The Necessary Things

Leadership Positions as Carrots, Suckers, and Badges

This topic has been on my mind because many ministries are selecting leaders for next year and planning for the Fall.

If I had to consolidate and summarize the ways I have seen leadership positions used in ministry three images come to mind:

Carrots:

Major Upside: Motivates students to take initiative and pursue something valuable.

Major Downside: Taps into performance mentality and compromises long-term fruitfulness.

Suckers:

Major Upside: You temporarily calm down an immature student :)

Major Downside: You temporarily calm down an immature student :)

Badges:

Major Upside: Rewards behavior that's ALREADY happened

Major Downside: Hardest to integrate into ministry culture

To find more posts related to leadership and selecting leaders click here.

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.

Connect the Dots in Your Ministry

I have loved the comments and discussion on Ministry Mode is Not Dead Part 1. Thank you again to all who commented and if you have yet to weigh in please do!

A major impetus for that post came from wanting to help others connect key relationships between various events, activities, and circumstances in ministry. It can be SO easy to wash rinse and repeat your way to a plateau in both size and quality; taking time to discern connections is vital to expanding.

Three things to consider:

1.  What's one thing you do every year that gets the exact same results because you are afraid that if you change it you might not get what you know you are going to get if you do the same thing :) ? Do you understand the relationship between your fears and lackluster ministry results?

2.  Consider one of your main values or a key part of your vision (either local or corporate): fill in the blank--when those in my ministry do ___________, God seems to clarify/expand/grow our value/vision/mission. What are the main obstacles keeping you from honing in on that? Do you understand the relationship between your ministry activities and the big picture?

3.  If I were to leave my leadership role right now what would those under me say I liked/enjoyed about my role? Do you take the time to share your passions as well as your frustrations? Do those under you clearly understand the relationship between your passion and your activity?

I'd love to hear your responses to number two. Seems like it could spark a good discussion.

photo courtesy of amodiovalerioverde

Scale & Share Your Expertise--Help Other College Ministers Out

I've been asking myself this question lately:

What does it look like to steward my expertise in light of the whole, not just my particular part of ministry?

I've run across so many capable college ministers that have specific expertise that I wish I had. The challenge is not a shortage of expertise but an ability to find and gather resources from these experts.

My question for you:

What can you share that will make others better?

My essentials to share with maximum scale:

• Format: instead of Word, Powerpoint, Publisher, think google docs, blog posts, slideshare.

• Placement: if it's on your hard-drive then it's in the wrong place--where are those that need this spending the most time online? where can you place it within that platform to get the broadest exposure (hint: facebook notes are not the way to go).

• Measurement: Can you (or a piece of software) count how many times that content has been viewed/share/embedded? Did you know that most link shorteners include analytics if you use them? If you add a "+" to the end of a bit.ly link you can see how often that link was viewed. A huge advantage in blogging content is that you can easily see how often that post has been viewed.

My recent share: A more thorough exploration of a college ministry funnel. This has helped me tremendously as a college ministry leader and I wanted to make sure I passed it on.

photo courtesy of ibizadj

You Will Draw What You Build; Designing a Structure for Your College Ministry

Ministry Start-up Reality: It's not about WHETHER college students will come; it's whether those students are the RIGHT ones for your ministry.

It's been so encouraging to see people get involved in the Starting a College Ministry ebook project. I'm working on Chapter 2--Designing a Ministry Structure.

It can be so easy to merely rearrange the pieces of other people's ministries to form your own structure (I like the way ministry x does co-ed bible studies, but the way ministry y does their weekly meeting, etc), which we all do in some capacity.

However the long-term health of your ministry will be directly related to the design and refinement of your structure.

A major challenge when initially designing the structure is that it feels so disconnected from your current reality, which is usually low numbers and students that lack leadership ability. It can be extremely tempting to design a structure that seeks to RETAIN students rather than DEVELOP them.

This could look like:

• Filling your schedule with a variety of social events that lack any connection to your mission, vision and values. If there are no training times or minimal events where leadership-minded students can display their abilities they will eventually find somewhere else to go where they have an opportunity to develop.

• Requiring only attendance as a qualification for a leadership role. Again if you only have ten students coming it's easy to place someone in leadership that is not quite there yet. My experience is that less than 10% of the students I have placed in leadership roles hoping they would "get it" have actually stayed on and developed.

• Limiting the amount of legitimate places where students can take ownership. If there are less than three places for a student to take ownership then your structure probably needs an adjustment. I've also seen the value in creating micro-leadership roles (event coordinators, outreach team leaders, etc) where I can take a risk to discover a student's leadership ability. Often times staff members cannot select leaders well because they simply have not allowed any students to lead. 

Have you been part of designing a ministry structure? What have you learned or experienced that makes for a good one?

photo courtesy of dunechaser

5 Links to Save Time and Be More Effective at Everything in College Ministry!

At my recent ministry director conference we discussed a variety of college ministry issues: effectiveness in evangelism, discipleship, leading a team, and more. (this is a picture of me and two of our regional directors at the retreat).

A common theme emerged for all of these issues in terms of what keeps us from becoming more effective: TIME.

This may not come as a surprise to you since everyone could use more time.

I did want to share some links that I have found that relate to time management; if you have some links to productivity/life hack stuff please share the links in the comments.

