Lead Your Church to Community Activity Not Congregational Attendance

by: VRcurator

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Below is a new weekly series posting content from one of the most innovative content sources in the church world: SUMS Remix Book Summaries for church leaders. SUMS Remix takes a practical problem in the church and looks at it with three solutions; and each solution is taken from a different book. As a church leader you get to scan relevant books based on practical tools and solutions to real ministry problems, not just by the cover of the book. Each post will have the edition number which shows the year and what number it is in the overall sequence. (SUMS provides 26 issues per year, delivered every other week to your inbox). 

Solution #3: Call the church to partner in missional, community activity not simply congregational, service attendance.

THE QUICK SUMMARY- Kingdom Come, by Reggie McNeal

There’s a reason Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy Kingdom come . . .” and not “Thy church come.”

The church clearly plays an important role in God’s plans. It was established by Christ, and He is its Head. But have we put too much emphasis on the church? Have we confused a means of participating in God’s Kingdom with the Kingdom itself?

In Kingdom Come, church ministry consultant Reggie McNeal reveals why it’s crucial to realign the church’s mission with God’s ultimate Kingdom agenda. You’ll discover how you can get in on―and help lead―the Kingdom movement currently underway.

Join the mission to help the Kingdom break into our hearts…and break out into the world.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

While God’s mission in the world has not changed, in many churches today the idea of serving God has morphed into “becoming a good church member.” People are considered disciples based on their faithful support and participation in church activities, not necessarily on whether they are growing toward or reflecting the heart of Jesus for others and the world.

How do you remind people in your particular church culture that they are sent from God as missionaries everywhere, and every day? What words do you use to enlarge their imagination and ignite their heart for a redemptive mission focus?

Jesus did not establish the church to start a new religion called Christianity. He established the church as an expression of the Kingdom for the people of God as they partner with Him in His redemptive mission in the world.

Three critical shifts are necessary in order to synchronize the church’s story with the Kingdom.

We must recognize that God established the church to point to the Kingdom, not the other way around. We shouldn’t be trying to promote the church; we should be trying to raise awareness of the Kingdom. A Kingdom-focused approach would involve lots of listening and local input and would be conducted from a posture of quiet service rather than trying to send a “we’re here to bless you” message, which can seem self-serving.

A Kingdom-focused church operates from a conviction that God is already at work in the city. It would raise awareness that God wants the city to prosper and that, as God’s people, we want to help. God would be the star of the show, and His will that the Kingdom come on earth would be the main message.

We must acknowledge that the Kingdom, not the church, is the destination. The church is not the destination, and it’s not the point of the journey. It’s the life of the Kingdom that we’re trying to get to. That’s what people are after.

We need churches that are dedicated to the objective of helping people grow up in the faith, so they can live on mission in the world, to see their lives as a mission trip. If we rightly understand that the Kingdom is the destination, we will figure out ways to celebrate spiritual progress on the journey that leads people to full deployment as Kingdom agents.

We must realize that the Kingdom saga focuses primarily on the welfare of the community, not on the church. A Kingdom perspective means that the cues for authentic church celebration comes from the quality of life that people experience in the world, beyond the church.

Much of the time and energy and money we have put into developing our incredible church campuses and program offerings should have gone into improving our communities. I’m suggesting that we recalibrate our efforts and resources to reinvest in the welfare of our towns, cities, and neighborhoods.

– Reggie McNeal, Kingdom Come

A NEXT STEP

Schedule time with your team to prayerfully consider the degree of church-focus and Kingdom-focus each ministry or program of your church might have. It is recommended that you break this important discussion down into a series of three 75-minute action-oriented discussion sessions over three weeks.

Session 1 – Actions to help recognize that God established the church to point to the Kingdom, not the other way around

Church leaders whose priority is to build the church are not functioning in proper alignment with the mission of God. At the first of this series of team meetings, list your church’s major activities on the left side of a chart tablet. At the top of the chart, create two columns, entitling them “Church-Focused” and “Kingdom-Focused.” As a team, read down the list and agree on which column the activity falls under, placing an X in that column.

After completing the entire list, spend time brainstorming specific actions that would help move the activity from the church-focused column to the Kingdom-focused column. If an activity cannot be moved into the Kingdom-focused column, discuss the future of that activity.

Following this session, assign an individual to lead a team to further develop the concepts and actions needed to move the activity into the Kingdom-focused column. Make sure each team reports regularly to the senior leadership team.

Session 2 – Actions to help acknowledge that the Kingdom, not the church, is the destination

Is it time for you to get outside more?

At your second team meeting in this series, brainstorm as a team ways each member can get beyond the four walls of your church. By connecting with and becoming involved with community events such as participating in a health club or coaching a sports team, you will be amazed at your discoveries.

Set aside culturally driven leadership impulses for a quick-fix solution, and take the long view of health. After a six-month season of team involvement in these types of activities, have each member bring their observations back to the team for discussion and action. The focus is on how you can rethink and redesign your current church ministry programs to reflect a Kingdom bias.

As you begin to develop ideas for potential implementation, assign a team member to lead each activity and report back to the team on its progress.

