Month: March 2017

When navigating uncharted waters (the theme of this week’s posts), one of the best leadership ideas is: find an expert. I had the opportunity yesterday to talk with a pastor who is responsible for leadership in a particular area of ministry that is uncharted for us. What made it so helpful is he serves in a church with 4,000 in weekly attendance. He has twelve years of experience in that environment and during that time he has seen the church grow from 3,000 to 4,000 people, so he has the kind of experience that could be extremely helpful to me as a leader who is in the process of leading a local church into the 1,000 people per weekend “waters.”

As I spoke with the pastor I realized not everything he said was immediately applicable in our situation, and some of it may never be applicable, but much of what he said was transferable to our situation, and provided a starting point from which our leadership can make informed decisions that will lead to informed commitments and actions. Everything I’ve said may be intuitively obvious to some of you, but sometimes it’s the intuitively obvious that we overlook. It’s so simple we forget to do it.

I have known for a long time that finding an expert can make a big difference when moving into uncharted waters, and yesterday’s conversation underlined that truth for me. The experience and expertise of someone who has “been there and done that,” who has learned from the missteps along the way, and who is willing to share it is invaluable to leaders who want to make the best use of available time, talent and other resources along the way.

Whatever uncharted waters you’re navigating today, you’ll do well to consider finding an expert who can help you navigate them. Sometimes the resources will cost time and money, and the question is one we must ask ourselves all the time: is the resource and investment or an expense? In other words, will my pouring time and money into the resource be an investment in charting the uncharted, or an expense that costs us time and/or money, but doesn’t make the way ahead any clearer. As every leader knows, sometimes you don’t know whether it was an investment or an expense until farther along the course, but we are leaders because we are in a position to make those calls.

If you are heading into uncharted waters in any area of your organization, and if you are healthy and growing, or wondering why you aren’t you probably are, then take some time to consider whether investing your time and other resources into finding and expert and getting help is a step you need to take.

Here’s to leading better by evaluating whether to get the help of an expert–today!

When we’re navigating uncharted waters (see yesterday’s post), the tendency is to look for a silver bullet, for that one new idea, or policy, or plan, or process, or leader who will move us forward. If you’ve been leading for any period of time, you know there are no silver bullets, but what I’ve found over the past several years in particular as we have navigated a great deal of uncharted water in growing from a church with 300-400 hundred in worship to a church approaching 1,000 in worship is one of the most important leadership shifts necessary has been the identification and implementation of clear, repeatable and replicable policies, procedures and systems.

I know that is not sexy. If you’re a pure leader, you don’t want to hear it. I know I didn’t. I’m a visionary. Writing policies and procedures and developing systems is like poking my eye out with a fork. When we had a consultant come in three years ago to identify the next steps we needed to take in order to move to the next level as a church, you can’t imagine my thoughts when we were told one of the three key “roadblocks” to our health, growth and effectiveness was the need to develop clear, repeatable and replicable policies, procedures and systems in every area of our church life. We’ve all heard, “The system is ideally suited to produce the results you are getting,” and it’s corollary, “Therefore, if you want to change the results you have to change the system.” The leader in me wants to read those statements and say, “Yes, but…” Yes, but if I just lead better, if I just cast the vision more clearly, if we just call another staff member, if….

We may well need to do all those things. In fact, when it became clear we needed to develop policies, procedures and systems to move us to greater effectiveness, I realized I was not the one to lead us in that area. We needed someone who could lead us through it, and no one on staff at the time had the time to do it, and really no one had the expertise or desire to do it either. Over the next several months it became clear to me that while it wasn’t necessarily in the budget, if we were going to navigate the uncharted waters of moving to the next level, we would need someone, a new “crew member” to champion the process of developing processes. The rest of the leadership team agreed, so we identified a potential leader for this area, Barry Leicher.

