Stop Doing, Start Thinking

May 17, 2012 Leave a Comment

One of the interesting things I’ve noticed about myself and other ministry leaders I know is how much time we spend putting on events and trying to get people to attend those events. The typical parish has a lot of activities going on.

photo by karola riegler photography

In any given week at the church, there is liturgy, youth ministry, children’s ministry, stewardship drives, music practice, liturgical training, pastoral and finance council meetings, adult faith formation, service projects and young adult ministry. If you are like some parishes, times that by the number of cultural communities represented in the church, Latino, Vietnamese, Korean, etc.…

There is a lot of busyness in the church. But where does it all lead?

In the past (okay, in the present as well), I was notorious for starting ministry after ministry after ministry. On Sunday we’d have a youth mass and a high school ministry. On Monday we would have middle school ministry. On Tuesday we would have a core team meeting. On Thursday we would have young adult ministry. On the weekends, we’d have retreats and service projects. Wow, I was busy!

Why? Because it was all good stuff and it was all for God.

Okay, that last statement was definitely true, but what my ministry lacked was an intentional plan. I would start a ministry because it sounded like a good idea. It was a good idea! However, I did not have a long term plan to see how all these ministries fit together.

I believe that you and I need to spend more time being more intentional about looking long term in our ministry to see where we are and to map out where we are going.

We need to stop doing and start thinking.

Here are four ways that we need to think differently before we go about launching ministry after ministry after ministry:

1. Think long-term:
Ministry leaders need to create a long-term vision for the ministry they lead. This should culminate in the creation of a ministry strategic plan. The plan could be a two-year, 3-year, or 5-year plan. But the plan does not need to be set in stone. The plan can change as needed. That’s not the point. The point is to create clarity around your goals for the future of your ministry and to start intentionally moving in that direction.

2. Let go of numbers:
Hoping to grow our ministry is important. We should pay attention to the number of participants we have attending our ministry events. However, when we focus solely on numbers, we are distracted from the ultimate reason for our ministry; helping people have a vibrant faith in God that is rooted in the community.

3. Don’t start a new ministry until you see how it fits in with the big picture:
New and creative ministry ideas are important. But, slow down in launching that new idea. How does it fit with what you have going on already? Do you have time to start this new ministry? These are really important questions to ask. If you don’t ask these questions, you will have more ministry than you have time to lead.

4. Set right expectations:
High expectations can be helpful, but we need to set the right expectations. Sometimes those high expectations come from external sources, like a pastor or parents. Often times, the expectations are internal. They come from ourselves. We expect more of ourselves than is realistic. Don’t set high expectations for yourself. Set the right expectations.

Stop doing and start thinking. Yes, we’re experts at running multiple ministries at the same time. Take a moment right now and think through everything you have going on in your ministry.

Question: Do you have too many ministries on your plate? How do they all fit together?

Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With:

Do You Trust?

May 16, 2012 Leave a Comment

In this short video, Patrick Lencioni, author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, talks about the importance of trust on any team. He distinguishes between predicative trust and vulnerability-based trust.

Question: What stops you from having vulnerability-based trust in your ministry?

Filed Under: Relationships

The Endless Spiral Not Worth Entering

May 15, 2012 Leave a Comment

photo by the pale side of insomnia

Over the past 8 weeks, we have explored different strategies to recruiting, training, and sustaining volunteer ministers. You can find a summary of posted articles below.

One thing I have learned while putting these ideas to print is that most of us don’t spend enough time with this process. When we don’t give it the time it needs, we get stuck in a spiral of low volunteer involvement. This is what it looks like:

  • We don’t spend enough time recruiting and recruiting well…
  • So, we don’t have enough volunteers to do ministry at the level we hope…
  • Therefore, we don’t train the volunteers we do have well because we are so busy trying to run other aspects of the ministry…
  • That means the volunteers quickly get demotivated…
  • So we run over to motivate the volunteers…
  • Therefore, other important ministry tasks fall off the plate and can’t be accomplished…
  • That means we try to recruit more volunteers to help, but we do it poorly…
  • Because we have to train the new volunteers and sustain that ones we already have…
  • While, we try to keep the plates spinning.

The most important lesson I have learned is to slow down. Have realistic expectations of what parts of the ministry we can manage and manage well. The most important task we can do is not the ministry to youth or managing the budget. It’s not answering emails or attending staff meetings. The most important task is to spend intentional time recruiting, training, and sustaining volunteer ministers.

