The Necessary Things

Isr Your Ministry is Too Big or Too Small?

My perception: Ministries rarely think through efficiency when determining their goal for size.

Seriously how do you know if you ministry is the right size? Do you compare it to your organizational standards (i.e. 'the average size of a Campus Crusade ministry is X, we have X+100, therefore we are "big"), country standards, global standards?

I watched an interview (scroll to 1:16:00 minute mark if you click) on YouTube that provided me with a helpful tool to evaluate organizational size.

Facebook: 134 million unique views per month, 1,000 employees = 134,000 pageviews per employee

Craigslist: 49.4 unique views per month, 30 employees =  1,235,00 pageviews per employee

Facebook is larger (by A LOT) but Craigslist is more efficient (by A LOT).

Ask yourself how big you want your ministry to be, then ask yourself how that number would effect your efficiency. Spending some time getting clearer on this relationship between size and efficiency will be extremely valuable to you and those to whom you minister.

It is extremely valuable to pursue numerical growth because it forces leaders to take steps of faith, pray, and empower others to lead. However often times when numerical growth occurs efficiency drops significantly.

Tactically speaking here are some ways I evaluate my own ministries efficiency:

• 41%:  Percentage of attendance at large events relative to overall size: this year we brought 50 students to a regional winter conference, and our overall size was 120.

• 20% (estimate): Percentage of emerging leaders relative to overall size--this is a great number to look at because it shows how healthy you WILL BE in two years, not just how healthy you are RIGHT NOW.

• 10%: Percentage of students interning or joining staff with Campus Crusade relative to overall size.

How do you determine efficiency in your ministry? Do you measure anything besides overall size and number of student leaders?

RE-Think: Blogference 2010 Coming April 13th-15th!!!!

I'm excited to announce that I will be facilitating the third annual Campus Crusade Blogference this April 12th-15th.

The blogference is an online conference that seeks to bring people together who may be geographically or relationally distant together to discuss ministry related ideas.

The theme is RE-Think: my hope is that everyone that participates will re-think why they do what they do and become even more effective in their ministry!

In contrast to the past two conferences this year's will be on one site, feature five topics, 15 authors, and hopefully hundreds of comments!

What can you do?

Join the Blogference Facebook Group!

Follow us on Twitter!

Watch this short video:

Every Christian is a Minister, Not a Leader

I believe many leaders confuse this reality to the detriment of their ministry. In some cases I have seen there seems to be an obsession with placing every student in some sort of leadership position.

Often times the focus of this leads to drawing some imaginary line between what makes for a leader or a follower; that can be helpful to some degree.

However the most valuable part of this discussion is understanding why those in charge believe that every person needs a leadership position.

I've found these things to be true every year that I've worked with college students:

Only a few students really want to lead

Many students want leadership positions, not leadership responsibilities

A need to be included drives many students to pursue leadership positions

A fear of approval drives many leaders to create too many leadership positions

I love this commercial from The Ladders because it exaggerates what happens when everyone is allowed to lead. If your ministry feels like the tone of this commercial maybe you have not created too many leadership positions and not enough friction points.

Click here if you cannot see the YouTube video

Demonstrating Abundance: A Major Challenge in Leading Change

I started streaming my ministry's large group meeting online this Fall. You can check out what it looks like here.

90% (not exaggerating) of people 40 years old and above literally had the SAME first question: "Aren't you worried that students are going to stop coming and just watch the meeting at home?"

The opposite has happened for the last six months: MORE students than ever before know and experience our large group meetings. Involved students that have mid-terms or other activities that ground them tune in. Non-involved students have the opportunity to SEE what goes on at our meetings, reducing the "I'm afraid to go to somewhere new" friction significantly.

I've found that to lead change effectively it's critical to demonstrate the following:

New Thing does not compete with but complements Old Thing

...because the assumption is often

New Thing is a threat to Old Thing and I really like Old Thing therefore New Thing gets no love (translation mine :))

For those "low" on the org chart: Test your ideas to gain some REAL data points that show your idea will lead to abundance, and not make other things scarce.

