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!