These practices can be seen as a single operating system for your church. Avoid competing operating systems and conflicting information that can cause a breakdown or paralyse ministry. Get an upgrade. Reformat your hard drive and install a clean system. Rewrite your internal code so that everyone is clear about what is important and how they should function. Make these practices an essential part of the style and culture of your ministry.

They are not:

• Church growth principles, though they have an impact on how you grow.
• The same as your mission, but can be are strategic in helping you accomplish your mission
• The same as your values, but they determine how you apply your values.
• Theological principles, but they compliment your passion to teach truth with relevance.
• The only practices, though they are the some of the most critical.

See them more as DNA and your distinct ministry style. Use them to remind your team members how and why they do what they do.

These seven practices can help you to:

• Protect the simplicity of your organisation.
• Keep your staff and volunteers moving in the same direction.
• Create environment that are focused and relevant.
• Evaluate the success of your ministries and programs.
• Export your style of ministry to new and existing churches.

I hope that you gleaned some helpful insights the this book review.

Practice #7 – Work on it

Set aside some quality time to step back evaluate what you are doing and how effective you are being. ALL of us work IN our ministry. That’s what we do. But are we consistently carving out time to work ON our ministries? It is essential to work ON your ministry not just IN your ministry.

Everyone needs training and practice, even the best and most talented people. Without it, the fundamentals start to break down. It isn’t enough to play the game; you have to work on your game too. It’s the same with ministry. No matter how long we’ve served or how successful we’ve been – if we are not consistently evaluating both our performance and our strategies, at some point we will begin to become ineffective.

Self-evaluation is not a new concept. Even God took time at the end of each day during the week of creation to evaluate his won work (Gen.1:31). He also later evaluated Adam’s situation and saw that it was not good for man to be alone. We are all grateful that God took time to work on the system that day. The point is, no matter how good something may seem to be, a consistent time of evaluation can produce tremendous benefits.

Confronting the Facts

It is amazing how honest evaluation can lead to some pretty ugly observations. There are always areas that need improvement. It could be as simple as improving performance or as complex as creating more effective systems. Either way, you have to face what Jim Collins calls “the brutal facts.” It is important that there be no sacred cows or sacred programs and that everyone is encouraged to make suggestions and take suggestions. Everything must be up for debate and must be defended against your mission and values. This is the only way to stay aligned with your core purpose. Hopefully, at the end of the day you have asked the tough questions and arrived at the right answers. For all of this to work, there has to be an environment of trust.

Continue reading “7 Practices of Effective Ministry: #7 Work on it” →

Practice #6 – Replace Yourself

You can stop at practice number five and your organisation will last a good, long time. However, if you want your church and/or ministry to stand the test of time, then you have to be replaced. Just talking about this creates a lot of emotion for people. However, if you don’t eventually replace yourself, the church will fall apart.

One day someone else will be doing what you are doing. Whether you have an exit strategy or not, you will exit. So embrace the inevitable and prepare now for the future. On that day, everything you’ve done, everything you’ve dreamed, and everything you’ve built will be placed in someone else’s hands.

When we attempt to hold on, we encourage our organization to be built around a personality; when we strategically replace ourselves, we allow the organization to be driven by vision. Learning to hand off leadership to the next generation is vital to the longevity of any organisation, especially the church.

In order to replace yourself, you have to see the good of the organisation as more important than your own. You have to be able to resist the natural reaction to protect yourself and your position. For an organisation to grow, you have to have great leadership and great leadership needs to be developed through a system of apprenticing replacements and duplication.

Tear Down the Leadership Walls

John Maxwell popularized the concept of the “leadership lid” – which refers to anything that keeps a leader from growing. Effective leaders identify their limitations and to whatever they can to grow through them. Any ministry will have a difficult time growing beyond the lid or leadership capacity of its leader.

Andy Stanley talks also about leadership “leadership walls” – that prevent others from reaching their potential. A leadership wall can directly stunt the growth of those on a ministry team and ultimately create a leadership gap in the ministry. Lids may stop leaders from growing up but walls keep leaders out. They form a barrier that blocks the development of future leaders in your organisation.

