Reengage Your Volunteer Teams by Acknowledging Team Gifts

by: VRcurator

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Lee Cockerell, retired Senior Vice President of Operations for Walt Disney World Resorts, brings over four decades of experience on the front lines of some of the world’s best run companies to his writing and speaking. Lee responded to the question above with this simple, yet profound thought:

Leaders ARE their teams.

He went on to say that leaders should never underestimate the emotional impact they have on their team members by employing an ARE method.

Appreciation, Recognition, Encouragement: ARE. Together they make up a cost-free, fully sustainable fuel, one that builds self-confidence and self-esteem, boosts individual and team performance, and keeps an organization running cleanly and smoothly. ARE is more powerful than the fuels that make engines roar and space shuttles soar, because it propels human energy and motivation. And unlike costly, nonrenewable fuels like oil and gas, its supply is inexhaustible. You can give out ARE all day long, at home and at work, and wake up the next morning with a full tank. In fact, the more we use, the more there is, because every time people receive some ARE they discover more of their own internal supply and start giving away the overflow.

– Lee Cockerell, Creating Magic

Unfortunately, even though we all need a little ARE, the speed of ministry and Sunday’s coming mindset prevent many leaders from employing this simple, yet profound practice:

Reengage your volunteer teams by acknowledging team gifts.

THE QUICK SUMMARY – The Power of Acknowledgement, by Judith Umlas

The Age of Enlightenment changed the way mankind thought about life, culture, and human relationships. In her evocative new book, The Power of Acknowledgment, Judith W. Umlas unleashes the concept of an Age of Acknowledgment we can all help bring about.

In a time of celebrity worship and self-absorption, Judith’s well-reasoned and heart-felt appeal is so counterculture as to be revolutionary. Imagine, as does the author, people acknowledging each other’s humanity, accomplishments, talents, and wisdom on a continuous basis. It might just catch on. And wouldn’t that be something. This 45-minute read will change your life and the life of everyone around you.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

There is a small but very significant action you can take every day – for no cost and little effort – that will change your world.

This action, if used regularly, can transform your team relationships, making the atmosphere vibrant, productive, and alive.

All this is possible, yet most people – even leaders – don’t recognize this incredible tool or understand its power. What all of us possess, but most of us don’t use often enough, is the power of acknowledgement.

Principle #4: Acknowledging good work leads to high energy, great feelings, high-quality performance, and terrific results. Not acknowledging good work causes lethargy, resentment, sorrow, and withdrawal.

Recognize and appreciate (acknowledge) good work, wherever you find it. It’s not true that people only work hard if they worry whether you value them. Quite the opposite!

Can you imagine this scene, which takes place every day all over the world? You have just completed a difficult and challenging job. Perhaps you’ve worked alone on a project that needed three people to complete it, and got it done before the scheduled timeline and under budget.

Customers and potential customers are already telling you hoe much easier it makes their jobs, how excited they are, and how this new product really fills a need. You report all this to your boss and all you get is a weak and distracted, “Oh, okay.”

You already know what you’re left with: resentment, lack of energy, and most of all (but not usually identified) sorrow. Why did you bother to put in all of the extra hours, why did you feel the deep commitment to getting the job done even with insufficient resources? “Who cares anyway?” you ask yourself.

Judith W. Umlas, The Power of Acknowledgement

A NEXT STEP

To help you begin practicing and enhancing your acknowledgement skills, create a list of people in your daily life to consider speaking words of encouragement that show you have noticed them serving in their giftedness. Here are a few categories and suggestions for each:

People to acknowledge in my daily life and what I could say to acknowledge the usage of their gifts:

• Barista ____________________________________________________
• Check out cashier ____________________________________________________
• Doctor ____________________________________________________
• Dentist ____________________________________________________
• Regular delivery person ____________________________________________________
• Other ____________________________________________________
• Other ____________________________________________________

People in my family and what I could say to acknowledge their giftedness:

Spouse                                                ____________________________________________________

Child(ren)                                          ____________________________________________________

Mother                                               ____________________________________________________

Father                                                 ____________________________________________________

Brother/Sister                                   ____________________________________________________

Grandparents                                                ____________________________________________________

In-laws                                               ____________________________________________________

People at work and what I could say to acknowledge their gifts:

Boss                                                    ____________________________________________________

Co-worker                                          ____________________________________________________

Co-worker                                          ____________________________________________________

Co-worker                                          ____________________________________________________

Subordinate                                       ____________________________________________________

Subordinate                                       ­____________________________________________________

Subordinate                                       ____________________________________________________

Assistant                                             ____________________________________________________

Assistant                                             ____________________________________________________

Security                                              ____________________________________________________

Custodial                                            ____________________________________________________

Once you have filled these out, start finding opportunities to deliver them. They can be acknowledgments that you write, or verbally present, or they can be something quite different. As long as the acknowledgments are true and real for you, acknowledge away.

Once you start this practice, which requires paying attention to the good qualities of the people around you, you will find yourself becoming awed by their accomplishments, talents, and wisdom.

Excerpted from SUMS Remix Issue 54-1, released November 2016

This is part of a 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). 

