At the beginning of this month I blogged a post about how I will crash and burn in ministry. Pertaining to this post:

#2. Accept responsibility for everything. Say “yes” to whatever is asked of you and your time. It doesn’t matter if it could easily be handled by a volunteer, take it on anyway because you’re the guy they pay to do it. Besides, there may be no one else willing or available to do it besides you, which obviously indicates how important it is to everyone else.

So what I had to eliminate is my mindset…

So my four things are paradigm shifts in the way I think.

1. I will not do things just because we always done them

2. People in certain positions will not stay in that position if they are not effective…I reserve the right to change staff’s jobs and place within the church

3. We focus on three things, community and global mission, things that draw people to our worship, things that place people in our small groups. Everything else goes away.

4. For the next year we only communicate mission and vision in announcements, message, music and events.

Good word on focus and avoiding complexity. We just made a move to cancel our Easter Pageant this year…which has been a big thing for us in the past. But it began to compete with our weekend services for energy and resources.

By the way — our small group is using Chazown.

eric

Glad you are out of the jam.

my wife and i have recently moved and it’s hard to find churches were we might be able to lead in, simply because they’re hyper-staffed and they only want us to participate, with new options of leading…it’s a bummer…

so your comment about leaders being drawn elsewhere is so true.

also, for me, I love the 70% rule…that’s a very good personal reminder for me…

i will strive to work on that this next week infact…i will strive to apply the 70% rule.

–RC of strangeculture.blogspot.com

Thanks. Whether you realize it or not, I believe your words resound with the character of Christ and with practical truth.

You have helped immeasurably. I especially liked the way you phrased, “don’t have any clean answers for your challenges.” That got me thinking. I suppose there are no, true, simple or clean answers to anything that really challenges us…or else they probably wouldn’t be all that challenging in the first place, so we should not despair, ever.

Thanks again.

I agree with your recommendation of “Courageous Leadership.” This is an incredible book. I have been honored to spend time with Bill on several occasions. I have always admired him from a distance, but he is even greater up close.

J.G.,

You’ve raised some great questions. As you delegate to others, sometimes they represent you well and other times they drift from your heart and intentions. The larger an organization grows, the more difficult “quality control” becomes.

I often hear about things that go on in our church that I despise. Sometimes I’m grossly misquoted, even by well intentioned staff members.

The tension: if we don’t give up control, we’ll likely limit the span of reach of the ministry. If we do give up control, we might see vision/value erosion.

I don’t have any clean answers for your challenges. I try to constantly talk about our “values” in ministry. When someone steps outside those values, I try to offer correction. And like you said, it often boils down to a “God-trust” issue.

Just yesterday, I was in a book discussion meeting. We were discussing some parts of Bill Hybels’ book “Courageous Leadership.” I would recommend it to all. Chapter six talks about the same concept you have. Allow me to paraphrase…The sign of a good leader is someone who raises up other leaders, someone who enables them by challenging them.

Another quote I was given just yesterday is by Rick Warren - “I want my staff members taking risks and making mistakes. That means they’re being innovative and it means they’re not afraid to try. Now, I don’t want them making the same mistake every week – that means they’re not learning, and that is bad. But I tell them, ‘Make a new mistake every week.’ I tell them, ‘Show the innovation and creativity to do something really stupid that you’ve never done before.”

Again, great series. Thanks!

I hope you don’t mind me asking this question, but it is something I have been struggling with the past few days and have wanted to ask but have stopped myself from doing so.

Can you give any advice on knowing where to draw the line between giving up control of aspects of your ministry versus losing influence over individuals you are responsible for to a certain degree?

Do you ever have to reassess and even reassert your influence over individuals if they misuse the recommendations/freedom you’ve given them?

I suppose this is a shifted notion of quality control but, the words quality and control do play crucial parts in anyone’s ministry, since whenever we delegate or put our trust into others we set up a certain level of risk. Recently, I find releasing control a difficult pill to swallow. Does this come down to a God-trust issue?

Can you help me?

Humbly,
Thanks

Great series. Thanks!

Ben