Archive - December, 2008

Top Books of the Year!

December 31, 2008 in book review,leadership with 0 Comments

Nelson Searcy and Bob Franquiz from Church Leader Insights recently released a podcast with their top reading pics from this past year. Why is their recommendation so powerful? Because between the both of them they read over 300 hundred books and distilled these down to give their top eight books. These books range in topics from business, leadership, economics, public speaking, ministry, and others.

Without further ado here are the top eight books of 2008 for ministry leaders:
Happy Reading in 2009!

Do Christmas Programs Still Work?

December 29, 2008 in Evangelism,missional,news item with 2 Comments

The answer seems to be yes.

In the latest Time magazine article, the author explores the popularity of such programs saying, “Christmas Eve services — with their pageantry and familiar traditions — became just one part of the celebration, after the family dinner and before the opening of presents.
That schedule of Christmas events is now the default tradition for most Americans.”

Most church leaders have known for sometime that most people who call themselves “Christians” are CEO (Christmas and Easter Only) Christians. These are people who are not normal church-goers, but will attend on one or both of those dates. That’s why most church put most of their financial resources towards big programs on these two dates.

But what I thought was most interesting about this article, was the suggestion that what most people seem to expect in a Christmas service is that they will be able to sing some of the traditional Christmas songs, light some candles, and greet each other with “Merry Christmas.”

I think there’s a refreshing simplicity in that.

What kind of Christmas program does your church use? What do you expect and enjoy most in a Christmas program?

Feeling Lonely at Church?

December 23, 2008 in blogging with 10 Comments

In my last post I wrote about the danger of loneliness at work and how that contributes to being miserable at work. I’d now like to address the more dangerous issue of loneliness at church.

It’s one thing if someone feels that they’re not accepted or aren’t connecting in their workplace. If someone feels they aren’t connecting at work the greatest thing they will loose is a sense of loyalty to the company. They will probably not be a long-term employee.

But when someone feels lonely in church, the problem becomes much more significant. One is an issue of loosing your job, the latter is an issue of loosing your faith.
Allow me to explain.
A few years ago my older brother finished all his schooling. He had been a professional student for some time, but he finally found a good job in Orlando, FL.  Growing up in a Christian home, he sought to visit a church in orlando where he could begin to develop some roots. I will allow the name of the church to go unnamed, but suffice it to say that after six months of attending the church, my brother still felt like a stranger. 
He felt like he wasn’t connecting. He felt like the church wasn’t making an effort to connect him. The people weren’t very friendly to outsiders.
Over time I noticed a transition in him. He went from using language like “I’m not liking this church,” to language like “I’m not liking the church.” He went from harboring feelings of dislike and disdain for that local church, to beginning to hate churches period. 
This is what happens when someone begins to feel lonely at church. They’ll go from leaving a local church, to leaving the faith entirely. 
This is the single biggest issue I think about in my churches, because I know that if someone is connected to at least a few people, they will forgive a multitude of sins that they see in the quality of preaching, music, or ministries.
Over the next few weeks I will be posting on a few things that I’ve been experimenting with to help people feel more connected in my churches.
If you’re a church leader, what are you doing to help people feel more connected to each other?
If you’re a church member, what are some good things that your church is doing to help you feel connected? If you aren’t feeling connected, what are some recommendations you’d make so that you could become more connected?

