or over coffee. As you develop a relationship with them, and learn how they are doing ministry uniquely at their campus, you’re actually exemplifying collaboration to your staff. These are stories that you can share with your team in one of your meetings, or during a one-on-one. Oftentimes, actions speak louder than words, so doing something like this once in a while might have a greater impact than a simple task item, like go and collaborate with your peer children’s director at that other campus.

Be sure to communicate that you’re doing this with the campus pastor over them, so that it doesn’t seem like you’re trying to steal them away to your campus. In fact, do this together with another campus pastor where you are both learning from each other’s staff. Then, meet together and debrief.

Join me next time as I address Campus Pastor Skill #3 – How to Lead Down.

Campus Pastor Skill #1: How to Close a Service

Campus pastors are not highly paid emcees or volunteer coordinators as I outlined in this previous article.

Campus pastors play a critical role in the life of a multisite church. They are the vision carriers for their campus, the equipper of the equippers, the pastor of that community, and the unifying ligament to the other campuses and the broader church.

Typically, campus pastors don’t preach, unless they are also a part of the teaching team. As a result, the preaching either comes via video from the main campus, or the teaching team will prepare the sermon together and each preach it live at their respective campuses.

I’ve been a teaching pastor in both models, and they each have their respective positives and negatives. In any case, in both models, someone needs to close out the service. And my conviction is that it needs to be the campus pastor. This is one of the primary public ways that the campus pastor can shepherd their campus. Yes, obviously this will happen through leadership development environments, coffee, and ministry done together, but as a regular and ongoing rhythm, the campus pastor needs to close out the service.

As a regular and ongoing rhythm, the campus pastor needs to close out the service
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I’ve seen campus pastors do this well and I’ve also seen them do it poorly. Check out this chart I developed.

This may seem pretty straightforward, but you’d be surprised at how difficult it is to stick to the positive ways to close out a service.

I know this because I’ve often done the latter when serving as a campus pastor—especially when I forgot to share an announcement earlier in the service, or needed to reemphasize a programming issue.

As a campus pastor, if you have closed out the service well by contextualizing the message to your campus, then leave any last announcement to the very end of the service, after your prayer! This is because once you finish praying, you often have the opportunity to share one more thing while people are beginning to leave. Don’t make this too long, otherwise, the positive impact of your closing will wane.

An Example…

I’m blessed to serve as a Teaching Pastor at The Fellowship, alongside two great campus pastors: Len Taylor and Scott Matthews. While being different in personality, leadership style, and demeanor, I’m so encouraged to tag team in ministry with them. There is no one perfect way to close out a service because every campus pastor needs to be true to their unique personality and leadership style. There is, however, a wrong way to close out a service—and that’s to just copy someone else and try to be someone you aren’t.

Earlier this year, I preached a message on prayer at the Two Rivers Campus of my church. Check out this video of Scott Matthews, the campus pastor, closing out this service by:

Shepherding the church
Sharing how it impacted him
Reiterating some important points
Celebrating ministry wins and creating a sense momentum
And offering next steps

Join me next time as I share Campus Pastor Skill #2: How to Lead Across.

The post Campus Pastor Skill #1: How to Close a Service appeared first on Daniel Im.

Campus Pastor Skill #1: How to Close a Service

Campus pastors are not highly paid emcees or volunteer coordinators as I outlined in this previous article.

Campus pastors play a critical role in the life of a multisite church. They are the vision carriers for their campus, the equipper of the equippers, the pastor of that community, and the unifying ligament to the other campuses and the broader church.

Typically, campus pastors don’t preach, unless they are also a part of the teaching team. As a result, the preaching either comes via video from the main campus, or the teaching team will prepare the sermon together and each preach it live at their respective campuses.

I’ve been a teaching pastor in both models, and they each have their respective positives and negatives. In any case, in both models, someone needs to close out the service. And my conviction is that it needs to be the campus pastor. This is one of the primary public ways that the campus pastor can shepherd their campus. Yes, obviously this will happen through leadership development environments, coffee, and ministry done together, but as a regular and ongoing rhythm, the campus pastor needs to close out the service.

As a regular and ongoing rhythm, the campus pastor needs to close out the service
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I’ve seen campus pastors do this well and I’ve also seen them do it poorly. Check out this chart I developed.

This may seem pretty straightforward, but you’d be surprised at how difficult it is to stick to the positive ways to close out a service.