> Subscribe to SUMS Remix <<

Tags: Judith Umlas, Leadership, SUMS Remix, The Power of Acknowledgement, team leadership

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How Can I Lead My Team to Believe “Less is More” in a “More is More” World?

by: VRcurator

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Every day, ministry leaders spend too much time, managing too much church “stuff,” for too little life-change. It is safe to say that the church in North America is over-programming her calendar and under-discipling her people.

Behind this reality is a stark irony: The effectiveness of our gospel work is limited, not by a lack of ministry effort but by an excess of ministry action.

The gospel-centered, transformational impact of your church sits as a malnourished beggar beside an every-growing buffet of church ministry programs.

We get too little discipleship precisely because we have too much church stuff

Church stuff is the whole of the ministry activities that make up your church calendar. Programming that ranges from weekly worship and groups, to monthly programming or quarterly training opportunities.

Church Stuff = Any event service, meeting, class, or group that your church offers this year.

It’s time to make better decisions.

THE QUICK SUMMARY – Simple Rules, by Donald Sull and Kathleen Eisenhardt

Complexity surrounds us. We have too much email, juggle multiple remotes, and hack through thickets of regulations from phone contracts to health plans. But complexity isn’t destiny. Sull and Eisenhardt argue there’s a better way. By developing a few simple yet effective rules, people can best even the most complex problems.

In Simple Rules, Sull and Eisenhardt masterfully challenge how we think about complexity and offer a new lens on how to cope. They take us on a surprising tour of what simple rules are, where they come from, and why they work. The authors illustrate the six kinds of rules that really matter – for helping artists find creativity and the Federal Reserve set interest rates, for keeping birds on track and Zipcar members organized, and for how insomniacs can sleep and mountain climbers stay safe.

Whether you’re struggling with information overload, pursuing opportunities with limited resources, or just trying to change your bad habits, Simple Rules provides powerful insight into how and why simplicity tames complexity.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

How often do you attempt to address complex problems with complex solutions? An extreme example that must of us are familiar with is the operations of governments – local, state, or federal. It seems that in every case, governments both create and attempt to solve complexity by creating regulations to cover every imaginable scenario.

In reality, trying to “solve” complex situations with more complexity almost always creates more confusion than it resolves. Again, a governmental example comes to mind: the U.S. income tax law. Every April taxpayers struggle to understand the new regulations that have been enacted since the previous year. In the meantime, the bureaucracy grows larger while the “answers” it provides are often contradictory and confusing.

While applying complicated solutions to complex problems may be an understandable approach, it is flawed. Complicated solutions quickly overwhelm people.

What if, instead of looking to complicated solutions for complex problems, we turned to simple rules?

Simple rules are shortcut strategies that save time and effort by focusing our attention and simplifying the way we process information.

Simple rules work because they do three things very well:

• They confer the flexibility to pursue new opportunities while maintaining some consistency.
• They produce better decisions.
• They allow members of a community to synchronize their activities with one another on the fly.

We’ll start with boundary rules, the most basic variety of simple decision rules. Boundary rules can help you decide between two mutually exclusive alternatives. Boundary rules also help you to pick which opportunities to pursue and which to reject when faced with a large number of alternatives.

• Boundary rules narrow down the alternatives, helping people decide which opportunities to pursue in the face of an overwhelming number of choices.
• Boundary rules can also help pick the most promising opportunities when money is the binding constraint.
• Boundary rules can translate statistical findings into easy-to-use decision aids.
• Boundary rules can also translate broad policies into practical guidelines.

Boundary rules guide the choice of what to do (and not do) without requiring a lot of time, analysis, or information. Boundary rules work well for categorical choices, like those with a yes-or-no decision. These rules also come in handy when time, convenience, and cost matter. Boundary rules cover the basics of what to do.

Donald Sull and Kathleen Eisenhardt, Simple Rules

A NEXT STEP

Since we are talking about focus, again, select five to ten ideas (current or future) that you consider may have potential for ministry action.

On a chart tablet, number the ideas and write them on the top row of a matrix. Write the following concepts on the left column: money, knowledge, skills, scale, and time. These concepts will form the framework of your simple rules.

Together with your team, define how much money, the type of knowledge, the type of skills, scale (how much and how far), and the time necessary to develop each idea. Write a description of each concept in the matrix.

Add a last row at the end of the matrix and write down a realistic check-up of your own resources per idea.

Highlight in red where you lack resources, and reflect on our team whether you can find ways to acquire them, or if the idea should be shelved.

Choose the idea with the least amount of red highlights.

After completing this exercise, discuss with your team if this simple rules framework will work in your regular ministry planning. Revise any areas that need tweaking.

Distribute the simple rules framework to your team with instructions for use on future ideas.

You can make better disciples with less church activity. You and your church can see and act on the beauty of a less-is-more approach by making better decisions.

Excerpt taken from SUMS Remix 42-3, published June 2016.

Part of a weekly series on 27gen, entitled Wednesday Weekly Reader

Regular daily reading of books is an important part of my life. It even extends to my vocation, where as Vision Room Curator for Auxano I am responsible for publishing SUMS Remix, a biweekly book “summary” for church leaders. Each Wednesday I will be taking a look back at previous issues of SUMS Remix and publishing an excerpt here.