Barry was not already serving in a church of 1,000 or more. In fact, he wasn’t even serving a church. He was an administrator in a secular business, with a heart for the church, and some background in church leadership. I met with Barry on several occasions to discuss the possibility of him becoming our executive pastor. While the process we needed would be uncharted waters for Barry, his skill set and motivation made him what I considered to be a great candidate. The past two and half years have proven that assessment more than correct. With Barry’s leadership we have navigated the uncharted waters of developing polices, procedures and systems for New Life that are helping to pave the way for our next step and future steps of health and growth.

You may notice that I typically link the word health with growth. Healthy things grow. But sometimes unhealthy things also grow. Cancer, for example, grows rapidly but if left unchecked produces death rather than health. Our goal at New Life is not only to grow, but to grow more healthy and to provide more effective leadership and ministry along the way. Many times we aren’t 100% clear (or even 90%) on what we need to do next, but we are a church, which means we offer our best effort and rely on God to provide what we’re lacking.

I know that statement may not line up with what some of you believe, but I am not naive enough to think that our best efforts, along with identifying and developing new leaders is enough for us to see the miraculous results around us. Remember, we’re in Saxonburg, and we’re about to break the 1,000 barrier in weekend worship attendance. While there’s no silver bullet, we do rely on God to provide supernatural wisdom and blessing on a daily basis in order to make up for some of the lack in our resources, skills and systems.

Whatever you lead, whether your family, your business, your church or something else are you hoping for a silver bullet to bail you out, or to move you through the uncharted waters your sailing right now? In my experience the best combination is to trust God, assemble the best team, and develop the best possible practices in your area of endeavor and then trust that together God and you will move through the uncharted waters with an effectiveness than no human solution alone will ever provide.

Here’s to leading better, by doing your best and letting God add the rest–today!

At New Life we’re about to “break the 1,000 barrier.” As it sounds, it means we’re about to experience having 1,000 people join us each weekend for worship. For us that is an “uncharted water.” Being located in a small, rural town in western Pennsylvania, we are moving into uncharted waters. Statistically, only about 10% of American churches have more than 350 people in worship on a weekend according to Them Ranier, who has done church research for decades. The number that where the worship attendance exceeds 1,000 people per weekend is less than 5%. I am in no way commenting on bigger being “better,” because many factors determine the size and health of a local church. My point is what we’re experiencing is uncommon in America, and that we’re experiencing it in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania makes it quite rare.

None of our staff have ever served on a church with more than a 1,000 in attendance, so leadership at every level is quite important. The basic principles of leadership remain constant, but what we have found at New Life over the past several years is one of the primary barriers to moving forward has been the need for being able to replicate what we are doing in every area of our church family. For example, our Relevant Youth Ministry has grown exponentially since we moved into our permanent building a little less than four years ago. After worshipping in local school buildings on the weekends for nine years, and renting space for youth ministry and other church activities during the week, when we moved into our own building in 2013, we saw immediate growth in every area, but in no place as in our youth ministry.

The challenges to know everyone who came, to identify and welcome first-time guests, to minister to the needs of dozens of young people instead of a dozen required effective leadership and many more leaders and volunteers. A system for identifying and equipping volunteers and leaders was developed. As a result the ministry has grown rapidly, and much more importantly has reached many more young people in our local communities with the good news of Jesus.

The same reality has been part of every area of ministry. Our worship ministry has continued to grow and improve as our worship pastor has developed additional worship members and leaders and technical support team members and leaders to staff a weekend worship service schedule that now offers four weekend worship services. Neither our youth pastors, Mark Lutz (who is now our discipleship pastor) and Alex DeRosa, nor our worship pastor, Brad French, had served in churches with more than 1,000 in worship so we have done a lot of reading, watching and listening along the way.