Session 3 – Actions to help realize that the Kingdom saga focuses primarily on the welfare of the community, not on the church

A Kingdom-centered narrative focuses on how to be the church in the world. Issues for Kingdom-leaders are fundamentally different from those leading the institutional church.

In order to help your team change the focus to the community, you will need collaborators to provide support, generate new ideas, and serve as a catalyst to help your church move forward.

At your final team meeting in this series, discuss ways to discover and invite other people who “get” the Kingdom focus. Begin the discussion by brainstorming what types of Kingdom agenda items resonate with community groups.

Start new conversations with community leaders who are connected with these types of activities. Invite them to speak to your team about the possibilities of working together.

As a team, agree on specific courses of action that will help your focus shift to the community and not your church. Be sure that every action has an identified leader and timeframe for moving forward.

Vibrant churches look after the interests of others – starting with their neighbors across the street and around the block. They are involved in community concerns by supporting, if not actually leading, initiatives.

Thriving churches have open doors – open to each and every segment of their community.

To learn more about being involved in your community, start a conversation with the Auxano team today.

Taken from SUMS Remix 21-3, published August 2015

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Tags: Community, Community activity, Kingdom Come, Reggie McNeal, SUMS Remix

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The Success Factor – Leverage Today’s Wins to Solve Tomorrow’s Problems

by: VRcurator

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Below is a new weekly series posting content from one of the most innovative content sources in the church world: SUMS Remix Book Summaries for church leaders. SUMS Remix takes a practical problem in the church and looks at it with three solutions; and each solution is taken from a different book. As a church leader you get to scan relevant books based on practical tools and solutions to real ministry problems, not just by the cover of the book. Each post will have the edition number which shows the year and what number it is in the overall sequence. (SUMS provides 26 editions per year, delivered every other week to your inbox). 

> You can purchase a subscription to SUMS Remix here >>>

Our church dreams more about where we have been than where God is leading us.

Have you ever looked around to realize that your church might be living today by focusing on yesterday?

Many churches long for the past, dreaming about the “good old days.” When faced with questions that are not easily answered, or walking through times of trial and doubt, churches, like people, often want things to be the way they used to be.

The problem is, the past has gone. While we may look back and respect it, and maybe even at times revere it, we cannot live in the past, especially when circumstances demand answers for the future.

If you are interested in learning how to lead your church away from the past in order to focus on what God has ahead, consider this solution:

Solution #2: Cultivate solutions by celebrating current successes.

THE QUICK SUMMARY

In Missional Renaissance, Reggie McNeal shows three significant shifts in thinking and behavior that churches need to make in order to allow leaders to chart a missional course forward. These shifts are:

• from an internal to an external focus, ending the church as exclusive social club model;
• from running programs and ministries to developing people as its core activity; and
• from professional leadership to leadership that is shared by everyone in the community.

With in-depth discussions of the “what” and the “how” of transitioning to being a missional church, readers will be equipped to move into what McNeal sees as the most viable future for Christianity. 

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

As a leader, do you find more passion in learning about the past – events, activities, and people? Or, do you find passion in looking forward into the future, and wondering what events and activities of tomorrow and beyond are going to be brought about by what kind of people?

As in many leadership questions, there is no right or wrong answer, and elements of both passions described above are helpful to any leader. However, in terms of the life of the church, there is a subtle danger in a focus on past heroes and the times when they lived, the actions they led, and the events they are fondly remembered for.

While keeping a firm grip on the importance and foundations of the past, leaders must reach forward and lead their churches to what the people of God must do.

Typical church leadership spends a lot of time keeping the past alive. Missional movement leaders appreciate the past, but mine the past for lessons on how to forge ahead.

When we come together for our gatherings, if all our heroes are the ones who have gone before us and all our God stories are about yesteryear, we’re in trouble.

The traditional church celebrates the history of the saints, but missional movements yearn for journalists who can tell us what God is up to today.

The model for this kind of leadership is found in the role of apostles and prophets in the New Testament. They witnessed and passed along God news that was good news. The journalists tied their stories to the work of God before, but they allowed the new developments to shape their understanding of God’s work in the world.

Journalists take us to places they’ve already visited. They uncover stories beneath the stories and inform us of what’s going on. They shape our perceptions by what they have seen, experienced, and uncovered. They move us from where we are into a new reality.

Our discovery of what He is up to becomes the faith story that is prologue to our future.

– Reggie McNeal, Missional Renaissance

A NEXT STEP

At your next leadership team meeting, spend 10 minutes of discussion, asking your team members to call to mind current individuals and events that your church holds in high regard. Write the names and events on a chart tablet. Beside each, write a phrase or sentence describing the importance of the individual or event.

Now, spend 45 minutes asking your team in broad and generic terms to list the qualities revealed through the character of these individuals or results of these events that will propel your church into the greatest ministry period of its existence. Along with each item, list one to two immediate actions that it will take to make the list become a reality.

As a team, choose the most pressing individual description or event listed, designate a team leader, and prayerfully commission that leader to create the future.

In another leadership team meeting, review the following questions to help equip your team members as “journalists” who will uncover the real talk of conversations going on in the hallways and parking lots of your church.

