How to Recycle Your Strategy to Reset Your Life Cycle
About this series… Welcome to our third post about organizational life cycles and, more importantly, how to avoid the normative decline and death that concludes the cycle. If you missed the previous post, read it here: POST 1: How to Recycle Your “Organization Life Cycle” POST 2: You Can’t Fix What You Can’t Name […]
You Can’t Fix What You Can’t Name – Organizational Life Cycle Edition
In the previous post, we discussed the reality of organizational life cycles. You should read the first post in prep for this conversation. It seems organizations, like people, mature through a life cycle. Comparing organizations to people is somewhat trite but also accurate in most respects. Like people, organizations begin as an idea, product, service, […]
How to Recycle Your “Organization Life Cycle”
This is the beginning of a learning journey about your organization (church, company, or business), the natural life cycle organizations typically experience, and how we can recycle before it’s too late. Let’s get started… What is an Organizational Life Cycle? “Organizational Life Cycles” have always been a hot business (and church) topic. And for a […]
6 Ways to Find Purpose Outside of Self-Promotion
We live in an age of platform building and self-promotion. I assume this has always been part of the human condition. Self-promotion feels like an outflow of selfish ambition and vain conceit. Of course, social media has only amplified the issue. I regularly see people retweeting themselves. Think about that. Those attempting to build their […]
Your Followers Are Waiting On You To Go First
A few weeks ago, I took my 15-year-old to a Billie Eilish movie concert.
What I experienced, outside of a pretty good concert experience, was a memorable leadership lesson.
Read this NEW POST if you’re a leader. Your team is watching and waiting on you to go first.
Making the Most of Your Church Database
You have access to so much attendee and guest data. The question is, are you using it well?
This is a longer post than usual, but I want to help you understand HOW your church data can make a massive difference in discipleship growth.
Click the link to access the full post. This may be something to bookmark for future reference, as well.
When Should a Small Church Hire an Executive Pastor?
Hiring an executive pastor for a small church can be daunting. For that matter, hiring for any position in a small church can be daunting.
There are several reasons to consider hiring an executive pastor:
1. When Your Church is Growing.
When your congregation reaches a certain size, an executive pastor can help take care of day-to-day operations and provide additional counsel to the pastors, church staff, and volunteer teams. Growing churches add complexity for pastors and church staff. Growth is a great thing, but even good problems are still problems.
More people means more leadership decisions, pastoral care needs, budgetary management, and discipleship oversight. When a church cannot keep up with the demands of a growing congregation, the growth is capped. In most cases, the only way to lift the growth lid is to hire more leadership. Specifically, executive leadership.
2. When There’s a Growing Need for Strategic Planning and Directional Leadership.
An executive pastor can provide valuable strategic direction, helping the church think through important decisions to ensure it is headed in the best direction for its mission and ministry. They can offer counsel on community outreach and help make decisions about what changes need to be made. Having an executive pastor on board takes some of this burden off of the existing pastors and leadership team.
3. When the Senior Pastor Isn’t Skilled in Strategic Leadership
Continuing from the above, the majority of senior pastors are more visionary than practical. This is not a knock on senior pastors. It takes vision and invention to plant or lead a church forward. Yet, equally important are systems, strategy, and intentionality. It’s rare to find a visionary leader who also possesses these more strategic skills.
When a church is led by a senior pastor who lives in vision and ideation, an executive pastor role may be necessary to help the vision come to fruition.
Final Consideration
If you’re a senior pastor, take an honest look at yourself, your skillset, and your current team. It could be possible your lack of growth is due to a lack of systems, strategy, and intentionality. This is exactly what an executive pastor can bring to your team.
My 2 Hot Takes on The Asbury “Revival”
My oldest son is 21. He’s a drummer, often playing worship on Sunday mornings.
He and I recently were at lunch and I asked him about the Asbury “revival.”
His response stopped me in my tracks. And I think he was right.
From the heart of my kid, here’s my new take on the “revival.”
4 Responsibilities of a Weekend Experience Director
Churches of the future will staff differently. In this post, we look at one new position every church needs: The Weekend Experience Director.
5 New Staff Positions Your Church Needs
For a long time, church staffing conversations revolved around how many staff members a church needs.
Today, churches are struggling to answer a new and more complex staffing question:
What staff positions do churches need?
The days of senior pastor, executive pastor, education pastor, worship pastor, etc., are going away in part. Successful churches have realized they also function as media and data companies. Leading churches to recognize the need for new and different church staff positions.
In this NEW ARTICLE, we discuss 5 new positions every church should consider.