For those "high" on the org chart: Take a moment to remember when you did not have a voice at the table, then help the person desiring to lead change understand what data points would demonstrate the validity of their idea.

photo courtesy of theo_reth

Starting a College Ministry Tip: Failure is Certain

This does not mean you should not start a college ministry. Instead it means if you believe that you will succeed right from the start or you have nothing to learn then you are in trouble.

Eric Ries specializes in lean start-ups--getting companies off the ground as quickly as possible with the least amount of resources. He shares these pieces of advice:

Most Startups Fail

A Startup is a human institution designed to create something new under extreme uncertainty

Startup = Experiment

Idea failure does not have to lead to company failure

Find out what customers want before you build it

Managing the difference between what you expect your ministry to be and what it actually is proves incredibly difficult at the outset, because the gap is usually large. It is difficult to face the reality that you are in charge of something that is not a reflection of your desires.

Yet I've watched others grow ministries by looking critically at what it's going to take to bridge that gap. The meat of the video starts at the four minute mark if you are short on time.

Have you seen your failures end up being redeemed for success?

4 Useful/Encouraging Links to Share

Here are some useful/encouraging links I've saved in the last couple weeks:

Two "phrases of wisdom" courtesy of Guy Chmieleski's blog

How do you stop people publishing content we know no one will ever use? Courtesy of Brain Traffic's Blog (a content strategy company). 

A Podcast from Eric Ries containing advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, courtesy of Web 2.0's blog

A list of features Seesmic offers (my preferred Twitter client; I also can manage my personal facebook account and the two fan pages I administrate from there).

What have you come across online that would benefit others? 

photo courtesy of niemster

Double Down On Your Leaders

Springtime in college ministry provides a clear glimpse of the future; most if not all of the students who stayed for the free food and endless activities of the Fall have filtered themselves out. The Spring provides opportunity to discern who will lead your ministry next year.

Double down rather than just bet on these emerging leaders: that's my challenge to you.

I've said this one hundred different ways on this blog: in ministry we tend to spread our bets amongst everyone and as a result rarely see exponential growth that aligns with our mission, vision, and values.

Sure you can play it safe and keep building into the people that dramatically stand out, but what about that young leader with tons of ____________(you fill in the blank; energy, passion, conviction) that's rough around the edges. Where could you empower that person in a significant way that would provide them with an invaluable leadership experience?

A few places come to mind:

Let them lead a bible study without the help of an older leader

Have them emcee a weekly meeting

Bring them into the planning of a large event

Take them with you to something that's normally for older students or staff members

I'm continually surprised by the amount of students that want to lead but have yet to find the space in their ministry to do so. We can intentionally create these spaces and catalyze the development of these young emerging leaders.

Thoughts?

photo courtesy of simpson

3 Ways to Figure out if Your Ministry Has Any Statues

 
Statues for this post = a commitment to a outdated solution to a current problem.

It's not about whether or not your ministry has statues (it does, and so does mine) but proactively engaging them so as not to marginalize and exclude emerging leaders with current solutions to current problems.

I'm going to offer three sets of questions to get you thinking:

1. Where did you spend the most money and time two-five years ago? Is there anything still being used primarily because of cost over effectiveness?

2. Who is your most rebellious AND aligned person under you? Are you only hearing their rebelliousness and failing to engender solutions from them?

3. Who is your ministries "expert"? Now if you cannot instantly think of who should replace that person then that expert is probably a statue. 

How have you tried to fight people or things from becoming a statue? 

image courtesy of stevenfettig

Why You Should Stop Multi-Tasking and Focus More in Ministry

I liked this video because it's short, it reminds me of The Office episode "Business School," and contains some great advice for those in ministry.

My iPhone has been the best and worst productivity tool I've ever owned. Tim has some great thoughts about the value of focus and eliminating multi-tasking.

As Your Ministry Grows It's Better to Say No Then Yes

Scroll to the 53 second mark in the video by Jason Fried of 37Signals (link to the company page) and start listening there.

My favorite quote from the video:

"Are you going to be a company that ends up trending toward mediocrity by adding everything you can possibly add?"

As exciting as it is to grow wide without a solid foundation of emerging leaders and leaders aligned and motivated by the mission, vision, and values, a ministry is doomed to mediocrity.

If you watch the video I'd love to hear what you think of it!