1. What do you enjoy doing? Helps people see how God might use them in their everyday lives.
2. Where do you see God at work right now? Helps people see God in their family, their community, the office – wherever.
3. What would you like to see God doing in your life over the next six to 12 months? How can we help? Helps communicate the importance of the individual now, not in the past.
4. How would you like to serve other people? How can we help? Helps focus on serving others, emphasizing outside the church.
5. How can we pray for you? Helps demonstrate personal care and concern.

Ask your team members to use the five questions above in conversations with at least seven key volunteer leaders they work with in the next month. After a month of conversations, dedicate one hour of a team meeting to share the highlights of the conversations.

Consider asking key volunteer leaders to duplicate the conversations with at least five team members they work with. After they have had a chance to have these conversations, debrief the leaders and note key phrases that are repeated. Bring these to the next team meeting to add to the conversations already started.

Designate an individual to maintain this five question process in a digital document that can be continually updated and accessed by team leaders. From time to time, reference this document in team discussions to ensure that the voices of the present are being heard – and acted on.

Taken from SUMS Remix 22-2, published September 2015.

>>> You can purchase a subscription to SUMS Remix here >>>

Tags: Reggie McNeal, SUMS Remix, Success, ministry success

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Who is My Neighbor? Analysis is Better Assumption.

by: VRcurator

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Below is a new weekly series posting content from one of the most innovative content sources in the church world: SUMS Remix Book Summaries for church leaders. SUMS Remix takes a practical problem in the church and looks at it with three solutions; and each solution is taken from a different book. As a church leader you get to scan relevant books based on practical tools and solutions to real ministry problems, not just by the cover of the book. Each post will have the edition number which shows the year and what number it is in the overall sequence. (SUMS provides 26 editions per year, delivered every other week to your inbox). 

> You can purchase a subscription to SUMS Remix here >>>

The community around our church has changed, and we are not sure how to respond.

Some say that we live in the age of the “selfie” and are raising a generation aware of how they look, and at the same time they are growing more and more unaware of the world around them. What about your church? If you took a “congregational selfie” and then compared it to a “neighborhood selfie” of the community around your church, what would you find?

For many churches, especially established congregations with years of ministry impact, there will be a significant difference.

In the beginning, the church was a reflection of the community where it was located. There was probably significant and steady growth – as the community grew, the church naturally grew. Many churches might even have been seen as their “community center.”

However, over time, every community begins to change. It may be as simple as the community aging – or as complex as an ethnic, racial, or other socioeconomic change. Whatever the case, the community around the church probably changed…

…but the church didn’t change.

Over time, most churches resist, and even fear change.

The growing disparity between a church and its community was probably subtle – maybe even occurring over several generations. It starts with a few people beginning to move into other parts of the town and no longer making the drive back to their old community. Other events beyond the church’s control take place, like key industry moving out of town and the workforce following. Whatever the cause, the end result is that the church begins to no longer look like the community around it and many leaders are not sure how to respond.

Solution #1: Conduct a community analysis.

THE QUICK SUMMARY

In addition to understanding the Word of God, it is necessary to understand the people we serve. Once we make sense of our neighborhoods and communities, we can begin to “diagnose” needs and apply the proper “dose” of the gospel to meet those opportunities.

Neighborhood Mapping awakens the neighborhood explorer to consider effective methodology of understanding their neighborhood. Dr. Fuder calls believers to shift the focus from inside the church building to those who live in the community.

Best practices and sample surveys will be available in this resource as explorers will look through the lens of Scripture to give practical steps to exegete the community and consider best practices of:

• What is a neighborhood map/Community Analysis?
• When should this map/analysis be created?
• Why should we map our neighborhood?
• Who is on the map and who is a part of this analysis?
• Where are the borders of this map/analysis?
• How does one conduct a community analysis?

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

It’s no secret that our world is changing rapidly around us. We often are more accepting of societal change around the world than across the street. Yet God has placed your church in a specific location so that you might impact your community with cosmic significant and locally specific actions.

If your church is going to be an active presence in your community, you can’t sit behind closed doors, waiting for the neighborhood to come to you. You must step out, engaging those around you and seeking to understand their hopes, dreams, and needs.

In order to minister to your community, you need to not only know how to interpret the Bible, but also how to engage with and adapt to those for whom the gospel message is addressed.

When we exegete a community, we draw meaning from it. We discover the underlying history, context, and culture of that place and its people.

Analyzing our communities enables us to explore and rediscover our surroundings. Once we make sense of our context, we can begin to “diagnose” needs and apply the proper “dose” of the gospel to meet those opportunities. Community analysis is the methodology and vehicle to rediscover our missional mandate in the church: to proclaim and demonstrate the gospel. The focus shifts from those inside the building to those outside – it is about the people we seek to reach. We must help our people see that “neighbor love” is an important part of following Jesus, and that moves us to find ways to know our neighbors in order to minister to and serve them well.

Community analysis is a four-step process; it’s what I call the 4Ss: supplication, stakeholders, surveys, and stories.

Supplication – before we do anything else in our communities, we seek, individually and corporately, God’s direction and leading.

Stakeholders – focus on people within the community with whom we can partner or network, such as neighborhood leaders, social services, schools, or businesses.

Surveys – through questionnaires and gathering focus groups, we get a stronger idea of our neighbor’s felt needs, worldviews, and attitudes toward church and faith in general.