The key is: when traveling uncharted waters you must have a map (a plan), a boat (a structure), a crew (leaders and workers) and navigational methods (repeatable and reproducible policies and procedures.) What works when you’re rowing a boat, doesn’t necessarily work when you’re sailing a ship. The bigger the boat the more necessary the map, boat, crew, and navigational methods become. Which of these is most important? While John Maxwell would undoubtedly say, “Everything rises and falls on leadership,” and I would agree, leaving out any of these aspects will make sailing into the uncharted waters of being a church with more than a 1,000 in attendance each weekend much more difficult, and perhaps impossible.

One of the realities we have found important during the process is to distinguish between “not knowing what we’re doing,” and “never having done what we’re doing.” For a while, some of the staff members would say, “We don’t know what we’re doing.” The actual intent of the comment was, “We’ve never done what we’re about to do before.” The difference is crucial. Of course, if we have never led in a certain area before, there is at least some degree of lack of knowledge, but it doesn’t mean we don’t know what we’re doing. It means we don’t have experience in leading, in our case, a particular size of organization. There is a difference between a church of 100 people and one of 1,000 and it isn’t simply ten times more people. If that were the case all that would be necessary would be to have ten times the staff and everything would work. The logistics of hosting 1,000 people are far different than of hosting 100. Communicating with 1,000 people is vastly different than communicating with 100. The resources necessary to provide ministry for 1,000 people is often more than ten times what it would be for 100, although at times it is proportionately less.

The opportunities of leading 1,000 people instead of a 100 are also multiplied. We are able to do vastly more than ten times what could be done with 100 people in certain areas. Again, my goal is not to say having 1,000 people is “better” than having 100. My goal is to point out that every growing organization will find itself navigating uncharted waters. When that happens leadership is at a premium, and finding the right team of leaders is absolutely crucial. Tomorrow, I’ll point out some of the lessons we’ve learned while navigating the unknown. For today, think about this: What will it take for you to navigate the uncharted waters you will face as a leader, because your leadership is more effective over time? Have you considered the uncharted waters that lie ahead? Are you merely working to keep the boat afloat? As you know, I’m going to press us to think and ask questions, because the unexamined life is not only not worth living, it is far more challenging to live.

Here’s to leading better by preparing to navigate uncharted waters–today!

One of the questions many of us ask when it comes to making changes to our leadership is, “Where is the best place to start?” I’m currently reading Craig Groeschel’s recent book Divine Direction: 7 Decisions That Will Change Your Life, and in it he recommends not attempting to change everything at once, but starting with one change that you will commit to living out daily. In one section he addresses the matter of personal disciplines and points out that too often we “commit” to changing half a dozen things at once. Then we get all fired up about that for a week or two (or less). Then we give up. Groeschel points out that over the years he has committed to making one change in this area of his life each year. He gives the example of committing to write one sentence in his journal each day.

One sentence. Anyone can write one sentence. Of course, one sentence will often lead to two, and then to a paragraph, and…. The key is to commit to writing the one sentence. If that were your only goal in personal development for a year, would you be able to accomplish it? Of course. Groeschel points out when we make such commitments it doesn’t seem like major change will take place, but the key is over time we will add many new disciplines. In five years, we’ll have five additional disciplines in our life, and ten in a decade.

Imagine having ten well-rooted disciplines for personal or leadership growth over the next decade! What would that do to your leadership or mine? While my personality tends toward committing to many new disciplines at once and then failing at most or all of them, the idea of only initiating one new discipline a year is both simple and easy, particularly when we start out with a small goal in the particular discipline.

I still find myself wanting to commitment two or four or ten “small” changes rather than one, but as I’ve been exercising this new plan am find the wisdom in Groeschel’s plan of one additional commitment made over a longer period of time, so it becomes ingrained as not only a habit, but a part of my daily life. I encourage you to choose one particular area of your life where you have been “intending” to make some change and “commit” to a change, a small change, in that area. Then do it and keep doing it daily until you have integrated that change into your daily life. Perhaps a year is the necessary amount of time. Then add another and another. Over the next decade you will become a much more effective leader. That’s my plan, and while I’d rather add ten new disciplines today, I know how that formula works in my life, and it’s time for me to succeed with one new discipline than fail at ten.

