Killing Leadership Drift

by: Eric Geiger

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Tags: Direction, Eric Geiger, Expectations, Leadership Drift, Values

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Three Places to Uncover Values in Your Culture

by: Eric Geiger

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While serving alongside the Auxano team, I learned the important distinction between vision, mission, strategy, and values. Well-intentioned leaders can confuse those and mix and match them in a way that actually harms clarity.

• Mission is the what. Your mission is what your organization or ministry is on the planet to do.
• Strategy is the how. Your strategy is how you accomplish the mission.
• Vision is what you are pursuing now – the major goals in front of your team that are in alignment with your mission.
• And your values impact everything you do because your values form the culture of your ministry organization.

Because it is the shared values and beliefs that form the culture, it is critically important for leaders to understand the values beneath the surface. Wise leaders don’t declare values; they uncover the values that are already there. In your organization, you can learn the values that are beneath the surface by looking in a few places. Doing so will help you understand the culture, and understanding the culture is more important than understanding the strategy because strategy is much more flexible than culture. So where do you look? To uncover the values in your culture, look in these three places:

1. The Heroes and Stories

The leaders in the culture that are spoken of as the epitome of the ministry or organization are good examples of the values on display. Listen to the stories that describe the heroes in the culture and you can learn what is valued. As I interviewed and onboarded into my new role at Mariners Church, I heard numerous stories of God’s people at Mariners serving the poor and marginalized in our community and around the world. The stories are beautiful and amazing. By listening, you can learn a lot about what is valued.

2. The Celebrations

Plato famously declared, “What is celebrated in a country is cultivated.” The same is true in any ministry or organization. Whatever has been celebrated has formed the culture. If a ministry celebrates tangible impact in a local community, you know local engagement is in the culture. If a ministry celebrates volunteers who are equipped for ministry, you know that leadership development is in the culture. If you pay attention to what is celebrated you will you learn what is valued. If you want to add a value to a culture, you will need to find ways to celebrate and cultivate that value. You won’t be able to merely speak a value into existence. You may be the leader, but you are not God.

3. The Language

As the new senior pastor of Mariners, I knew one of my first tasks was to understand the culture beneath the surface at Mariners. Thankfully there was language and history for me to study.

I have been fortunate and blessed to follow an exceptional leader in Kenton Beshore. He has, infused the church with values that have created the culture. When he became the senior pastor 35 years ago, he brought the church a list of five values to the church:

• We teach God’s Word.
• Be God’s loving family.
• Every believer is a minister with a ministry.
• Be innovative in our ministry and relevant in our community.
• Be contagious in sharing Jesus Christ

Those values have been crystalized over time. I am leading our team through those values again. We are spending one staff meeting a month, with our whole team, walking through the importance and the implications of each value. It is helping me learn the culture, and I hope and pray it is helping us all renew our commitment to and unify around values that have formed the church we are honored to serve.

I love strategy. I have a tendency to go there first. Strategy is important, but culture is more so. Peter Drucker wisely quipped that “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” My friend Will Mancini has provided helpful tools, such as this one, to help leaders articulate values through demonstration of those values.

If you are a ministry leader who would like some strategic outside eyes to help you and your team uncover your unique identity, not only your values but also your mission and your strategy, I highly recommend Auxano. I have learned a great deal from the team and believe wholeheartedly they would serve you and your team well. To reach out to the team, click here.

> Read more from Eric.

Tags: Eric Geiger, Mission, Strategy, Values, Vision

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Every Decision Comes Back to This

by: Shep Hyken

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Editor’s Note: During our August focus on Guest Experiences, we are honored to have some of the best voices in the world of Customer Experience provide guest posts for the Vision Room. As you read the content below, simply think “Guest” in terms of the “customer” the author is talking about – and you will benefit from the knowledge and expertise of these great minds.

I’m honored to be the keynote speaker later this year at Office Pride, a franchisor of commercial cleaning service companies. All of the franchisees will be attending their annual meeting to network and learn about the latest and greatest opportunities happening in their industry. My job is to talk to them about customer service.

As part of my homework, Todd Hopkins, their CEO, shared the Office Pride Culture book. As I was reading it, I came across a concept worth sharing. While Office Pride has created a great set of core values, Todd describes them as decision filters. He writes, “Our core values filter the outcome of what we, either impulsively or mindfully, decide to do.”