I know this because I’ve often done the latter when serving as a campus pastor—especially when I forgot to share an announcement earlier in the service, or needed to reemphasize a programming issue.

As a campus pastor, if you have closed out the service well by contextualizing the message to your campus, then leave any last announcement to the very end of the service, after your prayer! This is because once you finish praying, you often have the opportunity to share one more thing while people are beginning to leave. Don’t make this too long, otherwise, the positive impact of your closing will wane.

An Example…

I’m blessed to serve as a Teaching Pastor at The Fellowship, alongside two great campus pastors: Len Taylor and Scott Matthews. While being different in personality, leadership style, and demeanor, I’m so encouraged to tag team in ministry with them. There is no one perfect way to close out a service because every campus pastor needs to be true to their unique personality and leadership style. There is, however, a wrong way to close out a service—and that’s to just copy someone else and try to be someone you aren’t.

Earlier this year, I preached a message on prayer at the Two Rivers Campus of my church. Check out this video of Scott Matthews, the campus pastor, closing out this service by:

Shepherding the church
Sharing how it impacted him
Reiterating some important points
Celebrating ministry wins and creating a sense momentum
And offering next steps

Join me next time as I share Campus Pastor Skill #2: How to Lead Across.

Stop Getting Sidetracked by the Urgent

Take a look at the agenda and minutes of one of your recent leadership team meetings:

What percentage of the meeting incorporates administrative or operational functions and what percentage focuses on high-level strategic issues?
Which items will significantly help advance mission?
Is there a way to delegate some or all of these operational issues to another team? If so, how? [1]

These questions, as outlined in Shelley Trebesch’s Made To Flourish: Beyond Quick Fixes to a Thriving Organization, are intended to help you diagnose a common mistake that many organizations make: allowing the urgent to overtake the strategic. 

***Be sure to enter the giveaway to win a free copy of this book at the bottom of this post**

Oftentimes, in meetings, it’s easier to brainstorm ways to solve the immediate parking issues, rather than plot out the church’s long-term strategy for city impact. Or, it’s easier to talk about ways to increase generosity and funding to meet this month’s budget, rather than thinking about how to move your church towards self-sustainability once the external funding runs out. The fact is, unless you consciously take steps to do otherwise, the urgent will always trump the strategic in your meetings.

How did we get to this place? Why is this the case?

Well, here is what typically happens in a growing church or organization. Let’s take a new church as an example. You start with the leader. As the church grows and you develop leaders to head up the different ministry departments, you begin having meetings with them. This team essentially becomes your leadership team because they are the ones in charge of getting things done in those areas. So right away, your leadership team is representative. While you might try to talk strategy in your meetings, the fact is, they weren’t recruited into their positions because they were good at strategy—you recruited them because they were responsible and knew how to get things done. Or, even better, you recruited them because they were warm bodies and had a lot of free time…okay, also because they love Jesus. No wonder the topic of your meetings always returns to logistics and operational matters—this is why they joined the team in the first place!

So how can you change the course and stop getting sidetracked by the urgent, so that you can focus on strategic issues?

Trebesch, in her book, Made to Flourish, suggests a simple, yet profound solution—it’s to separate out strategy from operations. Here is what she says,

Operational concerns have a tendency to become urgent and time consuming and then take precedence over strategic issues, such as creative envisioning and planning for the future, program evaluation, and considering of new opportunities. It is easy for leadership teams to spend most of their time discussing money and what color to paint the office rather than doing the high-level analysis for the vision to be accomplished. [2]

She is not saying that operational issues are unimportant or inconsequential to the vision of your church or organization. She is simply saying that they belong in separate meetings from strategic conversations. You can even systematize many of your operational issues as well, so that they inform your strategy, rather than dictate it.

For example, if the church needs a new water heater or additional parking spaces, those issues can be delegated to their respective operational teams. In those teams, they can discuss and debate the pros and cons, think through possible solutions, and then write up a one page recommendation that goes to the strategic lead team for approval. Perhaps the leader from one of those teams could join the last 20 minutes of the strategic leadership team meeting to talk through the proposal, answer any questions, and wrestle through the strategic implications of this operational matter before a decision is made. This way, the strategic leadership team stays in touch and remains connected with the respective operational teams, without having to sidetrack their meetings with non-strategic issues.