Here’s to leading better by committing to one new discipline–today!

I saw this title for today’s post on a church sign a couple of weeks ago and thought, “Wow! That’s a good one!” How many times in each of our lives do we have to start again–again? Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been restarting my intentional planning process using a lot of Michael Hyatt’s stuff, and as in the past am finding it extremely helpful when I use it. As I’ve noted, I’m not a planner by nature, so having a process that someone else developed that works for me has been hard to find. I’ve found Hyatt’s process the most flexible and adaptable, particularly his Living Forward book and plan, as well as Free to Focus.

What I haven’t found is the discipline to stick with it over the long haul. When I say “long haul” I mean over a period of months. Weeks are easy, but months have not been so easy. I know the reason is because I end up getting caught up in the individual “trees” and and can’t see the “forest.” Thus, I’ve been starting again. Again.

Have you ever found yourself in that place as a leader? You’ve started a fitness plan, or a new organizational plan, or a new method for marketing or ________? The great thing is it worked. It really worked. But then life happened and you skipped a day or two, or you found yourself back in old patterns, or some other plan or process had more bells or whistles and you decided to try it? Before you knew it you were back where you were and you didn’t know for sure how you even got there. In those moments, it’s easy to say, “I’m never going to get in shape,” or “I’m never going to get organized,” or “I can’t ______.” Occasionally those statements may be true, but more often it’s simply time to start again. Again.

I read somewhere that we’ve all been told it takes 21 days to start a new habit, and the reason we often find ourselves frustrated is that isn’t true. It take more like three months than three weeks to start a new habit. My experience is three months is closer to the time needed to start a new habit than three weeks, because I’ve made many changes to various areas of my life and leadership over the years that have lasted for three weeks. Perhaps it was the short-term success that lulled me into thinking I could relax a bit. Whatever the reason, had I kept to the process diligently for three months instead of three weeks, I may well have developed a new habit. This much I know: I’m going to start again, again when it comes to my overall life planning this week, and commit to following through, through the summer.

By then, I’ll know from my own personal experience whether it’s more a matter of the length of time committed to developing a new habit that ensures its success, or whether I need to begin again. Again. As leaders, we know we can’t get married to our methods, because methodologies do need to change over time, but sometimes a particular methodology needs to be given more of an opportunity to succeed than I give it. If that’s true for you, then maybe it’s time for us to start again, again in certain areas. Take some time right now to consider what it is that is most pressing in your life when it comes to the one action you can take that will leverage your leadership capacity or effectiveness in ways that nothing else will. For me it is planning not just my days, but my life goals, objectives and processes so I’ll be more effective over time. I usually get a lot done each day, but too often at the end of a day I wonder whether what I got done was even what needed to be done. (That’s a topic for a mother day!)

As you consider areas where you may need to start again, again, remember that it’s okay to start again and again and again. At least it is when the action your restarting is the action that will leverage your leadership to the next letter. Taking the time to reflect on those areas is time well invested, because the unexamined life is not only not worth living. It is far less effective as well.

Here’s to leading better by starting again. Again. Today!

Sorry about the no post on Wednesday and no heads up. Nancy and I took a few days away to reunite with our children and to watch the Pittsburgh Pirates play baseball in Bradenton, Florida. I needed to get away, not in the Southwest Airlines, did something stupid so I needed to get away kind of need. It was more the: I’ve been working hard, and life’s been challenging for a long time, needed to get away. I’m one of those folks who don’t tend to take time away often enough, and was reminded of that this week. In fact, by the second day I was thinking, “We ought to do this every year, and possibly for two weeks instead of one.