Solving Misery at Work

December 19, 2008 in leadership with 0 Comments

I was reflecting recently on a Catalyst conference DVD that I saw where Pat Lencioni spoke on the “Three Signs of Job Misery.” One of his main points stuck with me: anonymity.
We’ve all felt it at times. The feeling that nobody notices you. 
It was a saturday night. I was invited by some friends to check out a party that was coming up. They gave me the address. They gave me the time. Everything was a green light. This was before the days where everyone had cell phones, so there was no last-minute way to tell someone if there was a problem. 
The party was to begin at 9:00pm, but wanting to be fashionably late, I arrived around 9:15pm. I blame the extreme punctuality of the subway system in Singapore. 
The music was pumping and it was dark as I was led down to the basement where the party was being held.  I immediately began scanning the room for my friends. They were there. I was sure. But as I continued watching the bobbing and frolicking heads, the arms raised in the air, and the brief moments when the strobe lights would hit someone’s face, my heart began to sink. My friends were not there! In that brief moment of extreme clarity as heat came over my face  and adrenaline rushed through my heart, the truth that I was alone came upon me.
I wasn’t alone, of course, but I was anonymous. I recognized a few faces in the crowd, and whether they recognized me or not, I was not acknowledged. I left there about thirty minutes later, tired of acting like I was having fun on the sidelines.
I know, poor me, right? The high school kid who didn’t get acknowledged at this party. Boo-hoo. Yes, I will accept your cookie. 
In a greater sense, though, millions and millions of people are going through this same misery in their jobs, organizations, and churches.
What makes a job miserable? Is it the difficulty of picking up garbage cans all day? Is it the pressure of fixing the company network when everyone is waiting on you. Is it the monotony of making hundreds of files and sending dozens of faxes per day? 
No.
I’d like to suggest that what makes a job miserable is being anonymous in a job. What makes a miserable/difficult job tolerable is being acknowledged in your job.
To be acknowledged in your job means that people show a personal interest in you as a person. I know…for many this sounds a little too touchy-feely, but it’s true.
My wife has worked for a year and a half as a special ed teacher, and yet today is her last day. Why? Is it because of the difficulty of teaching special needs kids? Nope. She says it’s because she never received much support from her leaders. The principals were cold, and always seemed too busy to care. She asked for help with different things at different times, but the leaders didn’t follow through.
It all boiled down to her sense that the leaders did not care about her. 
She felt anonymous.
So what can you do if you lead a team of people? 
Care about them. I know….this is really technical and heady stuff, but listen on. Talk to them. Ask them about their life. Ask them about their families. Publicly acknowledge them when they do a good job. Get to know what their hobbies and likes are. Send them a hand-written note with an encouraging word if you feel they’re a little down.
What can you do if you work on the team, but are not the leader?
Care about the other people in your team. Instead of joining them as they rant and rave about their bosses, you be nice to them. You give them a word of encouragement. You show them that you care enough about them to remember how many kids they have.
And maybe, just maybe, you’ll help someone move across the scale from having a miserable job, to a tolerable job, to a pleasurable job.

Twitter For Churches and Non-Profits?

December 10, 2008 in technology with 1 Comment

Have you heard of Twitter? If you’re into technology at all chances are you have heard of Twitter, and maybe you’ve even been using it. For those that haven’t heard of it, Twitter is a “free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read each other’s updates (otherwise known as tweets).”

If you’re into Facebook, it’s similar to the Facebook status updates.
Twitter just got some new competition through a new app called Yammer. Yammer bills itself as the Twitter for business people. Being able to stay in constant contact by answering the question, “what are you working on?”
Here’s my question, though?
Has anyone figured out a way to use Twitter or Yammer for churches or non-profits? What are some practical ways that you’ve been blessed and made more effective through using these apps? How do you see this changing the way you do business as usual?
I’m still trying to figure out if this is something worth jumping into.

Leadership is Dangerous-Part Two

December 7, 2008 in leadership with 1 Comment

In my last post I shared a few lessons I learned from the movie “Coach Carter.” I’d like to share now why I said that Leadership is Dangerous.

In the movie, Coach Carter began to notice that his players were not living up to the agreement of maintaining a certain gpa. So what did he do? He decided to close the gym down until the players made up their academic requirement. By this point, the team had been completely undefeated. Life was good. What was the reaction from the players? They were very upset, of course, but didn’t take him too seriously. They weren’t too worried, because they knew that there was a game coming up, and they knew that the coach would open the doors and allow them to play their game.

He did not. To make a long story short, this ended up costing him his job. Well, sort of. You need to see the movie.

But there’s the point: true leadership is dangerous.

Everybody hated him for sticking to his guns. And it was the right thing to do! But, yet, everyone else was blinded by other issues. They thought it was more important for the kids to play their game, than for them to learn a lesson about sticking to your commitments.

I guess the question is, then, “how do you lead well and survive to tell the story?” 

It seems that there’s a fine line between being seen as a revolutionary vs. a rebel like Joan of Arc, or being seen as a genius vs. a doofus like Einstein.
I suppose it begins with having an overwhelming vision that you believe is possible, and doing everything you can to remain focused on seeing it through to completion. I don’t know. I have no idea what I’m talking about. I’m just trying to put one foot in front of the other at the moment. 
I just know that it’s dangerous to reputations, emotionally costly, and occasionally overwhelming. 
But is there another option?