Tags: Decision making, Less is More, More is More, SUMS Remix, Simple Rules

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How to Revive a Dead Vision Statement

by: VRcurator

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Most pastors will invest more time on preaching preparation for the next month than they will on vision communication for the next five years. How about you?

That quick experiment is a great way to introduce a special two-part SUMS Remix devoted to the visionary planning problems you must solve.

Will Mancini, founder of Auxano and author of God Dreams, has never had a pastor disagree with him about the simple time analysis above. Most quickly nod with agreement, and understand that something is not quite right about it.

Of the many reasons (let’s be honest… excuses) given, one of the most important is that no one has shown the pastor how to spend time on vision planning. That’s what God Dreams is designed to do. Central to the book’s process is the Horizon Storyline, a tool leaders can use to connect short-term action steps with the long-range dream, while leveraging the power of storytelling to make the plan stick.

Vision Planning Problem #1: You craft a vision statement, but it’s not meaningful enough to talk about after it’s been written.

THE QUICK SUMMARY – Illuminate, by Nancy Duarte

“THE PEOPLE WHO ARE CRAZY ENOUGH TO THINK THEY CAN CHANGE THE WORLD ARE THE ONES WHO DO.”

With these words, Apple Inc., and its leader, Steve Jobs, catalyzed a movement. Whenever Jobs took the stage to talk about new Apple products, the whole world seemed to stop and listen. That’s because Jobs was offering a vision of the future. He wanted you to feel what the world might someday be like, and trust him to take you there.

As a leader, you have the same potential to not only anticipate the future and invent creative initiatives, but to also inspire those around you to support and execute your vision.

In Illuminate, acclaimed author Nancy Duarte and communications expert Patti Sanchez equip you with the same communication tools that great leaders like Jobs, Howard Schultz, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used to move people. Duarte and Sanchez lay out a plan to help you lead people through the five stages of transformation using speeches, stories, ceremonies, and symbols.

This visual and accessible communication guidebook will show you how Apple, Starbucks, IBM, charity:water, and others have mobilized people to embrace bold changes. To envision the future is one thing, getting others to go there with you is another. By harnessing the power of persuasive communication you, too, can turn your idea into a movement. 

Solution #1: The Horizon Storyline will teach everybody to use vision everyday.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

As crazy as it seems, the problem listed above <<repeat problem>> is a common experience. The words become “caged” on paper after the vision retreat or committee meeting. The problem is that vision transfers through people, not paper.

The visionary leader must also be a cultural architect. Transforming the future is made possible because the cultural perspective is held in conscious view. While it’s possible to communicate your vision in many ways, the spoken word has the ability to grip hearts in a way no other medium can.

Only when you pull people together in a room are you able to create a unique opportunity for human connection. Speeches, stories, ceremonies, and symbols become your unique torchbearer kit to help communicate your dream in a compelling and desirable way, helping your travelers long for and help achieve it.

Deliver Speeches

When you deliver a speech, you have the opportunity to explain your ideas and directly address resistance to change. By contrasting the current situation (what is) with the improved reality travelers will enjoy if they embrace your dream (what could be), you’ll be able to make the future more alluring than the present.

Tell Stories

Whereas speeches structurally move back and forth between the present and the future, a story follows a single protagonist’s transformation. We remember stories because they connect our hearts and minds to an idea.

Hold Ceremonies

Ceremonies fulfill a need to express emotion collectively resulting in communal catharsis. Ceremonial acts help travelers envision new behavior or purge old mindsets so they can move forward unencumbered. Use ceremonies to mark important transitions to provide your troops the opportunity for community and commitment.

Use Symbols

Symbols are ordinary artifacts that take on meaning because they were part of a speech, story, or ceremony. They express ideas and emotions in concentrated form. Because of their resonance, symbols become the visual language of a social group. They express people’s thoughts, feelings, and values in a shorthand and sometimes highly charged way.

Nancy Duarte, Illuminate

A NEXT STEP

At your next leadership team meeting, break the team into four groups. Each group will write a compelling story describing what you would like the church to become in the next three to five years. Start the story with “Once upon a time,” and be sure to reveal heroes, villains, battles and victories.

Instruct the teams to utilize all four of the methods listed above. Be sure to give as much detail as possible.

When completed, do these three steps for each:

1. Have each group read their story for the rest of the team.
2. Ask the other teams to specifically name what possible outcome or reality described that they like best or get most excited about from each story.
3. Start a list of short-term actions that are do-able first steps to see that dream become a reality.

Now prioritize the first four action initiatives, assigning a key leader and completion date to each. For more on developing short-term action initiatives refer to Chapter 17 in God Dreams.

Excerpt taken from SUMS Remix 47-1, published July 2016.

Part of a weekly series on 27gen, entitled Wednesday Weekly Reader

Regular daily reading of books is an important part of my life. It even extends to my vocation, where as Vision Room Curator for Auxano I am responsible for publishing SUMS Remix, a biweekly book “summary” for church leaders. Each Wednesday I will be taking a look back at previous issues of SUMS Remix and publishing an excerpt here.