Bradenton in March certainly beats western Pennsylvania in March, but it’s much more than that. Being this far away from the epicenter of my daily life means I’ve been able to unplug and enjoy some re-creation. Yesterday, we all went on a Segway tour of Santa Maria Island, and it was FUN. We’ve laughed together so much this week, and one of the best parts of dinner together from when the girls were growing up took place each evening–Nancy laughing so hard she had dears streaming down her face. Back to the Segway tour, the view was amazing and the experience was so different from anything I normally do that it was a great deal of fun.

I’ve been “running” each morning we’ve been here, which is something I’ve been thinking about doing at home, but the weather here is so much more conducive to it at this time of year. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was actually able to run. I’ve spent the winter on my “Spintmaster,” which is an inexpensive combination of a treadmill and an elliptical machine. That’s helped me stay in shape, but I wasn’t sure whether the old body would take running for real. It has. The one aspect of running/ walking I’ve always enjoyed is it gives me truly uninterrupted time for thinking and praying. The second morning I ran over to the beach, and then ran along the beach, so the view was incredible. I’m always reminded of God when I see the vastness of the water stretching out in front of me. Even though the sun came up to the east of the water, because we’re on the west coast of Florida, it was still an amazing view.

What does all this have to do with leadership? More than you and I might think. We all “know” we need rest and time away in order to function at our best as leaders, but much of the leadership culture in America still tells us that rest and down time are luxuries the best leaders can’t afford. Each of us has to decide whether we believe that or whether we believe rest and restoration time are essential to long-term, sustained leadership. Maybe it’s because I’m nearing my 60th birthday, or maybe it’s because I’m getting wiser, but I’m siding with the group espousing the need for rest and restoration. While the break has only been four days so far, I feel ready to get back to leading at New Life, and am sure my leadership will be more effective.

So, what’s your position on rest and restoration? Do you get enough sleep each night? Do you take a “Sabbath” or a day of rest each week? Do you take regular times away form restoration and renewal? These are vital questions. The younger you are the more you need to ask these questions and determine what you’re going to do about your own need for rest, renewal and re-creation. Hindsight is 20-20, as they say, but I would have been much better served as a person, and the people I’ve led would have been much better served as a leader had I taken rest, renewal and restoration more seriously. I hope you’ll take some time today to consider how you’re doing in these areas, and if you’re operating at a deficit to make a plan to get away.

Here’s to leading better by taking time to get away–today (or very soon)!

Have you heard the old saying, “When you’re up to your neck in alligators, it’s hard to remember your purpose was to drain the swamp.”? As leaders we’re always at least up to our knees in alligators, so before we start each day, we better get out the drawings for the plan to drain the swamp. We can call it casting vision, or focusing on our mission, but whatever we call it knowing what we’re doing and why we’re doing it is crucial to accomplishing anything worthwhile over time. If we don’t remember we came to drain the swamp, we’ll eventually occupy all our time with fighting alligators.

Yes, we must fight the alligators, or at least redirect the alligators to a location where they won’t be able to destroy us before we get the swamp drained, but if all we do is fight alligators, we never drain the swamp and the alligators habitat remains conducive for their growth and multiplication. The challenge is a live alligator seems so much more urgent that a rising swamp–in the moment. We’ve all experienced the tyranny of the urgent. We know that many times we tackle the urgent whether it’s important or not, while leaving the important but not urgent matters of life undone. We all know the long-term impact of doing so, and yet the urgent is so…urgent.

How do we keep draining the swamp the focus of our pursuit with everything life throws at us? I already mentioned it in passing: we start the day by looking at the plans and strategy for draining the swamp. Last week, I started again, again, at making certain I start my day with planning with looking at the plans and strategy for draining the swamp. I still faced some alligators, but when I did, I realized the ones I needed to let swim by and the ones that were getting in the way of draining the swamp. I also passed a couple of them on to others–I delegated. Again, we know what we need to do, at least if we’re leaders we know what we need to do. We need to remind ourselves to keep doing it. So often even when we know that failing to plan is planning to fail, we keep looking for some silver bullet that will kill the alligators and help drain the swamp with one shot.