Stories – gather the stories we hear through those questionnaires and interviews and put them into case studies to get a fuller picture of our neighbors so that we can better minister and reach out to them.

– John Fuder, Neighborhood Mapping

A NEXT STEP

Prior to your next leadership team meeting, distribute this SUMS Remix to members of your team and ask them to read through it and be prepared to work on Solution #1 using the 4S guide as outlined above. Spend 15 minutes in each of the following sections, using the listed questions as a springboard for great discussion. Before moving on to the next section, identify one team action or next step, and one individual next step. Also be sure someone is documenting the conversation and key ideas that emerge.

Supplication – seeking God’s direction and leading

• In your personal prayer life, are you specifically naming individuals and needs of your community?
• In your leadership team’s prayer life, are you specifically naming individuals and needs of your community?
• In your corporate prayer life, are you specifically naming individuals and needs of your community?
• Commit to one specific action both individually and corporately that you will undertake in the area of Supplication in the next week.

Stakeholders – seeking community and neighborhood partners

• Do you have individual or a network of community leaders with whom you maintain a regular connection?
• If not, do you know where or how to obtain names of such individuals?
• Do you have a local governmental connection that you maintain regular contact with?
• Assuming you have connections described above, how often do you connect with them? Do you seek information from them or primarily use the connection as an information flow from you to them?
• In connections with the individuals listed above, do you have a mechanism in place to regularly listen to and develop a deeper understanding of their concerns?
• Assuming you have such a mechanism, how do you take action on their concerns?
• Commit to one specific action both individually and corporately that you will undertake in the area of Stakeholders in the next week.

Surveys – seeking information that helps reveal our communities understanding of our church specifically and faith generally

• Has your church ever conducted a community survey of any type? If so, when was it done? How was the information used?
• Do you have knowledge of the resources needed to conduct a community survey? If not, do you know where to get the resources?
• If you were to look at the community around you, can you identify specific segments that might need different types of surveys? If so, what are they?
• Commit to one specific action both individually and corporately that you will undertake in the area of Surveys in the next week.

Stories – collecting the stories arising out of the actions listed above

• Do you know where to go and who to listen to in order to hear the stories of your community?
• Have you really listened to the stories of the community around you from people actually involved in them? How did that make you feel?
• Compare those stories to any stories that make up part of your church’s history and heritage. Do they coincide, or are they vastly different?
• Consider specific ways you will gather stories from your community through active listening, surveys, or guided conversations.
• Commit to one specific action both individually and corporately that you will undertake in the area of Stories in the next week.

Your community is not frozen in time; it is constantly changing. Your work of community analysis must also be done over and over again. It is never a “one and done” thing. To learn more about congregational and community survey resources, start a conversation with the Auxano team today.

Taken from SUMS Remix 21-1, published August 2015.

>>> You can purchase a subscription to SUMS Remix here >>>

Tags: John Fuder, Neighborhood Mapping, SUMS Remix

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Does Your Church Accommodate Visitors or Expect Guests?

by: VRcurator

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Beginning today is a new weekly series posting content from one of the most innovative content sources in the church world: SUMS Remix Book Summaries for church leaders.  SUMS Remix takes a practical problem in the church and looks at it with three solutions; and each solution is taken from a different book. As a church leader you get to scan relevant books based on practical tools and solutions to real ministry problems, not just by the cover of the book. Each post will have the edition number which shows the year and what number it is in the overall sequence. (SUMS provides 26 editions per year, delivered every other week to your inbox). 

>> You can purchase a subscription to SUMS Remix here >>>

When it comes to churches, more often than not we accommodate visitors rather than truly expect Guests.

It may be a little thing to you, seeming like mere wordplay, but there is actually a powerful first impression that needs to change if your approach is to accommodate visitors on Sunday rather than to expect to have Guests at your church.

Do you have Visitor parking? Visitor packets? A Visitor’s Center? Do you welcome your visitors during the worship experience? And on and on…

The first step in creating a memorable Guest experience is to remove the word “visitor” from your vocabulary, never to be used again. Think about it, what kind of person is a visitor at your house, as opposed to a Guest?

It’s a small thing to be sure. But often changing one small word in your church’s vernacular can reflect a substantial mental shift, impacting the entire experience of someone new. One word change can draw someone back the next weekend, and one word can begin to close the proverbial back door of your church.

What would it look like to expect Guests this Sunday?

Guests come to your church, looking for a warm greeting, a smiling face, and an experience carefully crafted to welcome them and point them to Christ. This type of expectation does not require anything phony, manipulative, or in-your-face; just leaders who will welcome them as Guests with the most sincere, energizing, and loving experiences they can.

When it comes to understanding and welcoming Guests, the Disney organization has long been the “gold standard” – the best of the best. Instilled by Walt Disney in 1955 at the opening of Disneyland, expanded over the decades since at locations around the world, and refined today as both an art and a science, the Disney approach to Guest experiences provides a wealth of information that can help your church not just “accommodate visitors,” but to expect Guests.

Solution: Think Church-wide in your Guest Experience, not just Sunday morning.

Exceeding expectations rather than simply satisfying them is the cornerstone of the Disney approach to customer service. Be Our Guest outlines proven Disney best practices and processes for generating customer loyalty. One visit to a Disney park reveals that their Guest Experience extends beyond the front gates, and into the heart and mind of every employee at every level.