If you fail to develop a strategy to replace yourself, you will …

• Force talented individuals to remain in the wings
• Cause potential leaders to exit the organization
• Stifle needed insight from valuable team members
• Hinder your ability to recruit volunteers
• Limit the growth of your programs and ministries.

Every leader needs to take an honest, objective look at anything that may create a barrier to the growth of the church’s staff and volunteers. The same characteristics that make a leader effective may adversely affect his or her ability to reproduce other leaders. Replacing yourself requires a shift of thinking as a leader that includes facing some personal tendencies that could be unhealthy for your ministry. Start asking, “What keeps those around me from growing as leaders?” not just, “What keeps me from growing as a leader?” 

Continue reading “7 Practices of Effective Ministry: #6 Replace Yourself” →

Practice #5 – Listen to Outsiders

Focus your efforts on those you are trying to reach, rather than just on those you are trying to keep.

Listen to outsiders for answers, not questions. Listen to outsiders and make adjustments.

Churches are full of ’insiders’ even though most of them start out as ‘outsiders’. If you don’t listen to outsiders you will be driven by the complaints and demands of insiders and ultimately the amount of people you reach will dwindle.

Watch them and listen to them and they’ll tell you what they think and want. Then figure out how to use that information. Don’t be so concerned about keeping the people you’ve got that you neglect the people you are trying to reach.

This requires you to admit that you don’t have all of the answers.

Practice #4 – Teach less for More

The less you say the more you will communicate. You will be more effective if you only say what you need to say to the people who need to hear it.

Most people confuse quantity of information communicated with the quality of implementation. We think that the more we tell people the better they’ll do. Sometimes we think ‘more is better’ when often it is just ‘more’. Instead, boil things down to the basics and do them with excellence.

Teach people to love God and love others. Get the right information to the right people in the right position. Everyone doesn’t need to know everything.

It’s better to say one thing well than to present a scattering of many things less effectively. The quantity of information presented does not necessarily equate to the quality of implementation achieved. Sometimes we think that ‘more is better,’ when in actual fact we should ‘teach less for more.’ Have one central topic or idea for your message and deliver it clearly.

No single message needs to cover everything that needs to be said about a biblical text or topic. Have a more open-ended approach that sees your message as part of an ongoing conversation rather than the last word on a matter, with everything tied together. Leave people with some work to do – questions to answer, reflections to make, and discussion to engage in.

[These first four practices keep your organisation in alignment so you don’t pull off course. These are about making changes in the organisation. The next three practices require personal change for the leader, and sometimes, that’s a little more difficult]

Practice #3 – Narrow the Focus

Focus is the key to achieving excellence and making an impact. Each ministry should be designed to do one or two things well. Don’t try to do everything; do a few things well. This applies to the number of things you do and also the way you do the things you do. Keep each of your steps focused and make sure it does only what it was created to do. You can sometimes ruin something by trying to get it to do something else.

Narrowing your focus may seem limiting but when you think about it, it really frees you up to do more. You just do one thing really well. Be on guard for competing visions or cross-purposes. Keep a refreshing simplicity and efficiency in your church and its ministries. If you try to do everything you’ll end up with nothing.

Key concepts and thoughts: 

• Jesus knew his mission and kept focused even though many other needs were NOT met.
• Everything naturally drifts away from simplicity to complexity.
• We tend to add but we rarely subtract. As a result, we have to be committed to continually "narrow the focus"
• A narrow river has great power and depth. A shallow river has width but not depth and is reduced power (in fact it can stop and become a lake or a swamp).
• Complexity makes organisations "dumber".
• Narrow the Focus is to do LESS. Create a NOT To Do List
• What are we doing that is working but are getting in the way of even more productive activities?
• Be prepared to say "we don't do that" … either "ever" or "now".
• What you don't do informs the things that you do do.
• We could do that, but we've chosen not to.
• Be prepared to say "no" a lot and to say "not now" more often.
• Be prepared to do fewer things much better.
• Don't ADD without taking AWAY something.
• Complexity tends kills the spirit of evangelism in a church – resources are consumed by providing for the insiders and there is nothing left for the outsiders.
• Make the hard choices on what works best over what is presently working.
• Be prepared to cut off excess programs and prune core programs to make them work better.
• The more you narrow the focus, the more relevant is the program to the audience. It provides better specific personal connection. Do less, do it better.
• Identity gets built around programs – killing programs can be messy and personally painful.
• Big change is less painful than small change – at least in big change you see the benefits, whereas in small change you only feel the pain.
• Know the ONE thing that a ministry or program is there to achieve. Define the focus. 