Tags: Illuminate, Nancy Duarte, SUMS Remix, Vision

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Collaboration Starts with the Leader First

by: VRcurator

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How can I help my team of independent “doers” learn to work together and grow as visionary leaders?

The beauty of clarity is how it is discovered together. The crucible of community isn’t easy, but with collaboration the yield of fruit is 10 times greater and 10 times sweeter. Those who are gifted in creativity and visioning can also excel in helping complementary perspectives align around that vision.

Often, though, the problem is that you lead a team of independent “doers,” who though capable of being visionary leaders, are measured by the tasks of ministry and rarely get to demonstrate their collaborative leadership.

Solution – Collaboration starts with the leader first.

THE QUICK SUMMARY – Collaboration Begins With You, by Ken Blanchard, Jane Ripley, and Eunice Parisi-Carew

Everyone knows collaboration creates high performing teams and organizations—and with today’s diverse, globalized workforce it’s absolutely crucial. Yet it often doesn’t happen because people and groups typically believe that the problem is always outside: the other team member, the other department, and the other company.

Bestselling author Ken Blanchard and his coauthors use Blanchard’s signature business parable style to show that, in fact, if collaboration is to succeed it must begin with you.

This book teaches people at all levels—from new associates to top executives—that it’s up to each of us to help promote and preserve a winning culture of collaboration. The authors show that busting silos and bringing people together is an inside-out process that involves the heart (your character and intentions), the head (your beliefs and attitudes), and the hands (your actions and behaviors). Working with this three-part approach, Collaboration Begins with You helps readers develop a collaborative culture that uses differences to spur contribution and creativity; provides a safe and trusting environment; involves everyone in creating a clear sense of purpose, values, and goals; encourages people to share information; and turns everyone into an empowered self-leader.

None of us is as smart as all of us. When people recognize their own erroneous beliefs regarding collaboration and work to change them, silos are broken down, failures are turned into successes, and breakthrough results are achieved at every level. 

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

It’s a common belief that a successful organization is built on teams. And while that is true, there is also a hidden implication within that assumption: the idea of a team implies that its members are competing with an outside force, often another team. Teams also have starters, sixth (or twelfth) men, and bench players.

How can you as a leader work with a group of individuals to encourage everyone to contribute to the common good, with a depth and shared accountability that goes beyond the concept of a typical team?

The secret to successful collaboration is for every person at every level to take responsibility.

Collaboration is a whole order of magnitude beyond teams. It’s in the DNA of the organizational culture. It’s the mindset of every member of the organization – the air the company breathes. It’s an environment that promotes communication, learning, maximum contribution, and innovation.

Collaboration is an inside-out mindset. It has to start on the inside, with the Heart. If you don’t get the Heart part right, you’ll never be effective as a collaborative leader, because the Heart is really who you are as a collaborator – your character and intentions.

Then it moves to the Head, which is about what you know – your beliefs and attitudes about collaboration.

Finally, the Hands are all about what you do – your actions and behavior during collaboration.

Ken Blanchard, Jane Ripley, and Eunice Parisi-Carew, Collaboration Begins with You

 A NEXT STEP

Make sure each of your team members has a basic understanding of the Heart, Head, and Hands as described above and how they represent a different domain of collaboration.

Challenge your team to use those three different concepts over the next month in a group collaboration exercise by creating a “Vision Room” for one month.

Create an inspiring, freethinking environment by designating a secluded area, such as a small room or large closet, for team members to experience reflective, God-inspired moments in solitude. In this space they can pray, plan, create and engage in vivid, risk-taking, visionary thinking.

Make available tools and props: paper, markers, scissors, whiteboards, toys, books – anything to stimulate ideas. Invite the team to take advantage of this space. Encourage team members to leave behind whiteboard thoughts, objects, pictures, highlighted articles, challenges and inspirations for one another.

Schedule regular times together to meet in the Vision Room (even if you are all crammed in and standing) and discuss the team’s experiences each week. Gather ideas, then discuss, collaborate, and clarify your team’s dreams for your church. At the end of the month, make a large “Vision Room” list, then prioritize and execute the strategic actions that will build momentum for your church.

Leaders who practice disciplined collaboration must learn to work at all levels: they cultivate collaboration by transforming themselves, their organization, and the people working in the organization.

Collaboration will remain a key part of church leadership as senior pastors and elder teams will always need to unite disparate parts within and across organizations.

Taken from SUMS Remix 35-1, published March 2016

This is part of a 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). 

> Subscribe to SUMS Remix <<

Tags: Collaboration, Collaboration Begins With You, Ken Blanchard, SUMS Remix

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Create a Compelling Culture of Hospitality

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Taken from SUMS Remix 46-1, published August 2016

This is part of a 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). 

Subscribe to SUMS Remix <<

Want to learn more about training your teams? Check out Auxano’s Guest Experience Boot Camp in Cincinnati, OH on August 7-8.

Tags: Chick-fil-A, Church Guest Experiences, Dee Ann Turner, Guest Experience, It's My Pleasure, SUMS Remix

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Develop Specific Training to Produce Engaged and Guest-Focused Leaders

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Taken from SUMS Remix 20-3, published August 2016

This is part of a 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). 

