The Necessary Things

Do You Empower Efficiency or Volume?

This post complements an earlier one on how to diagnose whether your ministry is too big or small.

This diagram ranks popular tech companies by revenue per employee:

 

I've been following this closely because I have seen more young leaders concerned about their efficiency rather than their hours. In ministry I have seen a focus on "more"--more money, more students, more time spent, more strategies, more planning.

But isn't "more" worthless if your team or ministry is inefficient?

One more thought related to "more": the thing that are most valuable in ministry require a tremendous amount of faith, and engender a significant amount of internal and external resistance.

If we are really being efficient ministers than shouldn't we be "working" a lot less, but on extremely significant things?

I'd appreciate hearing your experience with determining you or your ministry's efficiency!

You can read the context of this diagram and lots of good comments here.

Starting a Ministry Tip: Maximize Leadership Behavior

Retaining students proves extremely difficult when starting a ministry.

It's tempting to give away leadership positions to aide in retention but my experience reveals that this prevents establishing a culture of leadership behavior (ownership, initiative, humility, teachability, courage, boldness).

If you are in year one or two of a ministry start-up then you probably have no more than five true leaders (that is someone who has arrived, not someone you are hoping will come around soon). As soon as you give someone a title you are setting up a model for your ministry and thus directly setting your ministry culture.

I've found it tremendously valuable to make people wait to become leaders--the positions that are available actually have meaning to it, and there should be a CLEAR LINE visible to non-leaders about what is required to be a leader outside of personality (in my case it's participation in evangelism).

Micro or short-term leadership roles work well for determining whether a person is a leader or has leadership potential. These positions allow space to demonstrate leadership behavior and for students to develop and grow without a title.

I've written this before but I see many ministries use leadership positions as pacifiers. If more than 40% of your ministry is "leaders" I would guess that your leadership culture is diluted and that your overall ministry culture lacks a clear focus to the mission, vision, and values. 

True leaders are scarce--Scripture demonstrates this over and over. When we pretend that they are abundant we end up hurting our ministry more than bettering it.

Does your ministry culture demonstrate leadership behavior or is it saturated with leadership positions?

photo courtesy of billselak

Do You Experiment in Your Ministry?

"Companies won’t experiment to find evidence of the right way forward."--Dan Ariely, from his blog Predictably Irrational.

Dan is a Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University and a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight--he knows what he is talking about.

Have you ever been in a meeting where there are two or three strong opinions with little to no evidence to support any of them? Have you been guilty (like me) of picking one out of frustration, convenience, or fatigue?

Dan goes on to share this:

"Companies pay amazing amounts of money to get answers from consultants with overdeveloped confidence in their own intuition. Managers rely on focus groups—a dozen people riffing on something they know little about—to set strategies."

The equivalent of focus groups in my ministry is what we have done or what some other ministry has done in the past. This is a great place to start but unfortunately most of the time teams make small adjustments on what's been done before instead of using it as a launch-pad for thinking creatively.

...final quote from Dan:

"We tend to value answers over questions because answers allow us to take action, while questions mean that we need to keep thinking. Never mind that asking good questions and gathering evidence usually guides us to better answers."

How are you doing at asking good questions and gathering hard evidence? I could use some work!

photo courtesy of mgdtgd

Church Planting on the College Campus?

What is your experience with church planting on the college campus?

I have seen a rise in local and non-local churches planting churches on college campuses. I have also seen a rise of college ministries that start and "flame out" within a couple years.

It seems from these trends (and others) that the college campus needs new models.

Here are some questions to start the discussion. I'm hoping to expand this discussion on the CCC Blogference site once I get a better feel for what others are thinking and doing.

Are you a church planter on a college campus? How long have you been doing it? What are some challenges you face?

If you are on staff with CCC: Have you ever thought about planting a church as a complement to your ministry? What is keeping you from moving forward if you have yet to do so?

Have you seen an increase in college church plants in your local context?

photo courtesy of donnagrayson

Go the Distance for Leadership Development

...went through this diagram with my student interns and it seemed to make sense to them; wanted to pass it on and share it as a complement to the last post.

Observations:

Your corporate leader is the easiest person from whom to receive development because of relational frequency and geographic proximity.

A corporate and non-corporate mentor are difficult to receive development from because they can be both relationally and geographically distant.

Insights

Corporate leaders, although geographically close, can/usually are much different than you in terms of strengths, giftings, life-stage, weaknesses. The proximity often deludes people into thinking that their leader is "God's best" or even "God's gift" to their development.

Corporate and Non-Corporate mentors represent the greatest opportunity to develop and steward the strengths and giftings that God gave us because WE get to choose/pursue them.

The people in ministry that I have seen thrive have had a VARIETY and ABUNDANCE of mentors. Emphasis on thrive--it's easy to float along in ministry and move "up" mostly due to attrition.

