Empowering Leaders

In yesterday's post I discussed an insightful article by Will Mancini on the vehicles needed to cast and share vision. There I started to consider application of these principles to leadership development, and continue here with some more thoughts on empowering leaders and application to our church.

Mancini is a co-author with Aubrey Malphurs on a superb book called "Building Leaders" (sample chapter on empowerment here), a guide to building a leadership development process in the church. He shares on the great importance of empowering leaders in this book, with a summary on his web site. Take a close look at the list above. Do you see how vitally important leaders are for casting vision across all levels of the organization? Empowerment is not easy! It's painful and at first inefficient. More from Mancini:

#1 Empowerment increases the scope of unknown ministry outcomes.

#2 Empowerment requires a sacrifice of short-term ministry efficiency.

#3 Empowerment requires giving away authority that previously provided the basis of personal ministry success.

#4 Empowerment necessitates close support and authentic community with other leaders.

What's my takeaway for a mid-sized church with a strong leader, wonderful volunteers, yet is too big for the pastors to know everyone and drive everything and too small to have a large staff or a solid culture of leadership development and empowerment?

1. It is essential to have a significantly higher level of interaction, support, and community with our small group leaders. (And not just as conduits to distribute information, but in recognition these are our most valuable set of leaders in the church.) 
2. It would be of tremendous benefit to more intentionally foster a leadership development culture in our church, by increasing communication and discussion, encouragement, and empowerment. Again not just top-down, but leader to leader, taking time to dream, dialogue openly, and pray together.
3. Our preaching of vision is strong, but can be made more effective by some advance planning so that the message is repeated and reinforced in other venues.
4. We should continue to re-evaluate our communications and branding as well as our structures and titles involving volunteers.
5. We have to be more willing to risk short-term pain and even failure to develop the culture of empowerment needed for us to have a significant kingdom impact.

Is your church empowering leaders? Can your ministry leaders and small group leaders articulate the church's vision? Is it their vision too? 

Casting Vision and Developing Leaders

Casting Vision and Developing Leaders - the two are a lot more connected that it might seem at first glance.

I read an excellent blog post today by Will Mancini - The six vehicles for church vision: how many are you using? Everybody knows the great importance of preaching for casting vision, but there you're leaving a tremendous amount of influence on the table if it's the only (or even the primary) venue for vision. Please read the whole article, but here's some key points from the six vehicles he describes.

Vehicle #1 - The Connecting Environment. Small groups are where vision sticks or bounces off. It's actually the primary vehicle because it is the most relational.

Vehicle #2 - The Leadership Pipeline. Highly underrated! Will writes "The leadership pipeline is the vehicle where vision is transferred from leaders to other leaders. It assumes a leadership development culture. It supposes there are time and places where only leaders meet to pray, dream, dialogue and train together."

Vehicle #3 - The Preaching Event. There is no substitute, as it connects the vision to the Word of God and the act of worship.

Vehicle #4 - The Structural Story. The supporting structure and systems, and your attitude toward staff and volunteers matters a great deal.

Vehicle #5 - The Visual Brand. Everything speaks.

Vehicle #6 - The Voice of Each One. Essential, though it may take a long time to get there if starting from a centralized preaching-centric approach. "Vision transfers through people not paper."

In my next post I'm going to discuss the need for empowering leaders and share some thoughts on applications within our church.

What are your thoughts? Are you using all six vehicles? If not, what needs to change?

Review - Lasting Impressions

"Lasting Impressions: From Visiting to Belonging" by Mark Waltz is an excellent and very challenging book about the process of helping people connect and belong. Mark is the Pastor of Connections at Granger Community Church, and earlier wrote a book called "First Impressions: Creating Wow Experiences In Your Church."

First Impressions looks at making a positive impression for guests and repeat visitors and considers the role of greeters, ushers, welcome desk, etc. I wasn't sure what to expect from "Lasting Impressions", but it turned out to be a whole lot more than a simple follow-up. What I did find was a book that looked at those who did come back and asked the question "Now what?!" It's really about creating a culture of belonging, talking about the need for organic relationships, a good understanding of what you can (and can't) do to help people grow. As a bonus, the book has review questions and exercises to discuss and apply what you learn with your team. Chapters  include: People Still Matter; Assimilation: Watch your Language; You Can't Create People; Starbucks, Stories and Space; Be an Environmental Architect; How Full is Your Menu?; What do We Expect?; Develop Relational Road Maps; Construct Volunteer Venues; On-Ramps, Exit Ramps and Mile Markers.