A few other alternatives that Trebesch suggests are:

Form two leadership teams: one focused on mission and strategy, and the other one focused on operations. In this model, you can have several people belong to both teams, and also hold a joint meeting once per quarter.
Have one leadership team with both types of leaders, operational and strategic. In this model, there needs to be discipline to ensure that meetings will either be focused on operations or strategic matters. Both issues would not be tackled in the same meeting. If operations is running smoothly, the team could focus on these types of issues once a month, while devoting the majority of their time to strategic issues.

Operations should inform strategy, not dictate it.
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Practical tips like this one to help your church or organization begin flourishing are all throughout Shelley Trebesch’s book, Made to Flourish. Pick up your copy here.

I’m also giving away two copies of her book! Click the button for a chance to win.

Enter to Win

Footnotes:

[1] Shelley Trebesch, Made To Flourish: Beyond Quick Fixes to a Thriving Organization (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2015), 133.

[2] Ibid.

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David Isn’t a Role Model

Not everyone in the Bible is a role model. For example, who looks at Goliath and says, “I sure want to be like him when I grow up!”

However, how many times do we look up to David and try to emulate our lives after his? After all, he was the King of Israel, the greatest poet of all time, and the author of the psalms–including the famous Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…”

Now there are many honorable things in David’s life that we can learn from, but unfortunately, he doesn’t teach us morality. He’s the one who committed adultery, killed a man to cover up his tracks, and lied to get his way.

The fact is, David doesn’t teach us morality, he teaches us how to be human.

He teaches us how to be real and he teaches us how to have a close, intimate, and living relationship with our Lord God.

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Leadership Development According to Dietrich Bonhoeffer

*My post here was originally published on July 12, 2016 in Christianity Today.

Does your church have an intentional development plan to disciple and deploy believers to live out the Great Commission? Are you providing strategic pathways and opportunities for your congregation to participate in church planting so that they can be a part of the Kingdom of God invading into every crevice of society both locally and globally? Or, does this happen haphazardly when someone approaches you and they say that they feel called to ministry?

Jesus said to His disciples, “The harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.” (Matthew 9:37-38 HCSB)

All Are Called

When I look at those verses, I see them as a call to pray for more harvest workers. But as a pastor and as a church leader, I also see them as a call to disciple my congregation into being harvest workers for the harvest that exists around them both locally and globally.

As a result, while a once-a-year sermon that challenges your congregation to consider full-time ministry may be helpful, it can actually create more harm than good. This sort of sermon unintentionally creates a culture that says some are called and others are not. But the reality is that all believers have the same primary calling—to go and make disciples of all nations. What we do to earn money is a secondary issue, not a primary one!

Instead of merely hoping that your preaching will stir some to see their primary vocation and calling as being harvest workers, what if you actually created intentional environments and training opportunities to call people into this reality? What if everyone in your church saw their primary vocation as being a harvest worker, where some would get a paycheck from the church if their role was to be an equipper of others (Ephesians 4:11-13), and others would get their paycheck from an employer, while serving passionately on the worship team, children’s ministry, or leading a small group? Then we would definitely see more churches get planted.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In Eric Metaxas’ epic biography of the pastor, martyr, prophet, and spy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, we read about the ways that Bonhoeffer trained people for the call of ministry. Although, as the first head of the seminary in the Confessing Church, he was focusing on training individuals for full-time pastorates, there is much that we can glean from his methods that relate to our discussion at hand—training all people to embrace their first and foremost vocation as a harvest worker.

Before we get to those points, here’s a bit of background to understand why Bonhoeffer was starting a new seminary. The main reason Bonhoeffer moved back to Berlin to run the Confessing Church seminary was due to the fact that German Church seminaries had gone apostate. The German Church was compromising on theology and allowing itself to be shaped and formed by Hitler’s anti-Semitism. This was also at a time in history when the savage bloodbath known as the Night of the Long Knives had just occurred. As a result, Hitler was quickly gaining power while the divide between the German Christian Church and the Confessing Church continued to rapidly widen.

When it comes to creating intentional environments and training opportunities to encourage people to embrace their first and foremost calling as harvest workers, here are three things that we can learn from the way that Bonhoeffer designed and ran this seminary.

1. Disciples before Ministers

Bonhoeffer was deeply inspired by the Sermon on the Mount and he believed that Christianity would look and be radically different if believers would just merely live it out. So he called his students to see themselves, not as theological students, but as disciples intentionally living out the Sermon on the Mount. “Bonhoeffer was interested in a Holy Spirit-led course adjustment that hardly signaled something new” (Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, 263).