Practice #2 – Think Steps not Programs

All church ministries and/or programs should take people somewhere not just fill their time. Ask yourself, "Where do you want your people to be?" "What do you want them to become?" "Is your ministry or program designed to take them there?"

Figure out how to change lives then do that one step at a time. In baseball, the ultimate goal is to get to home plate but you have to get to first base first then figure out how to get to second and third before getting to home. Thinks steps, not programs.

Don’t mistake activity for progress. Programs can lead to life change or they can just become a way of life. If all your activity isn’t taking people where you want them to go then it’s just a waste of time. In fact, you’ll frustrate people by giving them a clear vision, without a strategy for achieving it.

A good step is – easy, obvious and strategic.

1. If it’s not easy for people to do, then they won’t do it. You can blame their lack of commitment if you want, but ultimately it’s your fault because you expected too much of them. If steps are easy you increase the likelihood of achieving your goal.

2. If it’s not obvious, your people may go the wrong way. You don’t want them to have to guess what the next step for them is.

3. Each step has to be strategic. It’s part of a strategy for moving people from one place to another. If a program isn’t a step that is part of a strategy, then it can waste a lot of time and money. It’s often good things that knock you off target. A flood is simply a river that couldn’t decide where it wanted to go.

Continue reading “7 Practices of Effective Ministry: #2 Think Steps Not Programs” →

Andy Stanley is the Senior Pastor of North Point Community Church, a thriving multi-site church in Atlanta, Georgia. He has written a number of very helpful resources for churches and church leaders. One example is the book Seven Practices of Effective Ministry. 

In this book, the authors, propose that clearly articulated and established principles enable you to work through the fog of information and emotion in order to find clarity and make the tough calls. They provide a context for all discussions and decisions. Ministry is more of an art than a science. We need to know what to ask not just what to do. 

Practice #1 – Clarify the Win

It is impossible to know if you are making progress if you are not clear on the destination. This requires examining each and every church ministry, event and program and asking the question, "When all is said and done, what is it we want to look back on and celebrate?"

Do you know what a win is in your church or ministry? It’s difficult to tell when things are working well in church. A win is more complicated in church so knowing what a win looks like is all the more important. Do you have a scoreboard so you know when you’re getting ahead and your people know when to cheer?

No player in any sports team is confused about the goal. They may not reach it but they know what it is. If you give people a good goal then most of the time they’ll work hard to get there. But if the goal is unclear, they’re forced to guess, or worse, decide for themselves what a win really is. With or without a goal, people will work hard to get somewhere. The question is: Are they getting where you want them to go?

How do you clarify the win? Just ask yourself, ‘What is the most important thing?’ ‘Life change’ is our obvious goal but how do we measure that? Figure out where and how life change happens best and move people there.

In baseball the goal is to get to home plate. That’s where a win occurs. You have to decide where a win best happens for you. Is it your Sunday morning service or somewhere else? Once you know where it is, then you have to take the necessary steps to get there. Give people a clear target and they’re more likely to hit it.

Clarifying the win simply means communicating to your team what is really important and what really matters. By being intentional about defining a win you don’t accidentally communicate the wrong win or keep your team guessing about what is really important. Nothing hinders morale like separate agendas pulling against one another.

Continue reading “7 Practices of Effective Ministry: #1 Clarify the Win” →

The Exponential Conference is an annual conference in the USA focused on motivating and equipping church leaders and especially church planters. This year's theme was On the Verge, which is the title of a new book by Alan Hirsch and Dave Ferguson. Podcasts of previous year conferences are available now, with this year's sessions coming soon. 

I attended this year's conference and it was very good, with a great variety of helpful workshops. A few of the workshops that I attended were related to multi-site church strategy. Click here to read a document summarising 10 insights gleaned. 

May God's church continue to make a positive difference in our world … through all means and strategies possible.