When I started my first full-time ministry position, I gave myself less than 2 months to start a new ministry to youth from scratch. From idea to launch, I didn’t give myself enough time. Did I lead a decent ministry? Yes. Was it excellent? No. To this day, the lesson I learned from that experience was that if I just spent more time on the front end with my team of volunteers, we could have done better ministry

Give it time! Recruit, train, and sustain volunteers well. When you do, you’ll find that your ministry will move to a whole new level!

Question: What will it take for you to spend more time in your efforts with volunteers?

 

Summary of posts in the “recruiting, training, and sustaining volunteer ministers” series:

Filed Under: Attitude, Equipping, Leadership, Relationships Tagged With: , ,

Relax! Let the Mind Rest

May 14, 2012 Leave a Comment

photo by soukup

“The mind needs to lay fallow from time to time.” -My Spiritual Director

 

Not too long ago, I was getting caught up in my ministry in a way that is not usual for me. I was really busy juggling multiple summer events that were coming my way. I was feeling stressed about the events and I was allowing the small details to ruin my attitude. The pace of my ministry had increased and I had to focus more on the details of each event as it got closer.

At the same time, I was feeling a need to be uber-productive in light of my busyness. I was working more hours than usual. I was responding to ministry emails from home. When I was home, I couldn’t stop thinking about my ministry. My mind was going crazy!

It was time to pause.

I had a regularly scheduled meeting with my spiritual director right in the middle of all of this. I shared with him how I was feeling and I how I felt that I couldn’t relax. My mind was in overdrive. I also shared that I felt like I was making more mistakes than usual and that I had the feeling that my summer events were not going to go well. In turn, that made me feel like a bad leader and that my whole ministry was going downhill.

My spiritual director provided some spiritual prospective.

He described to me how the evil spirit likes to jump into these little cracks in my life and try to widen them and make me feel like things are not going well in ministry. Because of that, he said that I was feeling like I was not confident in my leadership and the small things were becoming way bigger than they needed to be.

He was right! The evil spirit was winning.

The fact was that almost every part of my ministry was going well. I was allowing small mistakes or missteps to be big deals. They weren’t a big deal. I was making them a big deal.

Then my spiritual director said what is quoted at the top.

I have a tendency to think too much, solve every problem, make everything right, and do everything with excellence. I believe this is a great quality about myself. I work hard! However, taken to an extreme, this quality can be a liability. Why? Because I have to rest my brain, I can’t solve every problem, I can’t make everything right, and I make mistakes with excellence!

Relax. Let the mind lay fallow. Okay, I have some work to do.

Do you have difficulty relaxing and allowing your mind to lay fallow?

Filed Under: Attitude

Using “Key Results Area” to Equip Your Team

May 10, 2012 2 Comments

photo by Moyan_Brenn

“A river without banks is a large puddle.” –Ken Blanchard

Recently, I wrote about how we have been trying to measure our success in ministry. This was all spawned one day when I asked my team this question: how do you know that you have been successful in your ministry?

The answers were interesting, but lacked depth. This was my fault.

For the last few years that I have been in ministry, I have not adequately helped my team know what it meant to be successful in our ministry. We had great ideas and well thought out initiatives to minister to the youth and young adult community, but we had no way of knowing if we were doing well.

At the same time, I was reading a book called EntreLeadership. One of the chapters spoke about setting your team up for success by giving them clear targets to hit. They called these “key results area,” or KRA’s. At the beginning of the year, they set up the KRA’s for each team member. At the end of the year, they measure the team members performance based on how well they did meeting their KRA’s.

The banks of a river allow the water to flow in a targeted direction towards its final destination. Without the banks, the river cannot stay focused and flow in one direction. It becomes a large puddle.

When I don’t give my team the “banks of the river,” I cannot expect them to move the ministry forward in the right direction. They will wander aimlessly, not knowing if they are moving forward in a way that is right or wrong.

I knew what I had to do. As difficult as it can be to measure success in ministry, we set clear targets for our ministry. We clearly laid out our KRA’s for the next two years. This makes it easy to know when we are on target and when we are not meeting our goals.

For the first time in a couple years, my team and I feel a clear sense of direction. We know what we want to accomplish, when we want to accomplish it by, and whether we’ve had the impact that we are hoping to have.