Since theological education in his day produced “out-of-touch theologians and clerics whose ability to live the Christian life—and to help others live that life—was not much in evidence,” Bonhoeffer wanted to train an army of harvest workers who were first disciples before they were ministers (Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, 263).

2. Close, Not Afar

Metaxas, the biographer, recounts a time when a new student, Bethge, was getting to know the rest of the students on the beach. After asking the other students where the Director was, Bethge was genuinely surprised when they pointed out Bonhoeffer to him because he was athletic, young, and playing soccer with the others. “When Bonhoeffer finally realized that another ordinand had arrived, he left what he was doing, greeted Bethge, and invited him to take a walk along the beach” (Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, 264).

Bonhoeffer understood the importance of being close to his students, like Jesus was with His disciples. As a result, he made it a point to personally spend time with them, relate with them, and disciple them. In fact, Bonhoeffer refused to be called by titles that placed him on a higher ground than others. So at the seminary, he was referred to as Brother Bonhoeffer, rather than Director Bonhoeffer—this was truly counter-cultural in his day.

3. Scripture is Personal

First thing in the morning, all the students would gather around the dinner table and have a forty-five minute service together before breakfast. The service would be a mix between singing, a reading from the Old Testament, more singing, another reading from the New Testament, prayer, and the like. After the service ended and breakfast was finished, every student was required to spend half an hour meditating on a Scripture passage—students would meditate on the same verse for an entire week. “Then everybody went to his room and thought about the Scripture until he knew what it meant for him today, on that day. During this time there had to be absolute quiet…” (Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, 268).

Bonhoeffer taught his students to do this so that they would first and foremost see Scripture as God’s personal word to them, rather than as a text that needed to be preached. As a result, while the students were meditating on the passage, Bonhoeffer did not even let the students look at the verse in the original language, or consult commentaries on it!

Conclusion

In order to disciple and deploy believers to live out the Great Commission, you need to first help them distinguish between their primary and secondary callings. So…

What environments do you have to do this other than your worship service?
What would it look like for you to wrestle with and integrate these three principles from Bonhoeffer’s seminary into your discipleship groups and the life of your church?

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Pastor, What Makes Your City Unique?

The type of leader who plants an urban church looks different than the one who plants a rural one.

This is a relatively unimpressive statement for obvious reasons. After all, those who would want to live on a 20 acre piece of land and raise chickens are typically not the same type of people who would want to live in an 800 square foot high rise and prune a banzai tree or a Chia pet. (Remember when that was a thing?)

This is kind of like someone who asks you if they can ask you a question, when by virtue of asking you that question, they’ve already asked you a question. Or, as the great philosopher and comedian Steve Martin said, “A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.”

What makes something obvious anyway? And who determines what constitutes as common knowledge?

Okay, before I cause you to have an existential breakdown, let me get to the point of this nonsense.

The Point

In the past few months, I’ve been traveling quite a bit talking about church planting, leadership, and discipleship. I’ve been sharing from my latest book that I co-authored with Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches, as well as from the latest research we conducted on church planting and multiplication. You can download that research for free here.

As a result, I’ve had the privilege and blessing to meet with church planters and pastors in major metropolitan cities like New York, Houston, and Los Angeles. And I’ve noticed something.

The type of leader who plants a church in New York is different than the type of leader who plants in Houston or Los Angeles.

It’s not that they necessarily look different, or require distinctive theological education, but there’s definitely a difference. It’s almost…intangible.

It’s kind of like when someone asks a happily married couple how to tell if someone is the one. The answer is often, “You just know when you know.”

What Makes Cities Different?

While each of those cities may share many more similarities with one another, than with a small town in rural Kentucky, they are actually quite distinct in culture. Now I understand that in each of those cities you will find many of the same occupations, services, and systemic issues, but there’s one thing that makes each of them unique. And it’s this one thing that deeply shapes the identity, culture, and ethos of the city.

It’s the history of the city.

Not only have I noticed this while teaching and coaching different pastors and leaders in each of those cities, but this is something that I’ve also discovered after pastoring and living in six major cities in three separate countries.

The history of a city shapes the ideology, norms, issues, and nuances of perspectives, but it does so subtly. It’s hard to pinpoint these differences for someone who has lived in that city for their entire life. It’s often only when you move away and experience something different that you finally recognize the intangibles of that city that you were once unaware of.