Subscribe to SUMS Remix <<

Want to learn more about training your teams? Check out Auxano’s Guest Experience Boot Camp in Cincinnati, OH on August 7-8.

Tags: Disney U, Doug Lipp, Guest Experience, Guest Experience Boot Camp, Guest Experience Training, SUMS Remix

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Money Matters: Aligning Priorities Toward Eternity

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How can we cultivate a “get to give” not a “got to give” culture of generosity?

It is inspiring to watch generosity flourish. Here are four simple principles regarding generosity:

• God is a very generous God.
• He created us in His image to be generous people.
• When we are generous together the world is a better place.
• Generosity is rewarding to both the giver and receiver.

Money can really bind us at times and create many life burdens. Generosity is the path of freedom, joy, and impact.

Yet, the typical church is full of people who see giving at best as a chore and most often as a necessary burden.

Make God’s priorities your priorities.

THE QUICK SUMMARY – The Generous Soul, by Marty Duren

Marty Duren conducts a thorough study examining how Christ followers relate to money and possessions in the larger Kingdom purpose.

Viewing each believer as a ‘missionary manager,’ The Generous Soul provides a solid biblical foundation for a life of financial generosity toward others based on the faithfulness of God. The book includes a set of 20 conversations starters making it suitable for individual or group study. 

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

Success in becoming generous is 100% impossible without embracing the principle that God owns everything. We are stewards of a few small things that God owns. God owns our lives, our jobs, our church, our bodies, and all our physical possessions.

As managers of God’s possessions, our responsibility is to handle “our” stuff just as God would if He were on earth; this is the substance of Jesus’ parables.

The proper understanding of finances means that the priorities of God’s people related to money and possessions should be the same priorities that God has for the Kingdom. The use of money is not a separate reality from the gospel. On the contrary, our use of money and possessions is a direct reflection of our understanding of and love for the gospel and the Savior it reveals.

If the gospel, the Good News, is the story of God’s redemptive activity through Jesus Christ of all things lost in the Fall, then everything under our management is usable for the embodiment and expansion of the gospel. If we keep money and possessions under a separate section of our lives it is tantamount to lording overt that area ourselves rather than yielding lordship to Christ.

To maintain this control of our finances is like divorcing ourselves from God. We cannot, no matter how much we try, serve both God and mammon.

Marty Duren, The Generous Soul

A NEXT STEP

Sharing stories of people doing both good and great things inspires others. When it comes to giving, people can often feel shame and inadequacy. However, the Bible reveals great nuggets from people who lived attainable generous lives on an every day basis.

The Gospel of Luke captures these stories of generosity. Jesus introduces us to men and women, both mature and immature in their faith. He describes both real and fictional characters engaged in very normal activities; still they manage to live abundantly generous lives. Some of these characters are expected while others are rather unexpected.

Review the following givers Jesus knew, and make it your goal to practice what they lived.

Unsuspecting Giver– Luke 8:1-3 tells us about some of the early actions of the 12 disciples and several ladies. These early recruits were newbie’s in the faith, straight out of the marketplace. On top of that, the women are described as formerly having evil spirits, diseases, and demons. This is probably not the list that most would make heroes of or at least not just yet. Still these early adopters who are taking their first steps of faith are said to be supporting Jesus “out of their own means” and Jesus wants to make sure you know them. There are no high and lofty requirements to generosity, just give.

Called Giver– Luke 9:3 and 10:4 introduces us to an extreme giving request of Jesus. He called His early disciples, over 80 of them, to give up everything for the sake of a short-term mission trip. He sent them all out into the harvest, to share the good news and help people with their needs. Jesus called them to go, take nothing, not a dime or a change of clothes, not even a snack. We are called to support Jesus both out of our means and at times by giving up all that we have. Don’t worry, you won’t be the first or last person Jesus asks or sends out – just one of many who have learned to enjoy the adventure.

Compassionate Giver– Luke 10:35 introduces us to a fictional character, but the story is powerfully real. Today we call him The Good Samaritan, a man who allowed his day to be interrupted. He didn’t permit the inconvenience or expense to stop him. Whatever others may say about his investment in a troubled person did not matter. He gave compassionately and comprehensively. No trite pat on the back here. Rather he gave time, energy, and resources over an extended period for a man he may never see again. Giving people are both simple and alert. This story could look a little heroic, but it’s really just common courtesy. If you can’t be stopped in your tracks, you will never be able to give compassionately.

Investing Giver– Luke 10:15ff is another fictional character in a very real situation. It’s a successful businessman tempted by greed. His thriving business has put him in a quandary. His barns are too small, so he builds bigger barns to store his wealth and coast into the future. Only life changes and his money can’t solve his spiritual problem. Focusing on an earthly investment did not pay off as he anticipated. Jesus instructions are to live by faith and don’t trust in worldly wealth. Instead, sell your possessions and give to the poor. This will reap an unstoppable reward and grow a heart toward God. Seeing the future clearly helps us hold loosely to the things of today.

Fake Giver– Luke 18:22 shares about a man who lived on the dark side of generosity. We commonly call him the Rich Young Ruler. He appears to desire a relationship with Jesus; however, as the story unfolds we learn where his heart really is. He is so proud of his religious life, and then Jesus exposes that it is paper-thin. No hero here. This is only a stark reminder that the Rich Young Ruler can be a stealthy resident in the life of very religious people. He chooses to fail at generosity and he had all the resources to accomplish it. How sad.