My team needs KRA’s. Whether they are staff or volunteers, everyone likes to measure their progress.

What are the KRA’s, or key results area, for your ministry?

Filed Under: Equipping

Can Your Attitude Overcome This?

May 9, 2012 Leave a Comment

Just for fun, this video shows John C. Maxwell dealing with some faulty equipment while speaking on stage.

How would you handle this situation?

Filed Under: Attitude Tagged With:

Motivating Volunteers

May 8, 2012 Leave a Comment

“People say motivation doesn’t last, well neither does bathing, that is why we recommend both daily.” –Zig Ziglar

Last week, in my series on recruiting, training, and sustaining volunteer ministers, I shared four strategies that we can use to keep our volunteers. The first strategy was about finding out what motivates our team of volunteers. Each volunteer has different things that motivate them. The key is to find out what those are.

Mark Sanborn, in his book, You Don’t Need A Title to be a Leader, describes some questions that you can ask to determine what motivates your volunteers. Below are some of the questions Sanborn asks with my interpretation of them.

What do you like about ministry the most? What is your favorite activity?
When we find out what our volunteers like best, we can ensure that they have the opportunity to continue to work in those areas of the ministry. There is nothing worse than being excited about an activity or role just to be pulled into another role that you are not as excited about.

What do you like to do the least?
Like the question above, this can assist you in helping move a volunteer away from the activities they don’t like doing. Sometimes it is unrealistic to move them completely away from activities they don’t like, but we should try. Even the activities we like the most have certain aspects that we don’t like. That’s fine, as long as the list of dislikes is small.

What is your typical work style?
Knowing how your volunteers work is crucial. I had a conversation recently with a volunteer and he told me that he usually waits until the last minute to get tasks done, but that they are done with excellence. That made me nervous, but at the same time, this person has constantly performed well in ministry without having to stay on them to get the work done. Do they need to be micro-managed? Do they need you to be hands off? Do they need more direction from you, or more support? Do they do their tasks late at night or during the day? Do they prefer to communicate via email, text, Facebook, or phone call? Do they want you to sugar coat your comments or say it as it is? Understanding the work style your volunteer can save you and your volunteer anxiety. Everyone has a different style of working.

Whom do you enjoy ministering with? Whom do you dislike ministering with, and why?
This question takes a level of trust in the relationship with your volunteer. They must know that you will hold this information in confidence. The fact is that there are usually quite a few people that a volunteer does like to work with, while there are one or two people she doesn’t like to work with. That’s normal. Finding out why is the crucial part of this question. When you know why, you can help make the changes that are necessary to make the situation better. Sometimes that means shuffling ministry roles. Most of the time, it means that you and I need to make some changes on how the ministry functions.

What annoys you about being part of a team? What do you enjoy about teamwork?
Teamwork can be very powerful, but working in a team is no picnic. Asking these questions provides insight into what type of team member your volunteer is. It also provides insight into their areas of strength and weakness when it comes to working in a team.

What do you hope to be doing in ten years?
Ministry experience can be very versatile. When a volunteer tells you what their hopes are for a future career or other volunteer experiences they hope to have, we can start to help shape the ministry experience in a way that allows them to see how it can help them move towards that vision. If it doesn’t do that, at least it shows that you care about them as a person and want to know more about them. It is always motivating when I know that a leader genuinely cares about me.

There are numerous ways that we can motivate our volunteers. Find the strategies that work best for you.

Filed Under: Attitude, Equipping, Leadership, Relationships Tagged With: , , ,

2 Shortcuts to Relate With People

May 7, 2012 Leave a Comment

 “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” -Dale Carnegie

I have a confession to make. I enjoy talking about myself, my family, and my ministry. I’m pretty sure that most people reading this blog would say the same thing about themselves. Why? It’s fun to talk about ourselves!

The only problem is that most people I encounter don’t care about me. They care about themselves. That’s true in ministry as well. We are all naturally selfish. It’s part of the human condition. It’s part of being human. And that’s okay.

To be an effective leader in ministry, we have to spend more time being interested in other people than getting other people interested in us.

One of my ministry mentors modeled this so well for me. Time and time again, I would watch him engage other people and find out about their lives, family, strengths and weaknesses, and their personal faith story. Each person that spent time with him felt like he truly cared about them and was genuinely interested in their lives. He was a master at this!

I learned a lot about relating with people from him. I watched him employ these two strategies constantly.