So I want to encourage you to do two things to better grasp the unique nuances of the city that you’re living and pastoring in. By doing these two things, you will grow in your ability to minister to and pray for those in your church and your city. 

Learn the history of your city and the major events that have shaped it (i.e. battles, public scandals, riots, and social issues)
Get to know pastors of other cities and visit them

What are your thoughts?

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Leading Change in the Church

Conal Gallagher

One of my favorite things to do is to help churches create alignment and momentum within their staff and leadership to move their church towards multiplication. In order to do just that, change needs to happen. There’s no other way around it.

Unfortunately, most pastors and leaders struggle with change management. This is because many forget to think through who all and what all is going to be affected by this change. As a result, people are overlooked, feelings get hurt, and easy wins are lost. Inevitably this results in unnecessary conflict that could have and should have been avoided.

Your mighty plans for change are then lost in the mire of relational trouble and politics. Nothing changes. Your church stays on the same course. And the next time you try to change something, you experience even more opposition and skepticism than ever before.

If only there were an easy step-by-step process to guide people through leading and managing change in the church.

Leading Change

John Kotter’s 8-Step Process outlined in Leading Change has heavily influenced the way that I process, think through, and lead change. I’ve implemented his 8-steps through precarious times and important shifts in churches, like when I helped my previous church make the shift to becoming more missional.

Here are his 8-steps, as now updated in his recent book, Accelerate:

Step 1: Create a Sense of Urgency
Step 2: Build a Guiding Coalition
Step 3: Form a Strategic Vision and Initiatives
Step 4: Enlist a Volunteer Army
Step 5: Enable Action by Removing Barriers
Step 6: Generate Short-Term Wins
Step 7: Sustain Acceleration
Step 8: Institute Change

Leading Change in the Church

These 8-steps are a proven system for change management and they can certainly be contextualized for use in the church, which I’ve personally done, but it’s definitely not a perfect fit.

This is why I’m so excited that the President and CEO of LifeWay, Thom Rainer, wrote this book, Who Moved My Pulpit: Leading Change in the Church. 

Rainer draws from his decades of church leadership and consulting to present a contextualized church-based framework to lead change in your church:

Step 1: Stop to Pray
Step 2: Confront and Communicate a Sense of Urgency
Step 3: Build an Eager Coalition
Step 4: Become a Voice and Vision of Hope
Step 5: Deal with People Issues
Step 6: Move From an Inward Focus to an Outward Focus
Step 7: Pick Low-Hanging Fruit
Step 8: Implement and Consolidate Change

On the surface level, while there may seem to be many similarities between Kotter’s 8-steps and Rainer’s, they are in fact quite different.

Rainer’s process is unique and focused on leading change in the church.

I deeply appreciate the way that Rainer starts with prayer and makes the process of leading change easy to understand and implement for church leaders. He contextualizes principles and shares the nuances of change management that are unique to the church. For example, he gives wisdom and advice on how to build the right type of committee in your church that will serve to facilitate change, rather than resist it. He also shares the importance of developing a strategic vision to help guide change in your church. This strategic vision is not merely a statement, but it is a narrative that serves to motivate and encourage everyone through the process.

Every chapter has diagnostic and study questions to help you process change for your church. In fact, you can even download a free change readiness inventory for churches and a change leadership matrix from his site here for free!

Rainer says it well when he illustrates the dire need for churches to better manage change:

You are in a church, a church you would like to see change. You know that some level of change is needed because you should be reaching more people with the gospel. You want the church to have a greater impact on your community. You would rejoice if most of the church members acted like true disciples of Christ…But there is something about people like you and me. We want to see tangible results right away. We want to be active as possible. Leading change for us means moving forward…That might be the biggest mistake you could make.

So the next time you need to lead change in your church, don’t get at it from the dark, and don’t just take it as you go. Instead, intentionally walk through Rainer’s 8-steps, and you’ll see change stick, people get on board, momentum build, your church grow, and ultimately and most importantly, see lives change. Then the next time you need to lead change, repeat the process—again and again.

Let me end with this powerful quote from the book,

It takes courage to be a change leader in the church. Opposition and resistance often come frequently and fiercely. But too much is at stake to do otherwise…The choice is simple: change or die.

Pick the book up here.

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