Transformed Giver– Luke 19:8 provides us with an immediate and rather bold response of faith. It comes from Zacchaeus. He is a brand new follower of Jesus – less than one day. He is really wealthy just like the Investing Giver and the Fake Giver. Jesus doesn’t ask him to show his faith through generosity at all. This still this doesn’t stop Zacchaeus from thinking about it on his own. He confesses his financial sins having been a cheat and thief. Then he demonstrates a changed life by giving half of his possessions to the poor and paying back anyone he wronged four times what he owed them. Jesus said we would be known by things like love and fruit. Generosity is a great demonstration of both.

These are just a few of the giving stories in the Bible.

• Pick one of the stories and share it with someone else this week.
• Make a commitment to learn and live the lessons of one of them this month.
• Create a family practice of learning to live generously around one this summer.

Taken from SUMS Remix 43-3, published June 2016

This is part of a 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). 

> Subscribe to SUMS Remix <<

Tags: Generosity, Marty Duren, SUMS Remix, The Generous Soul

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The Leadership Secret Every Navy SEAL Knows

by: VRcurator

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What can my church learn from the mission-focused leadership of the United States Navy SEALs?

A clear, executable mission is the key to success for every branch of the military. An outstanding attention to teamwork and training make the United States Navy SEALs the most formidable fighting force on the planet. Leadership is just as important to each SEAL Team as it is to your church.

THE QUICK SUMMARY – Extreme Ownership, by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

Sent to the most violent battlefield in Iraq, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin’s SEAL task unit faced a seemingly impossible mission: help U.S. forces secure Ramadi, a city deemed “all but lost.” In gripping firsthand accounts of heroism, tragic loss, and hard-won victories in SEAL Team Three’s Task Unit Bruiser, they learned that leadership―at every level―is the most important factor in whether a team succeeds or fails.

Willink and Babin returned home from deployment and instituted SEAL leadership training that helped forge the next generation of SEAL leaders. After departing the SEAL Teams, they launched Echelon Front, a company that teaches these same leadership principles to businesses and organizations. From promising startups to Fortune 500 companies, Babin and Willink have helped scores of clients across a broad range of industries build their own high-performance teams and dominate their battlefields.

Now, detailing the mind-set and principles that enable SEAL units to accomplish the most difficult missions in combat, Extreme Ownership shows how to apply them to any team, family, or organization. Each chapter focuses on a specific topic such as Cover and Move, Decentralized Command, and Leading Up the Chain, explaining what they are, why they are important, and how to implement them in any leadership environment.

A compelling narrative with powerful instruction and direct application, Extreme Ownership revolutionizes business management and challenges leaders everywhere to fulfill their ultimate purpose: lead and win.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

Today’s Naval Special Warfare operators – SEALs, for Sea, Air, and Land – can trace their origins to the Scouts and Raiders, Naval Combat Demolition Units, Underwater Demolition Teams, and Motor Torpedo Boat Squadrons of World War II. Their pioneering efforts in unconventional warfare are mirrored in the missions and professionalism of the present Naval Special Warfare teams.

The principles critical to SEAL success on the battlefield – how SEALS train and prepare their leaders, how they mold and develop high-performance teams, and how they lead in combat – are directly applicable in any group, organization, corporation, or business.

For SEAL teams, the beginning and foundational leadership principle is this: the leader is truly and ultimately responsible for everything.

The best leaders don’t just take responsibility for their job. They take Extreme Ownership of everything that impacts their mission.

This fundamental core concept enables SEAL leaders to lead high-performing teams in extraordinary circumstances and win. But Extreme Ownership isn’t a principle whose application is limited to the battlefield. This concept is the number-one characteristic of any high-performance winning team, in any military unit, organization, sports team or business team in any industry.

When subordinates are not doing what they should, leaders that exercise Extreme Ownership cannot blame the subordinates. They must first look in the mirror at themselves. The leader bears full responsibility for explaining the strategic mission, developing the tactics, and securing the training and resources to enable the team to properly and successfully execute.

Extreme Ownership requires leaders to look at an organization’s problems through the objective lens of reality, without emotional attachments to agendas or plans. It mandates that a leader set ego aside, accept responsibility for failures, attaché weakness, and consistently work to build a better and more effective team.

Such a leader does not take credit for his or her team’s successes, but bestows that honor upon his subordinate leaders and team members. When a leader sets such an example and expects this from junior leaders within the team, the mindset develops into the team’s culture at every level.

Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, Extreme Ownership

A NEXT STEP

As the senior leader of a staff team, or as a staff member leading a ministry team, the principle of Extreme Ownership means that you have the responsibility for everything that occurs with your team – everything.

To begin utilizing the concept of Extreme Ownership, select a recent ministry activity that did not go as well as you had planned. On a chart tablet, write the activity and date at the top.

On the chart tablet, review the development of the activity, by listing the genesis of the idea, discussion and planning prior to the activity itself, and all individuals along with their specific responsibilities in carrying out the activity. In addition, list any external factors that may have impacted the result of the activity.