What really impressed me about the book was that it turned upside my thinking on a number of interrelated issues - small groups, how to recruit volunteers, how to encourage membership - and described just how much their thinking has changed in the past decade as the times change. Some takeaway points - meet people where they are at; avoid pushing an agenda or assimilation into a checklist of programs; get over being responsible for people, and be responsible to them; growth is a transformation process that takes time and caring relationships; be an environmental architect who considers purpose, use and people; simplify and reduce what you offer; encourage next steps that are highly relational; ministry is just as much about relationship as it is about task. Some examples of how they've applied this at Granger: they eliminated affinity ministries (relying on self-selecting groups and centrally coordinated events); they're a church with small groups, not of groups (as many people simply can't/won't join one); they have very few things they ask people to do rather than expect heavy activity attendance. With respect to engaging volunteers to advance the Kingdom via ministry, they assume there are people out there longing to make a difference in their lives, who want to volunteer, but are not clear on how or where. They talk about the vision and need frequently, "chunk" tasks into smaller tasks, create "First Serve" opportunities (no strings attached come-and-serve-once) and "Second Saturday" (a few hours once a month to serve the community), provide a variety of schedules, celebrate success with stories and video, encourage experimentation, and constantly are on the look out for new people with leadership potential. Personal invitations to serve alongside are still the most effective recruiting tool, but they do not neglect having a limited number of clear on-ramps, such as a Volunteer Expo, an all-skate serve event, hosting a volunteer on-ramp online, and a 'Backstage Pass' tour of all that's going on. It's a firehose of great ideas, meant to spark thought in your own context rather than provide a model to copy.

I could go on, but really, just go ahead and read the book! "Lasting Impressions: From Visiting to Belonging" (Group Publishing, 2008) is available at Amazon and other retailers.

Pastor freed from Russian Prison

Pastor Phillip Miles from South Carolina who was sentenced to three years in a Russian prison for smuggling ammo was freed from a Russian prison after seven months, the sentence reduced to time served, reports CNN New Fox News. The pastor had not thought too much about carrying in a $25 box of rifle shells, nothing fancy, and nothing that isn't commonly available in Moscow, but that was a really bad idea.

Various news agencies talk about various aspects of it... the injustice of imprisoning a man who for 30 years has done nothing but help people; the (lack of) wisdom of a man carrying ammo of any kind into another country; an unfortunate 'cultural gap'; evidence of an 'arrogant American attitude'; the unfounded harshness of a 'smuggling' charge; how his time away will help him be a better husband; but it was another aspect that caught my attention as I listened to the story on K-Love radio.

The ordeal has fired up the church with a tremendous sense of unity and purpose. It's been a real rallying point for people in the church to step up while he has been away. Prayer, attendance, and involvement in ministry have all gone way up in the past seven months. Everyone is eagerly planning a celebration time for when he returns, then - like it or not - they're sending him away with his wife and children for some much needed rebonding time, before he comes back to serve the congregation.

What a great Christ-like response to a bad situation. Let's not wait for our pastor to be snatched away in a foreign prison before we love on him and his family, turn our hearts in earnest to prayer, love and unity, and stepping up in ministry to do what God has called us to do!  :)

Volunteer Ministries Coordinator

This week, in support of our Vision Path and as a complement to seminary studies in Ministry Leadership, I have taken on a new role as ‘Volunteer Ministries Coordinator’ at Calvary. I’m excited about the opportunity to love and serve those who are stepping up to serve God and one another in our church and community.

What is a Volunteer Ministries Coordinator?

It’s a person who champions the purpose of Ministry – a servant who encourages and equips volunteer ministry leaders, helps people find their SHAPE and get plugged in, identifies and develops new leaders, and coordinates efforts in our various volunteer ministries. Similar to how I describe a Small Group Coach, the priorities are: 1) show love to those involved in ministry, 2) support them as needed to help their ministry to transform lives, 3) help other leaders understand the church’s vision of developing fully-devoted followers of Christ and set their own ministry goals as they pursue this vision.

At Calvary we structure and staff according to our purposes: fellowship, discipleship, ministry, missions, and worship. Someday I pray God will allow us to call full-time ministers for each of these, but for the short-term we’re relying on part-time and volunteer leaders to serve. “Every Member a Minister” is a key part of our vision, and something I really believe in. My main prayer request would be for strength and balance as I’m still a full-time engineer, husband and father of four, student, and trying to do what I can to as a part-time volunteer ministries coordinator!