Be Our Guest takes you behind the scenes to help you learn new and creative ways to create and deliver a world-class Guest Experience.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

“Be Our Guest” has been the invitation the Disney organization extends to people long before the song from Beauty and the Beast became a box office hit. It underscores an important element in the Disney vocabulary that customers are not referred to as customers or visitors, but rather as Guests. In the Disney nomenclature, the word “Guest” is capitalized and treated as a formal noun. It takes little effort to extend this line of thinking to your church:

What’s the difference between treating someone like a visitor, and treating someone like a Guest?

The obvious analogy is that we do things differently when we bring Guests into our home. We clean up the house. We dress up. We prepare something special to eat. We host them. We take care of their real needs. We even open the front door for them – every time.

Does your church expect Guests, or just accommodate visitors? How does Guest expectation extend beyond the front doors on a Sunday morning, but even into the office suite on a Thursday afternoon?

Realizing that God is bringing Guests to your church has to be the starting point, the foundation on which all else is built. Exceeding Guest expectations is the standard call to duty for every leader at every level and on every day.

At Disney, every leader at every level and on every day is a part of the Guest Services Team.

Exceeding Guest’s expectations is Disney’s service strategy, and paying attention to every detail is the tactic by which it is accomplished.

Disney’s Quality Service Compass encapsulates the organization-wide model that demonstrates Quality Service. It is the production process through which practical magic is created. In its essence, the compass can be used to create a shared vision of service that aligns the major elements that every organization shares – its people, infrastructure, and processes – in a cohesive, comprehensive effort to deliver that vision.

The Quality Service Compass has four main points centered on our service objective: to exceed Guest expectations.

• Guestology – the art and science of knowing customers.
• Quality Standards – establishing the criteria for actions necessary to accomplish the service strategy, and the measures of Service Quality.
• Delivery Systems – the systems that deliver service: employees, the setting, and processes.
• Integration – combining and aligning delivery systems, creating a matrix to troubleshoot problems and benchmark practices.

– Disney Institute with Theodore Kinni, Be Our Guest

A NEXT STEP

At your next leadership team meeting, review the four points of Disney’s Quality Service Compass outlined above. Using the introductory questions suggested below, ask, “What is working within our Welcoming Teams?” “What is missing or confused?”

Guestology; Understand your Guest Profile

• Do you know who your Guests are? Do you collect basic demographic information from Guests? What does a study of the last 12 months of this information reveal about your Guests?
• Do you collect additional information about your Guests (through a website survey, etc.? Do you know about their attitudes, lifestyles, values, and opinions? What does a study of the last 12 months of this type of information reveal about your Guests?)

Integration: Extend your mission to the Guest Services teams

• How can you extend your church’s mission so that your Guest Services teams understand how their role is in alignment?
• How is your mission seen through your Guest Services teams by the Guests they serve?

Standards: Define Guest Service

• Do you have service quality standards that ensure the consistent delivery of Guest services?
• Do your Guest Services standards reflect the values of your church?
• Do your Guest Service teams use the standards as filters through which they prioritize the actions that contribute to a memorable Guest Experience?

Delivery: Establish systems that welcome Guests

• Your Guest Service Team Members are the first and most important part of your Guest Service delivery system. They are the heart and soul of your Guest Experience. How do you select, train and evaluate your team members? What steps have you taken to create and maintain
a culture of hospitality that nurtures your team members and encourages them to deliver a memorable Guest Experience?
• How does your Environment (the physical and virtual resources of your organization) contribute to the delivery of a memorable Guest Experience? Do you regularly evaluate your setting?
• Do you have a Process (the various series of operations used to deliver a memorable Guest Experience) that your Guest Service Teams understand and follow? Is this process regularly evaluated and improved as needed?

Finally, lead everyone in the meeting to identify one next step to take in THEIR ministry area or leadership to welcome Guests.

Taken from SUMS Remix 20-1, published August 2015.

>>> You can purchase a subscription to SUMS Remix here >>>

Want to learn how to create an EXCEPTIONAL Guest Experience at your church? Check out Auxano’s Guest Experience Boot Camp, coming to Orlando, FL on April 3-4.

Tags: Be Our Guest, Church Guest Experiences, Disney Institute, Guest Experiences, SUMS Remix, Theodore Kinni

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How to Conduct Visual Meetings to Boost Productivity

by: Will Mancini

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There’s nothing more annoying than a meeting that goes on and on and on – except maybe a meeting that goes on and on and on AND doesn’t accomplish anything.

Many ministry teams fritter away precious time during meetings on unfocused, inconclusive discussion rather than rapid, well-informed decision making. The consequences are delayed decisions that lead to wasted resources, missed opportunities, and poor long-range planning.

Want more successful meetings?

David Sibbet, a world leader in visual thinking for groups, believes visual meetings can reclaim creativity, productivity, and playful exchange for serious work in groups. When people work visually they have better ideas, make better decisions, and are more committed to producing results.

Solution #2: Conduct visual meetings to boost productivity.