Go over the chart tablet in detail with the following questions in mind:

1. What leadership support did I provide in the genesis of the activity?
2. How did my words and actions affect the initial planning of the activity?
3. How involved was I through direct or indirect decision-making in the initial planning?
4. Once initial planning had begun, did I connect on a regular basis with the leaders of specific tasks?
5. If so, did I encourage them, offering additional training or insights as needed?
6. Did I pull all the leaders together regularly to briefly review their individual progress toward the common goal?
7. If so, did I help them understand how their individual and team success would lead to the success of the overall goal?
8. On the day before the activity, did the team meet to verbally run through the activity’s main actions?
9. If so, what was your level of participation? Did you verbally support and affirm your subordinate’s plans or critically suggest other options?
10. At the activity itself, what was your role?
11. How often did you circulate around during the activity and speak to your subordinates?
12. How did you “take notes” during the activity for later discussions?
13. Did you realize during the activity that it had not met your expectations?
14. At the conclusion of the activity, how did you thank everyone for his or her involvement?
15. Did you have a preplanned “debrief” of the activity, or was it only after you realized things didn’t go as planned?

To successfully complete an activity, or lead change, or to challenge people to accomplish a difficult or complex task, you can’t make people deliver the result you envision. You have to lead them.

Extreme Ownership is a mind-set and attitude. When leaders practice Extreme Ownership and develop a culture of Extreme Ownership within their teams, the rest will begin to fall in place.

Taken from SUMS Remix 41-1, published May 2016

This is part of a 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). 

> Subscribe to SUMS Remix <<

Tags: Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willin, Leadership, Leadership Secret, Leif Babin, SUMS Remix

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Purpose Without Priority is Pointless

by: VRcurator

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How can you lead your team to believe “Less is more” in a “More is more” world?

Every day, ministry leaders spend too much time, managing too much church “stuff,” for too little life-change. It is safe to say that the church in North America is over-programming her calendar and under-discipling her people.

Behind this reality is a stark irony: The effectiveness of our gospel work is limited, not by a lack of ministry effort but by an excess of ministry action.

The gospel-centered, transformational impact of your church sits as a malnourished beggar beside an every-growing buffet of church ministry programs.

We get too little discipleship precisely because we have too much church stuff.

Church stuff is the whole of the ministry activities that make up your church calendar. Programming that ranges from weekly worship and groups, to monthly programming or quarterly training opportunities.

Church Stuff = Any event service, meeting, class, or group that your church offers this year.

THE QUICK SUMMARY – The One Thing, by Gary Keller

YOU WANT LESS. You want fewer distractions and less on your plate. The daily barrage of e-mails, texts, tweets, messages, and meetings distract you and stress you out. The simultaneous demands of work and family are taking a toll. And what’s the cost? Second-rate work, missed deadlines, smaller paychecks, fewer promotions—and lots of stress.

AND YOU WANT MORE. You want more productivity from your work. You want more satisfaction from life, and more time for yourself, your family, and your friends.

NOW YOU CAN HAVE BOTH—LESS AND MORE. In The ONE Thing, you’ll learn to

• Cut through the clutter
• Achieve better results in less time
• Build momentum toward your goal
• Dial down the stress
• Overcome that overwhelmed feeling
• Revive your energy
• Stay on track
• Master what matters to you

The ONE Thing delivers extraordinary results in every area of your life—work, personal, family, and spiritual. WHAT’S YOUR ONE THING?

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

Complexity is the curse of organizations of almost any size. Many churches today are program profound and doctrinally dense – they are unnecessarily complex. The complexity is strangling their ability to grow and thrive. To the extent that today’s church has become political, institutional, or programmatic, we are making it more complicated than it needs to be.

We have bombarded our people with too many competing little ideas and the result is a church with more information and less clarity that perhaps ever before. The lack of clarity that churches give their people impedes the church’s ability to accomplish the mission of Jesus. “More” results in less clarity.

It’s time for the power of priority.

Purpose has the power to shape our lives only in direct proportion to the power of the priority we connect it to. Purpose without priority is powerless.

To be precise, the word is priority – not priorities – and it originated in the 14^th century from the Latin “prior” meaning “first.” If something mattered the most it was a “priority.” Curiously, priority remained unpluralized until around the 20^th century, when the world apparently emoted it to mean generally “something that matters” and the plural “priorities” appeared.

Watch your language. You may have many ways to talk about priority, but no matter the words you choose, to achieve extraordinary results your meaning must be the same – ONE Thing.

When each day begins, we each have a choice. We can ask, “What shall I do?” or “What should I do?” Without direction, without purpose, whatever you “shall do” will always get you somewhere. But when you’re going somewhere on purpose, there will always be something you “should do” that will get you where you must go. When your life is on purpose, living by priority takes precedence.

There can only be ONE. Your most important priority is the ONE Thing you can do right now that will help you achieve what matters most to you. You may have many “priorities,” but dig deep and you’ll discover there is always one that matters most, your top priority – Your ONE Thing.

Gary Keller with Jay Papasan, The ONE Thing 

A NEXT STEP

Again, select three potentially good ideas for ministry action, and write them on a chart tablet. These can be three new ideas or from Solution 1 above.

