Why Learning Insulation is a Leadership Limitation (And 3 Reasons to Learn From Others)

It’s only been eight weeks on the new job, but I’ve already learned so much.

One Critical Lesson: Every leader can quickly and unintentionally become insulated from the outside as they attempt to lead on the inside.

I didn’t realize how easy this was until I left North Point Ministries.

I worked for one of the best church organizations on the planet for nearly 13 years. Leading alongside the team at North Point Ministries (Andy Stanley, Lane Jones, Rick Holiday, Bill Willits, Jeff Henderson, Clay Scroggins, Joel Thomas, Adam Johnson, Andy Jones, Al Scott, Tensley Almand, and more) felt like the equivalent of a master’s degree in church. These guys are great.

What I didn’t realize along the way is how easily I became insulated from the broader leadership and church world. This segregation was not intentional. Protecting myself from other churches and industries certainly wasn’t encouraged by my peers at North Point. It’s just one of those natural leadership drifts within any organization.

We get so focused on leading well within our organization that we only pay attention to our organization, automatically limiting our exposure to other leaders and organizations.

It’s completely unintentional. And it’s insanely dangerous.

In this NEW POST (4-minute read), I explain the danger of organizational insulation and give you three great reasons to learn from people different than you.

Bottom Line: The breath of your leadership learning determines the depth of your leadership growth.

8 Terrible Reasons People Leave Churches

Perhaps more than ever before, people are leaving (or changing) churches en masse.

There are some good reasons to leave a church. What I’m seeing of late, though, doesn’t fit in the “good reason” category. The pandemic launched several more pandemics — fear pandemic, anger pandemic, political pandemic, racial pandemic, and a church pandemic.

The recent climate has given way to a mass exodus from churches, mostly for terrible reasons.

In this post, I outline 8 terrible reasons people leave churches.

If you’re a pastor, this may explain some of what you’re seeing. If you’re a church attendee, pay attention to these tensions!

6 Strategies to Preach Your Best Sermon

This might be the most important preaching principle I’ve learned.

Before I tell you the lesson, though, let me walk you through my process of discovery:

When I first began preaching, I took an entire manuscript on stage. It was a pastoral security blanket – except not pink and fuzzy. I tried not to read it directly, and in most cases, I was successful. But in my mind, it was good to know it was there… just in case I needed to snuggle.

Unfortunately, as I watched my messages the next day (it’s awkward, but you should do this if you don’t already!), I felt my preaching was lacking an important ingredient – CONNECTION. I was communicating all the content. I didn’t miss any stories, illustrations, points, or verses. But as I watched myself, I realized something significant:

Great content without great connection is poor communication.

And that was my problem. I communicated clear content without any relational connection, and it wasn’t working.

As I diagnosed my lack of connection, the problem became apparent: I was more focused on WHAT I was saying than WHO was listening.

In this NEW POST, I outline six strategies to help your next sermon be your best sermon.

If you’ve got 10 minutes, I think these strategies could make a huge difference.

One more thing: If you’d like some help with preaching, content development, content structure, or presentation, let me know. That’s part of what I’m doing for lots of great pastors and preachers right now.

The 6 Dangers of Success

If you’re successful, be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

It’s incredible, really. The one thing we want to be (successful) is the one thing that can create our downfall.

You see it all the time. You may have lived through this a few times. The stories are all relatively similar. The pathway goes like this: hard work produces great success. That success gives way to entitlement and then arrogance. Finally, arrogance causes leaders and organizations to relax. The world around is still changing, but the organization is not. After all, look at how much money we have. Look at how many people are attending. Look at our online engagement.

I’m a church leader, but I spent a decade in the marketplace before transitioning into ministry. The dangers of success are present in both spaces in equal measure. For now, let’s look at church success. Or at least how churches tend to define success.

In this article, I present six red flags of success. I’d love for you to read about them and let me know if you’ve experienced them.

The Four States of Transition Management

Leaders often mistake change and transition. They are not the same. In this post, I discuss the difference between the two and provide insight into managing the emotional and psychological transitions experienced by the people involved in the change.

The One Challenge Facing Every Church

I’ve decided to start something new. If you don’t mind, here’s some quick background and an announcement of sorts. First, some background. A decade ago, I stood in the North Point Community Church hallway, watching thousands of church leaders walking to the parking lot. Our DRIVE Conference had just concluded. Inspired, encouraged, and probably challenged, […]

3 Reasons You Should Learn From People Different Than You

LearningDifferentPeople

Here’s a questions I’m working through:

Does the breadth of your learning impact the depth of your learning?

I know… I think in tweets. But to say it a little less 140 character’ish: How much more could we learn by expanding the context of our education? And I don’t mean studying more people in your current industry. Granted, it’s not natural to study other industries and organizational leaders unlike us, but I think finding breadth could be a hidden ingredient to accelerated growth.

This idea hit me recently while at a conference. It was a great conference full of wonderful leaders – who I’ver heard from too many times to count. I saw an advertisement for another conference. Guess who was speaking? Basically the same people. Don’t get me wrong. I love and respect these leaders. They’re my mentors – some directly. But I wonder – does a homogenous learning community stunt growth at some point?

As a pastor, I primarily learn from other churches, church leaders, and church models. As a younger leader, that was a great place to start. Seeing other perspectives and approaches to church helped solidify how I wanted to create and lead a local church. There was great clarity found in watching those who were already doing it. Yet, the more comfortable I got as a leader in my church, the more critical I became of leaders in the church. I accidentally replaced learning with critiquing.

Of course, that’s not a healthy dynamic, but it is a natural progression. When we visit other organizations within our industry, we are hyper-critical of what we understand (or think we understand).

Unplugging the Microwave of Success

Have you heard the soundtrack to the hit broadway musical “Hamilton?” If you’ve seen the actual musical, just keep that to yourself — intentionally causing envy is tantamount to envy, itself.

The music is quite spectacular. And historically insightful, too. My kids are way more knowledgeable about the Founding Fathers due to our time in the car together. It makes me question everything about my school upbringing! Hip hop trumps note-taking all day long.

Production aside, Alexander Hamilton was quite an amazing guy. He accomplished much, including establishing one of the first banks in America, the Bank of New York. Here’s what made me take a step back while jamming along to the soundtrack — it took Hamilton seven years to establish the bank’s charter. I know, the local community bank went up in a months time, and that seemed like forever in today’s world, but think about that for a moment. Seven years. That’s a long time to focus on something. Anything.

Why We Should Stop Comparing Our Average to Everyone Else’s Awesome

Every week, pastors and leaders are recorded all across the country. But more often than not, there is a good deal of editing, re-communicating, and “let’s try that again” happening before it ever goes public. We watch these other preachers and teachers and feel both inspired by their message and intimidated by their abilities. But we’re only seeing their highlight reels.

Why Are People Less Interested in Attending Your Church?

I recently listed 10 areas in our church where we are not satisfied. Nothing is necessarily broken, but there is room for evaluation and improvement. The law of diminishing astonishment is partially to blame for a few items on the list, like decreasing attendance patterns from regular attendees and lack of enthusiasm within the upper […]

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