THE QUICK SUMMARY

Visual Meetings explains how anyone can implement powerful visual tools to facilitate both face-to-face and virtual group work. This dynamic and richly illustrated resource gives meeting leaders, presenters, and consultants a slew of exciting tricks and tools to unlock creativity, collaboration, and breakthrough thinking.

Using techniques like graphic recording, visual planning, story boarding, graphic templates, idea mapping and more, Visual Meetings will help you and your team communicate ideas more effectively and engagingly.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

Used properly, a simple drawing is more powerful than any data spreadsheet or software presentation platform. It can help us crystalize ideas, think outside the box, and communicate in a way that other people simply “get.”

Over the last decade, the concept of utilizing visualization techniques has moved beyond a few talented practitioners to become available to – and useful for – any leader.

Anyone can clarify a problem or sell an idea by visually breaking it down using a simple set of visual-thinking tools. Thinking with pictures can help you discover and develop new ideas, solve problems in unexpected ways, and dramatically improve your ability to share your insights.

In my experience, visualizing meeting purposes and objectives is one of the most helpful things you can do to make a meeting work. And getting people involved early in talking about expectations and hoped-for outcomes is even more effective. Because people are free to imagine whatever they want and often do, this investment is the first step in focusing group intelligence.

The Power of Visual Meetings

Participation – Engagement explodes in meetings when people are listened to and acknowledged by having what they say recorded in an interactive, graphic way.

Big Picture Thinking – Groups get much smarter when they can think in big picture formats that allow for comparisons, pattern finding, and idea mapping.

Group Memory – Creating memorable media greatly increases group memory and follow-through – a key to productivity.

Benefits of Visualization

• Visual recording in a meeting immediately acknowledges that someone was heard and how they were heard in ways that verbal communication alone does not.
• Working visually is deeply integrative – it combines both visual (right brain) and verbal (left brain) ways of operating with interaction and physical movement.
• Graphic displays can contain contradictory information on the same sheet of paper, softening the either/or thinking that our spoken language reinforces.
• Working with graphic metaphors allows people to talk directly about how they are making sense of things.
• Working with visual imagery taps people’s imagined realms, making the stuff of hopes and dreams, intentions, and visions more accessible.
• Arranging information on pages or wall displays addresses not only the individual words and symbols, but also their overall interconnections and organization.
• Translating from spoken word to visual representation forces everyone to become conscious of the patterns in both.

David Sibbet, Visual Meetings

A NEXT STEP

In order to start your team thinking about a visual meeting, you have to begin before the meeting. Consider taking these actions in advance of your next team meeting:

• Create a poster with a catchy title and simple graphic image and place it at eye level outside your meeting room door.
• Using a chart tablet or white board, have meeting participants sign in with their first name and a pressing issue or question related to your meeting.
• Prior to the meeting, visually list your agenda on a chart tablet or white board.
• Using a chart tablet, create a scorecard listing decisions made, action items agreed on, and individual responsible. During successive meetings update and add to this scorecard as needed.
• During the meeting, ask participants to visually illustrate the conversation and decisions of the meeting. Build in time at the end of the meeting for each participant to briefly share his or her “visual notes” with the rest of the team.

After one month of following the above actions, schedule one hour to review, evaluate, and revise your team’s use of visual meeting practices.

Taken from SUMS Remix 8, published February, 2015

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Tags: David Sibbet, SUMS Remix, Visual Meetings

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Your Team Can Either Meet or Work, But Not Both at the Same Time

by: Will Mancini

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Note: Starting in 2016, we will be routinely posting content from one of the most innovative content sources in the church world: SUMS Remix Book Summaries for church leaders.  SUMS Remix takes a practical problem in the church and looks at it with three solutions with each solution is taken from a different book. As a church leader you get to scan relevant books based on practical tools and solutions to real ministry problems, not just by the cover of the book. Each post will have the edition number which shows the year and what number it is in the overall sequence. (SUMS provides 26 editions per year, delivered every other week to your inbox). 

>>> You can purchase a subscription to SUMS Remix here >>>

So how can you transform every ministry meeting with one big idea? It starts with understanding that every organization and every team experiences drift to see meetings as the work, rather than as a support tool for the work.  Here is the way we unpacked it last year in SUMS Remix edition 1.8.

Solution #3: Design meetings for one purpose: to support decisions.

THE QUICK SUMMARY

How many times have you dreaded going to a meeting either because you viewed it as a waste of time or because you weren’t prepared?

Read This Before Our Next Meeting not only explains what’s wrong with “the meeting,” and meeting culture, but suggests how to make meetings more effective, efficient, and worthy of attending. It assesses when it’s necessary to skip the meeting and get right to work.

Read This Before Our Next Meeting is the call to action you (or your boss) need to create the organization that does the meaningful work it was created to do.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

The profound tragedy of meetings is that everyone feels a benefit from calling a meeting but few of us benefit from attending.

Church leaders know in a real and visceral way that they have too many meetings, and too many of those meetings are bad! The resulting broken meeting culture is changing how teams focus, what they focus on, and most important, what decisions are made.

Ministry is a complex beast, and meetings can help tame the beast – but only meetings that insure intelligent decisions are made and to confirm that our teams are collaborating together in carrying out those decisions.