1. Spend “down” time with people
In the busyness of our ministry or meeting agenda, it is difficult to get to know people on a personal level. There are tasks to be accomplished and items to be discussed. That’s why spending “down” time with the people you minister to and with is essential. This is about putting aside all ministry tasks to just be present with the person. Two of my favorite “down” time opportunities:

  • Sharing meals together
  • Trips in the car

These are great opportunities to have total focus and attention on other people.

Spending “down” time with others is just the first step. It’s what you do during that “down” time that makes a difference. That’s where the second strategy comes into play.

2. Ask good questions
I love being on the receiving end of good questions. Good questions allow me to share from the heart about my life and experience. What constitutes a good question depends on who you are spending time with. For me (and a lot of people I know), asking about their family can provide a lot of conversation. People love to talk about their family. What are some other good questions to ask of the people you minister to and with?

  • How did you get involved in ministry?
  • Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
  • Where did you grow up?
  • What is one of your favorite memories growing up?
  • How’s your daughter (or son) doing? (I always talk about a storm when someone asks me about my daughter!)
  • Tell me about your career.
  • How did you meet your spouse?

These are great starter questions. Once you start hearing more about someone, it becomes easy to ask follow up questions related to what they have said.

One temptation to avoid is to start answering these questions in the midst of the conversation. When someone talks about their child, for instance, we naturally want to share about our family as well. Don’t! That time will come. The focus should be on the other person.

 

At the end of the conversation, the person you are building a relationship with will feel like a million bucks! She will feel that you really do care about them and they will think the world of you. They will be likely to stay involved in the church because someone took the time to get to know them.

Are those the most important goals in relating with people? No.

The most important goal is to truly love and care for the people God has put in your path.

And remember what John C. Maxwell always says: “No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”

 

How do you show people that you care about them?

Filed Under: Relationships

1 Tool to Make Stress Go Away

May 3, 2012 Leave a Comment

photo by Alan Cleaver

Recently, I was working on a big ministry project, a week-long youth ministry retreat this summer. There are many moving parts to this event, including a team of 14 volunteer director’s, 50 or so volunteer staff, online registration process, communication and marketing, audio/visual equipment, supplies, small group journals, meetings, and, oh trust me, much more!

Needless to say, I was feeling a little overwhelmed, feeling a little stressed, and feeling a little pressure.

If you’re like me, sometimes I avoid the programs that cause me stress. Well, I think I was avoiding some of this work. I woke up in the morning and the first thing I thought about was the retreat. Last thing I thought about before I went to bed was the retreat. It was consuming me.

To try and combat what I was feeling, I immediately went to prayer. My time in prayer was helpful, but looming over the prayer was still this pressure. Prayer was good, but it wasn’t enough.

But then I figured it out.

Whenever I start to feel the stress about an event or project that I’m leading, it’s usually caused by one thing: the unknown.

What was the unknown in this situation?

The unknown was all the little things that need to get done between now and the retreat.

I had a solution!

I spent a few hours going through past retreat documents and writing out a detailed to-do list of all the little things that needed to get done. Next to the task, I wrote who was responsible for the task and what the potential due date might be. (It was quite refreshing to know that I was not responsible for all the tasks on the list.)

Wow! My stress and the pressure I was feeling dissipated instantly. Why? Because I knew what I had to do. I knew that it was manageable and that it was going to get done.

The big, scary unknown turned into a small, manageable, and doable reality.

Try it. Next time you are feeling overwhelmed about your ministry, after taking it to prayer, sit down and write out the unknowns. Make them known and see how you feel afterwards.

How do you fight stress in your ministry? How do you make the unknown known?

Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With:

Get Your Volunteers Engaged

May 2, 2012 Leave a Comment

In this video, the folks at the Harvard Business Review talk about what it takes to engage employees. This video is very transferable to how we work with ministry staff and volunteers. Some of the practical strategies they share are:

  • Write hand-written notes
  • Celebrate contributions
  • Manage by walking around

This can be especially powerful if you are a pastor. Many staff and volunteers give of their time and talent to the church because they are passionate about the ministry. For many, the recognition from the ones that lead the church, namely, the pastor, can be the most powerful.

Engaging the people we minister with on a regular basis is an essential tool in ministry.

How do you engage with your staff or volunteers?

 

Filed Under: Attitude, Equipping, Leadership, Relationships Tagged With: ,