Plot each as a journey of activities, and highlight who is involved in each step such as volunteer leaders, staff members, congregation, guests, community members, etc.

Highlight those that are crucial to each step and discuss with your team if those stakeholders listed above remain motivated throughout the whole journey. What is their motivation?

How many steps does it take until the motivation becomes unclear? How many steps can it take for the motivation to be lost? Put a red dot by the steps that are unclear.

Repeat the steps above with the other two ideas and make the final count of red dots. The idea with the least red dots is the one that should be considered as the priority.

Taken from SUMS Remix 42-2, published June 2016

This is part of a 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). 

> Subscribe to SUMS Remix <<

Tags: Gary Keller, Jay Papasan, Purpose, SUMS Remix, The One Thing, priority

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Alignment Eats Accomplishment for Lunch

by: VRcurator

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When you have a vague or undefined strategy, your leaders will invent their own.

Auxano Founder Will Mancini believes that over 90% of churches in North America are not functioning with strategic clarity. Many churches have some kind of expression for mission and values, but not for strategy. The absence of strategy, as Mancini defines it, is the number one cause of ineffectiveness in a healthy church.

This map, or strategy picture, is like a container that holds all church activities in one meaningful whole. Without this orientation, individuals within the organization will forget how each major component or ministry activity fits to advance the mission.

When you don’t have a strategy, or your strategy isn’t clear, a threefold problem can occur:

• too many ministry or program options and no prioritization;
• ministry options that have no relationship with one another;
• ministries themselves have no connection to the mission.

Having a clear map – one that shows how you will get things done – is a strong indicator that the effectiveness of your mission will go through the roof. Strategic clarity can birth a quantum leap in your ministry.

Build for team alignment rather than individual accomplishment.

THE QUICK SUMMARY: Execution IS the Strategy, by Laura Stack

In today’s world of rapid, disruptive change, strategy can’t be separate from execution—it has to emerge from execution. You must continually adjust your strategy to fit new realities. But, if your organization isn’t set up to be fast on its feet, you could easily go the way of Blockbuster or Borders.

Laura Stack shows you how to quickly drive strategic initiatives and get great results from your team. Her LEAD Formula outlines the Four Keys to Successful Execution:

• The ability to Leverage your talent and resources
• Design an Environment to support an agile culture
• Create Alignment between strategic priorities and operational activities
• Drive the organization forward quickly

She includes a leadership team assessment, group reading guides, and bonus self-development resources. Stack will equip you with the knowledge, skills, and inspiration to help you hit the ground running!

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

If members of your team are working hard but have lost focus of the mission of your organization, you are facing a double threat: your overall mission is not being accomplished and your team members are likely heading toward burnout.

The most successful team members work together for more than a paycheck or for keeping busy. They are engaged in the mission, and feel that they are an important part of achieving that mission. They are serving with a sense and purpose of something that is greater.

On the other hand, team members who have lost focus on the mission of the organization may just be going though the motions of working together. When this occurs, the organization is entering a danger zone.

Even those who work the hardest will inevitably crash and burn in their productivity if they lose track of the mission. Help them reorient and align themselves if they’ve lost their focus on their mission with a 4-R Reconnection Strategy.

Reestablish awareness. Have team members evaluate their current positions by asking, “Which of my activities contribute most of my value to my organization.” If they can’t answer that, have them invest personal time in figuring out where they got off course and how they might fix it.

Realign them. Make sure the mission and their perception of it match up. If your team becomes misaligned, they may be wasting time on the wrong things. If that is the case, it doesn’t matter how hard they work to get the job done; their productivity will crash.

Repair their connection. Once your team members know where they are and where they should be, have them make any necessary course corrections. After that, help them tweak or overhaul their workflow process to get it back on track and in sync with the mission.

Rededicate them to the mission. Have the team members reaffirm their commitment to your organization. Help them understand how each contributes to the collective effort to move the organization forward.

Laura Stack, Execution IS the Strategy

A NEXT STEP

Using the Four-R process above, realign your leadership team to the mission of the church.

First, write “Our Mission” on the top of a flip chart page and hand every person a sticky note. Without looking at phones, tablets, or printed materials, have each leader write the mission of the church from memory on a sticky note. Place all the notes on the flip chart page. Discuss the results, noting the degree (or lack of) shared knowledge of the church’s mission. (Remember Howard Hendricks’ ageless quote: if it’s a mist in the pulpit, it’s a fog in the pew.)

Now write the actual mission on another flip chart page, and with a renewed focus on the missional mandate of the church, have each leader write ministry activities that CONTRIBUTE DIRECTLY to the mission on one color sticky note and ministry activities that while good, DO NOT CONTRIBUTE DIRECTLY to the mission.

How can your leaders help each other to focus activity toward mission accomplishment? How can you learn from each other and lean toward God’s calling for the church? Record some specific initiatives and next steps on a third flip-chart page, assigning responsibility to a team member.

Taken from SUMS Remix 38-1, published April 2016

This is part of a 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). 

> Subscribe to SUMS Remix <<

Tags: Alignment, Church Unique, Laura Stack, SUMS Remix, Will Mancini, team alignment

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