Church ministry teams don’t need standard, mediocre meetings that are all about making excuses and engaging in internal politics. It’s those types of meetings that keep leaders from doing the real ministry work they were called to do.

Traditional meetings are treated as just another form of communication. They’re just another item to be included in the same category as e-mail, memos, and phone calls. Meetings are too expensive and disruptive to justify using them for the most common types of communication, like making announcements, clarifying issues, or even gathering intelligence.

Seven Principles of the Modern Meeting

1. The Modern Meeting convenes to support a decision that has already been made. The Modern Meeting focuses on the only two activities worth convening for: conflict and coordination.

2. The Modern Meeting moves fast and ends on schedule. Traditional meetings seem to go on forever, with no end in sight. Strong deadlines force parties to resolve the hard decisions necessary for progress.

3. The Modern Meeting limits the number of attendees. If you have no strong opinion, have no interest in the outcome, and are not instrumental for any coordination that needs to take place, you aren’t needed in the meeting.

4. The Modern Meeting rejects the unprepared. The agenda should clearly state the problem, the alternatives, and the decision. It should outline exactly the sort of feedback requested, and it should end with a statement of what this meeting will deliver if it’s successful. Anything that’s not on the agenda doesn’t belong in the meeting.

5. The Modern Meeting produces committed action plans. These plans should include at least the following: 1) What actions are we committing to? 2) Who is responsible for each action? 3) When will these actions be completed?

6. The Modern Meeting refuses to be informational. Reading memos is mandatory. Teams must share complete thoughts that are actually worth reading and responding to – and everyone must read it all in advance.

7. The Modern Meeting works only alongside a culture of brainstorming. These sessions are dedicated to the creation of possibilities, a place where the imagination is allowed to run free and generate a plethora of ideas, from which innovation can be born.

Al Pittampalli, Read This Before Our Next Meeting

A NEXT STEP

Management genius Peter Drucker said that meetings were by definition a concession to deficient organization. Teams can either meet or work, but they can’t do both at the same time.

It’s time for your ministry team to do real work through a revised meeting structure by taking the following actions:

• Distribute the Seven Principles of the Modern Meeting listed above and ask your team members to review and reflect on them for the purpose of supporting the decision to establish a Modern Meeting process.
• Schedule a one-hour time in which each member of your team will prepare concerns and solutions to implementing the Modern Meeting process in ministry setting.
• Following this meeting, develop a set of action plans to implement the Modern Meeting process for a three-month trial period.
• Throughout the trial period, constantly reinforce progress and concerns via information shared among all team members.
• As a part of the trial, schedule weekly brainstorming sessions to help support the Modern Meeting process (see #7 above).
• At the conclusion of the trial period, decide and commit on following – or not following – the Modern Meeting process.

Taken from SUMS Remix Edition 1.8, March 2015

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Tags: Al Pittampalli, Meet, Meetings, Read This Before Our Next Meeting, SUMS Remix, Staff Meetings, Will Mancini

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The Secret to Overcoming Reluctance to Capital Campaigns

by: Will Mancini

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Beginning today is a new series routinely posting content from one of the most innovative content sources in the church world: SUMS Remix Book Summaries for church leaders.  SUMS Remix takes a practical problem in the church and looks at it with three solutions; and each solution is taken from a different book. As a church leader you get to scan relevant books based on practical tools and solutions to real ministry problems, not just by the cover of the book. Each post will have the edition number which shows the year and what number it is in the overall sequence. (SUMS provides 26 editions per year, delivered every other week to your inbox). 

>>> You can purchase a subscription to SUMS Remix here >>>

So what is Andy Stanley’s Killer Secret to Church Fundraising? It is using a powerful biblical principle and metaphor to reframe the believer’s opportunity to live a generous life. Here is the way we unpacked it last year in SUMS Remix:

PROBLEM STATEMENT  of Edition 1.7:  We have leaders who are reluctant to do another campaign. 

You have probably done capital campaigns before and many church goers are tired of the same old-school campaigns year after year. (By the way, that’s why we started Auxano campaigns as a vision-based resourcing service.)

Rallying people to a better future is not new.  Building leaders and directing energy is baseline to the human enterprise. But the church is still the HARDEST PLACE ON PLANET EARTH to focus. Whether it’s a breakout of congregational opinions, the rampant “sin of niceness” or a plague of risk aversion, getting the vision done is more fantasy than testimony.

Solution 1: Focus on the dynamics of fear vs. faith by using the biblical image of sowing seeds.

THE QUICK SUMMARY

Fields of Gold is a practical and inspirational book based on the principle of sowing and reaping. If we sow fear, what will be our harvest? And conversely, if we sow faith, what will we grow?

In the book Andy Stanley unpacks our irrational fears about money, helping us to discover that generous giving is actually an invitation for our heavenly Father to get involved in our finances and resupply us with enough seed to sow generously throughout our lifetime.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

Many people would like to be generous givers. But the realities of steadily rising prices of everyday goods, shrinking retirement funds, and an uncertain world economy give us pause. The questions come like a rushing whirlwind, burying good intentions:

• How much can I afford to give?
• What if I give away too much?
• What if there s not enough left for me?

As Christians, we know that we should give but sometimes it’s so hard to take that step of faith and let go when it comes to our finances. Under the growing pressures to make ends meet each month, it’s easy to become irrational in our thinking about God, his faithfulness, and our role as stewards of his resources.