Social Media has made it SIGNIFICANTLY easier to have mentors who are geographically distant.

I connect with five people that I would call mentors--only one is in my town. I connect with the rest through email, skype, and phone.

It's not pretty to find mentors but it's definitely worth it. Unless you want to skim the surface.

Stop Skimming the Surface of Leadership Development

"Rather, we must change–or even more importantly be changed by Christ–from the inside out."--Justin Irving, Professor of Ministry Leadership at Bethel.

This year's CCC Blogference challenged my thinking in many ways. I enjoyed the category self-directed leadership development because I am recovering "self-development complainer."

In the past I have placed too many expectations on my corporate superior and failed to pursue developmental experiences and people outside of my team.

Justin goes on to explain why this is so significant:

When we are transformed at the deep level of personhood, then the attitudinal and behavioral dimensions of our leadership can follow along–the behaviors of serving others as leaders becomes a natural outgrowth of who we are as servants first.

Had a couple questions for you:

• Have you relied too heavily on the person directly above you for leadership development?

• If you have taken steps to pursue your own development beyond what's directly available corporately, what sorts of people and/or experiences have you pursued? 

Here's a link to Justin's resource page if you would like to take a look.

3 Statistics Every CCC Needs to Track

...and every ministry non-profit that has financial donors.

Russ Martin wrote an amazingly insightful post on the CCC Blogference titled "Have a Global Impact--Tithe Your Time Online"

His post and the over 60 comments that have followed have sparked literally a million different thoughts/ideas.

Three main statistics came to mind that I would love to know, and apply to every non-profit ministry:

1. Percentage of full-time staff that use Macs

2. Percentage of financial supporters that have a Facebook Profile

3. Percentage of full-time staff that intentionally engage their financial supporters on Facebook.

definition/examples of engagement for number 3

creating and sending a regular message to a facebook group dedicated to supporters

commenting, liking, and posting ministry related content that easily "found" by supporters on fb

going through your entire database and adding every person as a friend who has an account.

if you are on staff and are bold, can you reply in the comments whether or not you have done any of these with your supporters on facebook? 

also if you have any guesses at numbers one, two or three please let me know in the comments!

Global in Nature, Local in Feel. Why I'm Excited About the Blogference

First here are what some of the authors are saying on their blogs/twitter accounts about the blogference:

Matt sees 18 responses to his question that he's pondering for the blogference: "What has been the most influential ministry experience in your life?" 

Brian shares his past experience with the blogference and what he's thinking about for this year's.

Russ is writing a post on learning and sharing but here's one he wrote on his own blog recently. 

Ken shares his thoughts on love, humility, zeal and knowledge--can't wait to read his post on Self-Directed Leadership during the blogference. 

Keith has tons of wisdom and insight that he shares on his blog--he's also writing on Self-Directed Leadership

Benson gives PRACTICAL tips for participating in the blogference. 

Julie wins the award for best tweet about the blogference:

 

 I'm so excited to be a part of ministry philosophy discussions with a global audience while I'm at my favorite coffee shop or resting in bed after a busy day. 

Want to follow the blogference via email! Click here to get started!

I hope you leave at least one comment. The author's post are the start of a conversation, not the end of a speech!

Starting a Ministry Tip: Lower Your Goals and Raise Your Faith

Many times when starting a new ministry those leading equate size of response with quantity of faith.

This could not be farther from the truth.

Starting a ministry or anything else for that matter is about quality not quantity. After and even during any ministry start-up I'm looking FIRST for quality (which of the students that showed up have the most leadership potential), second for quantity (why did 50 people turn up instead of the projected 100? what can we refine/change to see more people attend).

The faith part of a ministry is the starting of the ministry--not the numbers that follow from that start.

I've watched leaders year after year put their hope in the numbers and become disheartened about their ministry, their role, and even the Lord's hand in their life.

Yet if they re-directed their focus to the people and resources that God DID bring, and starting leveraging those for the Kingdom, they might have had an entirely different response to their start-up.

Lower your quantity goals. Focus on what God does, not what he does not do. I'm confident you will get your ministry off the ground.

photo courtesy of utomjording

If You Have an Hour to RE-Think Your Minsitry

The CCC Blogference is a week away. I'm excited about the authors (click to see a list of them), but more about the theme--RE-Think.

Although stopping to think about why I'm doing the things I do in ministry always proves challenging the Lord has always used my think times to sharpen my focus and expand my vision.

If you have even five minutes to scroll through this presentation from Eric Ries I believe it would do you and your ministry well.

The process he lays out for starting a company has applications for small, medium and large sized ministries as well.

My thought: my ministry can always be leaner and more focused around the mission, vision, and values.

This video highlights some of the ways you can flesh that out and get practical.