There is no silver bullet.

Now that we have that out of the way, we can get back to the seemingly mundane task of looking at the plans for draining the swamp, and the reasons the swamp needs draining in the first place. After all, even draining the swamp may not be the most important task we face, so we better make sure it is. After all, having an effective plan to accomplish something we ought not to be pursuing in the first place isn’t helpful either. As I sat down to review my plans for draining the swamp last week, I realized that part of the process must be maintaining some daily practices I had been letting slide: prayer, exercise, studying Spanish, and journaling to name a few. Your daily practices may be different, but when I include those four into my morning routine I find that my head clears and I am able to attend to the day’s work much more effectively.

After that I need to look at the plans and select a few key actions that are going to contribute to it, not just a handful of items I can put on my to do list, and feel good about when I check them off as being done. While, I may have a few items I must do today either personally or in my work, those are not the key action items that will move me toward draining the swamp. As I work on the few key items and check them off, I know my plan is moving closer to being accomplished. As I say, we all know this, but taking the time to put it in print has been helpful to me. I hope it is also helpful to you.

Have you looked at the plans yet today? Have you established those few items that will make the biggest difference to accomplishing it? Have you determined which alligators you’re going to fight today, and which ones you’re either going to let lie, or pass on to someone else? How we answer these questions will determine whether the end of the day will find us closer to a drained swamp, or just tired.

Here’s to leading better by taking the time to look at the plans–today!

I’m in the middle of reading Craig Groeschel’s new book Divine Direction. While I generally wait until I’ve completed a book for writing a post related to it I found one of his illustrations so compelling I thought I would share it today. Here it is: Little acts of discipline make big impacts over time. Groeschel points out that he hates flossing. Nevertheless, he flosses every night. Why? Because that simple, little commitment impacts many others. While he does a bit of exaggerating to make his point, Groescehl lists a string of impacts related to either flossing or not flossing.

He points out that when he flosses before bed it helps him commit to other small, yet important actions, such as getting enough sleep, reading his Bible and praying, and working out regularly. These habits work together to help provide an overall sense of well-being that make him more effective at work, which means he comes home on time in the evening, which means his wife loves him, and that’s why they have six children. You see the exaggeration, and yet his point is important. Flossing is not a fun activity for many of us, but a commitment to do it daily helps to reinforce the truth of the importance of small commitments done over time impacting larger commitments.

I found it hilarious, when Groeschel offered the string of events that came out of his deciding not to floss. After not flossing, he didn’t slip well, which meant he was too tired to get up to read his Bible or work out, which meant he decided to eat junk food through the day, because he wasn’t in good shape anyway. That all let to his not being able to focus at work, so he had to work late. That meant he decided to take a back road which was shorter and speed, in order to get home sooner. On the way a policeman waiting on the road saw the act of speeding and chased Groeschel, who decided to attempt to outrun the officer. This led to a roadblock of four police cars at his house. When he stopped at it the officers arrested him, booked him, took a mug shot of him that was posted all over social media and his life was ruined. Wow! That’s obviously an exaggeration to prove a point but what a point it proves.

The daily habits we develop over time, the small daily habits we develop over time, do contribute to the effectiveness of our leadership over time. If we don’t invest time and commitment to the small matters of life, we often don’t invest the time and commitment needed to succeed in the big ones. Groeschel points out that often when we become aware that we aren’t being effective we commit to several or a half dozen or even ten new habits that will overhaul our effectiveness. He suggest developing one new discipline each year, a small one and only one. He points out that in five years that would be five small habits over a decade ten and over a lifetime enough habits to transform us into the small percentage of folks who actually accomplish the small and big goals of our lives.

As I read Groeschel’s words I was convicted of how many times I have failed in the small disciplines, which have contributed to a lack of effectiveness in many other matters. So, last night I flossed my teeth…

Here’s to leading better by taking the time to act on one, small commitment–today!