That line of irrational thinking quickly leads to a fear that obscures both our thinking and the facts of how we know God wants us to handle our finances.

If we truly believe that God is who he says he is we have no reason to fear. Doesn’t it make sense to trust the God of the Universe with your finances? Isn’t it time to put aside the worry and start living in confidence?

When you begin to view your wealth from God’s perspective, you’ll see that the thing to fear isn’t giving away too much, but sowing too little.

It’s important to realize that fear and faith often go hand in hand. By nature, when you pursue a growing faith you increase your exposure to potential fears.

It’s no accident that the Bible addresses this condition head-on. There’s no drought when it comes to verses designed to help us let go of our fears and embrace our God-given calling to be generous stewards rather than fearful owners. In Matthew 6:33, Jesus assures us that when we seek His kingdom first with our seed, we need not fear being wiped out: … “he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.” (NLT)

When you begin to view your wealth from God’s perspective, you’ll see that the thing to fear isn’t giving away too much, but sowing too little.

You see, when we respond in fear to an invitation from God, we forfeit the reward of being faithful stewards. Sowing in faith results in an eternal crop. Cowering in fear yields empty fields.

Stepping outside your comfort zone is not careless irresponsibility, but a necessary act of obedience.

– Andy Stanley, Fields of Gold

A NEXT STEP

Fear and faith are parallel concepts that must live constantly in tension. Doubt and indecision are actually ingredients for both our fears and our faith. If everything was a certainty, where does faith come in? Our faith is engaged when we stand on the edge of the unknown. By relying less on the visible and more on the invisible, we begin to exercise our faith. And in that moment of faith, we often are vulnerable to fear. When it comes to giving, many Christians know they should give, but our fear of “what could be” overtakes our faith.

The answer to this challenge comes in the biblical metaphor of sowing. God provides for us (seeds). But seeds weren’t made for holding; they were made for sowing. Unless we sow our seeds, we will never know the harvest they will bring.

Overcoming the tension of our fear and faith requires a simple, but profound change in our concept of ownership. Answer these two questions:

• Who really owns your possessions?
• Who’s calling the shots for you financially?

If we truly understand and believe that God owns it all, we have no basis for fear. And, if God also is the source of all our wealth, and is in charge its increase and decrease, then we have no reason not to give.

The path to a secure financial future is to get God involved as soon as possible. The sooner you become a sower of seeds and not a hoarder, the sooner you will reap the harvest.

Once we realize that it really is better to give than to receive, there’s no limit to what God will do with our gifts.

Taken from SUMS Remix 7, published February 2015.

>>> You can purchase a subscription to SUMS Remix here >>>

Tags: Andy Stanley, Fields of Gold, SUMS Remix, capital campaigns, fundraising solutions

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3 Ways to Develop Your Church Leaders Without Having More Events

by: Will Mancini

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Leadership has become the hottest topic among growing church leaders these days. And I think for good reason. There is a healthy and ever-increasing awakening to the reality that programs don’t grow people, people do. And the more you are in the business of really making disciples, the more leadership development moves from periphery to central; it becomes a real need AND a felt need issue!

But the first problem in execution is again the over-reliance on events and programming. Churches quickly start leadership development classes or events only to overwhelm further, the busiest people they serve. Many first takes at leadership development become a recipe for insanity!

What then are some alternative solutions? What are ways to develop leaders IN church without creating more events AT church?

SOLUTION #1: Use a special story-telling technique to help leaders teach other leaders in realtime

I learned this teaching-via-story tool from Noel Tichy which he introduces in his book, Leadership Engine as a  “Teachable Point of View.” It takes some effort to get going but can become a powerful part of a leadership development culture. One of the most significant steps I have ever taken as a leader is to write down ten, 2-minute testimonies of my life’s most significant leadership lessons. Try it and learn more in the download below.

SOLUTION #2: Implement self-led venues for people to learn at any time, any place and any pace

With access to digital content today, its easier than ever to provide learning and development opportunities virtually. One caution: Don’t let leadership development drift into a information-transfer opportunity only. Watching a video doesn’t make you a better leader. But watching a video can be a significant step in a relational development pathway. Aubrey Malphurs and I wrote a chapter in Building Leaders about 16 different venues including this self-led type. Also, check out the Ministry Grid for a great online tool for church leaders.

SOLUTION #3: Embed apprenticeship as a norm in ministry environments

While many people have written on apprenticeship, few have practiced it as well as Dave and Jon Ferguson. Check out their thoughts in the download below. One huge and obvious benefit  of apprenticing is that you don’t have to recreate a training environment because every ministry environment is a training environment. Apprenticing can be challenging but it is doable. It is the primary method Auxano uses for training Navigators.

Download the SUMS Remix 12-page PDF, on Leadership Development

In our first issue of our SUMS reMix we tackled this post’s problem. SUMS  reMix is a brand new tool that brings you three simple solutions to practical challenges for church leaders. Each solution comes via book summary of a book relevant to church leadership. Learn more about SUMS Remix and subscribe here.

>> Read more from Will.

Tags: Leadership Development, Leadership Engine, SUMS Remix, Will Mancini

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