If we all saved even 10 minutes a week imagine the time we would save every year that could be invested into significant areas of college ministry such as evangelism, discipleship, and leadership.

Books:

• Upgrade Your Life--Gina Trapani: I bought this book a year ago and leave it near my bed to read whenever I have three to five minutes--excellent tips on being more effective around the computer, and integrating different online tools to make your work-flow much smoother.

• Small is the New Big--Seth Godin: More philosophical than tactical, but excellent for thinking about how to major on the majors and not the minors. Also short chapters that are easy to digest.

Productivity Tips:

• Inbox Zero--Michael Hyatt: Perhaps the most passed around link when it comes to email, but for a good reason. After reading this and putting it into practice for just two weeks I was committed. I would estimate that this process saves me up to 20 minutes a week.

• Visual Mapping Tools (free & paid)--courtesy of Sacha Chua's blog: we are all seeking to make our meetings and planning times more effective; this is a great outline of what's available.

• Using Google Wave for Task Management--courtesy of Chris Brogan: Google wave is still a new tool but this might get you to try it. 

thanks again @bobfuhs for the twitpic!

Deciding on a Ministry Structure--What Should Be in Chapter 2 of the eBook?

My goal is by the end of 2010 I would have completed an ebook on how to start a college ministry. I'm starting to think about what to include in the chapter on deciding on a ministry structure.

These are the main thoughts running through my head as I consider it:

• Most new college ministries adopt the previous structure without any changes.

• Many structures serve those students who are LEAST committed/involved at the expense of those who are MOST committed/involved.

• Many student leaders and paid/full-time staff have trouble communicating how their structure serves and facilitates the mission, vision, and values of their ministry.

If you have started a ministry what sort of elements did you take into consideration when designing your structure? Was there a previous structure in place, or did you start from scratch? What was the biggest challenge in designing your structure?

Chapter one in its first iteration. Click here to read it.

Or if you would like to join the Google Wave and be part of the process, leave a comment and I will get you connected.

photo courtesy of swisscan

3 Elements of a Great "Gray Area" Talk

If you have ever been involved in a college ministry you have heard a "gray area" talk: most likely on drinking alcohol or dating :)

I listened to perhaps the best talk I've heard for CCC staff on gray areas today. I wish I could share the audio with you but since it was not recorded I wanted to share three elements that made it great.

1. Biblically-driven: this is a no-brainer to most campus ministry people, but in practice it can often get lost. I've been apart of many talks that start with the Word but end up espousing personal preferences and generational norms. I was impressed by the entire talk was tied to the Word, and not in a way that authorized man-made rules but revealed how rules and policies connect with God's heart. 

2. Humorous: Rules and policy talks put everyone on edge; humor relieves a lot of that tension. It was helpful that the humor was spread out throughout the talk and intentionally placed at tension points within the talk. 

3. Transparent: The reason this talk was so rare was that the speaker actually shared specific examples where upper level leadership made mistakes. It seemed to build a bridge between the "rule makers" and the "rule keepers". Especially with postmoderns this part is huge.

photo courtesy of kevinsteele

3 Ways College Ministry's Bend

I'm at Campus Crusade's Denver Winter Conference this week. It's already been enjoyable to participate in a conference outside of my region (California) and experience the differences and nuances of another sub-culture of CCC.

In my seven years on staff I've noticed that college ministry's bend three different ways:

1. Save the Lost

2. Serve the Poor

3. Savor the Body of Christ

These are obviously deep themes in the Word and central in God's heart.

Here's the shift I'm seeing:

• In the modern era these bends were mostly mutually exclusive from one another in the context of a local ministry.

• The post-modern era raised the value in interconnecting these three bends within the context of a local ministry.

• Strategic thinking is CRUCIAL as ministries integrate their 'weak' bends into their existing structure.

CCC has always been strongest in Save the Lost and weakest in Serve the Poor. We are now in a season of integrating Serve the Poor, and I have seen awesome examples of strategic partnerships with other ministries that excel in serving the poor.

I've noticed that in some ministry contexts enthusiasm and excitement can lead to haphazard and unfocused resource allocation. Another harmful trend is looking to start something from scratch within the organization rather than looking outside the organization for those who are already thriving in these areas of weakness.

The PSW Winter Conference in San Diego partnered with Compassion International--awesome! I would love to see the bar raised even higher in this area and a new level of interdependence develop between ministries. 

Have you seen good examples of intentional/strategic partnerships in your context?

Vision--A College Ministry Start-Up Neccesity

I'm working on an ebook for those starting a college ministry. If you're interested in providing feedback leave me a note in the comments and I'll add you to the Google Wave where I'm writing it. 

Here's a couple key quotes from the first chapter:

NO ONE in the ministry you are starting is going to care as much about vision as you; if you do not spend the time getting clear on where you are going you can be assured within a year or two your ministry will be littered with decisions made in reaction to extremely positive and negative people and experiences, with little to no thoughtful strategic decisions made in light of the future.

Ministry Start-up Reality: There will ALWAYS be extremely positive and negative people involved in your ministry. They should never receive more priority in making decisions than your vision.

What role has vision played in your ministry? Have you found it easy or difficult to keep vision in front of you and your team? 

photo courtesy of 61417318@N00