Leadership is Difficult-Part One

December 3, 2008 in leadership with 0 Comments

I recently saw the movie “Coach Carter.” Though there were some scenes that were less than wholesome, I thought it provided some powerful lessons on leadership.

In case you’ve never seen the movie, allow me to give you a very brief summary, and then I’ll share some lessons that I took with me. For a more in depth summary click here.
Coach Carter was a business man and former decorated player at Richmond High School, when he was asked to take over as head coach. The previous coach was retiring and in his last season had won only four games. The players were undisciplined, rowdy, and didn’t seem to have much skill. 
Through Coach Carter’s efforts, the team was completely turned around in his first coaching season, and made it to the championship game. 
How did he do it? Here’s a few principles that stuck out to me:
1. The Law of the Lid
John Maxwell highlights this principle in his book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. According to the “law of the lid” everything rises and falls on leadership. This principle was proved to be especially true in this case. The old coach didn’t have it. Coach Carter had it. No other variable had changed. The players were the same. The only difference was the coach. This is why whenever a sports team has a bad season, the first person to go is the coach. 
2. Structure and Direction
Coach Carter provided a level of structure that just did not exist before. The old coach was tired. Many of the players were failing classes, and the school system in place supported them playing even though they weren’t meeting the standard. Instead of urging and requiring his players to meet the standard, Coach Carter gave his players very clear structure and direction. He made them sign a contract with specific points of conduct that they had to maintain such as maintaining a 3.2 gpa, wearing jackets and ties on game day, and sitting on the front row of their classes. Because of this structure and direction the players were able to focus on the game.
3. Return to Fundamental Skills
Gordon Maxwell, in his new book The Outliers,
studies the fundamentals of what makes a person successful. Through his research he discovers that the basis has to do with the number 10,000. He says once someone has attained 10,000 hours of practice at something, one becomes very proficient at it, allowing someone to then begin perfecting it. This comes out to about 3 hours a day for a decade. Coach Carter’s team did not have this much time to practice. But it was clear in the movie that he made a pointed turn to cover the basics of conditioning, shooting, plays, etc. 

Which brings me to my dilemma. As a leader, these principles are somewhat intimidating and scary. I don’t want to think about the fact that if my church is declining it’s because of me! I don’t want to admit that if the church remains in a state of perpetual plateau, it’s because I’ve become comfortable with the view.   

It’s so much easier, and much more cathartic to put the blame on the people. To pass the buck. I want to do it all the time! And it feels better than blaming myself. 
“Those people are just stuck with their old-way of thinking.” 
“They just love tradition!”
“They’re impossible to change.”
But if I face the facts, I have to come to terms that people can change.
So how can I apply these principles to my situation?
1. Law of the Lid
I can seek to build myself up as a leader. The million dollar question, of course, is how. One thing I try to do is surround myself with good leaders. At the moment, most of the good leaders that I come into contact with are sitting to the left of my desk on a bookshelf. They’re always there for me to speak to me, but they aren’t very warm.
I also try to get in contact with other leaders in my field and poke their brains a little. I think the best way to learn as a leader, though, is to see good leadership in action. This is something that I wish I had a lot more of in my life. Right now I’m the only pastor of two churches, so it’s difficult to gauge my personal leadership capacity. I think it would be a wonderful experience to work hand-in-hand with a pioneering pastor/leader for my next gig. And to be able to see how an excellent leader would deal with a particular situation. To see how a good leader would react and what he would say when confronted with trials and obstacles. Alas, for the moment I’ll have to wait on this one.
2. Structure and Direction
I feel like I’ve been giving a sense of vision and direction in my churches. I like to read and discuss various books with my leaders. But I feel like there needs to be more clarity as far as structure is concerned. I’d like to be able to analyze the effectiveness of our current leadership structures. At the moment I don’t have much time to think about these things.
3. Return to Fundamental Skills
As a pastor, I think this entails making sure that my people understand the basics of Christianity. How we’re saved. How to study the Bible. How to pray. How to tell other people about God. Our mission as Christians. I think this covers the basics of Christianity.
I think there’s a couple other leadership lessons in there that I could recall. I’ll share some more in my next post.
If you’ve seen the movie, what did you take away as the best leadership principles? If you haven’t seen the movie, how are you doing in your leadership? What are you doing to build yourself up and build up other leaders around you?