Core values are what an organization believes and stands for. These are the principles and beliefs that guide an organization – and the employees of that organization. Many organizations’ core values include words like honesty and integrity. Office Pride’s core beliefs and values are as follows:

• Honor God
• Always Do What is Right
• Increase Brand Value
• Demonstrate Honesty, Integrity, and Hard Work Ethic
• Total Customer Satisfaction
• Go the Extra Mile
• Persevere with a Servant’s Attitude
• Accountability to Commitments

The key for core values to work is to keep them in front of you, memorize them, and be conscious of how they tie into your daily behavior with your customers and employees. Just writing them down without acting on them is simply a writing assignment.

Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, came up with ten core values for his company. In his book, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, Hsieh says he hires for those core values. He will also fire for a lack of any of the core values. That’s how important they are to the health of his organization.

It was Tony Hsieh’s book that inspired Hopkins to write his own culture book, which is a great exercise for an organization to consider. This short 84-page book devotes a chapter to each of his eight core values, supported by examples of how Office Pride employees and franchisees live by them.

So, back to Mr. Hopkin’s concept of core values being a filter. If you are working for a company or going to work for a company, take time to understand their core values. Do they align with what you believe in? Can you live by these values? Is this the culture that you want to be a part of? If the answer is yes, then let the values be the natural filter that guides the way you perform and treat others.

> Read more from Shep.

Want to know more about Guest Experiences at your church? Let’s talk! Connect with an Auxano Navigator here.

Tags: Church Guest Experience, Core Values, Guest Experiences, Shep Hyken, Values

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Why “How It Feels” is as Critical as “How It Works”

by: VRcurator

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It’s fairly easy for volunteers on your team to state what they do. It’s also pretty easy for most volunteers to talk about how they do what they do. However, few volunteers can actually articulate WHY they do what they do.

The reason? Stating WHY goes to values, and values are often talked about but more often misunderstood.

A church without values is like a river without banks – just a large puddle.

Values are the shared convictions that guide the actions and reveal the strength of the church. They are the values that represent the conscious and collective soul of your church because they express your most deeply held ideals. They define your ministry’s ethos.

Values are filters for decision-making and springboards for daily action. They are the constant reminder of what is most important to your church.

As with any organization, your church has a set of shared values underneath the surface of everyday activity. The problem is that they stay weak because they are unidentified and unharnessed in guiding the future.

The role of the leader is to identify the most important values and pull them above the waterline of people’s perception. Once they are in clear view, the leader can nurture their development, enabling the church to do more of what it does best.

What is true of your church as a whole is also true of individual ministries in your church – such as your hospitality ministry.

THE QUICK SUMMARY

The key to growth as a church, youth ministry, or a business is getting first-time guests to come back. And as any good manager of a hotel, a store, a restaurant, or an attraction knows, the key to getting guests to come back is not actually the rooms or the product or the food itself; it’s how guests feel when they’re there. It’s about hospitality. No matter how much effort and time we spend on excellence–stirring worship time, inspiring sermons, a good coffee blend in the foyer–what our guests really want when they come to our churches is to feel welcome, comfortable, and understood.

Written by a church consultant and a hospitality expert, The Come Back Effect shows church, ministry, and even business leaders the secret to helping a first-time guest return again and again. Through an engaging, story-driven approach, they explain how service and hospitality are two different things, show how Jesus practiced hospitality, and invite leaders to develop and implement changes that lead to repeat visits and, eventually, to sustained growth.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

No matter how over-the-top your service, if it doesn’t connect with the emotions of your guest, it isn’t hospitality. Hospitality is about the feeling.

Life is so hurried and hectic. What if the church could be the place where a guest feels the least hurried? Where the relational moments could provide a safe environment – safe to process through difficult moments in our life?

Decide proactively what you want your guests to feel, then look for ways to create environments that will help them experience that.

When the emotion is there, it doesn’t feel like someone’s doing their job. It’s like they’re your friend. It feels like they’re rooting for you and that doing their job is a way to support you – not just a means to perform a task.

Hospitality is about caring for the emotions of the guest just as much as it is about serving them, if not even more. That means knowing when it’s time to go above and beyond the call of duty or when it’s time to walk away. Hospitality is about merging the function – the tasks – and the feeling.

Every time a guest experiences us, we should honor them enough to deliver the same level of hospitality in every experience. But that same level of hospitality might mean responding differently each time, because the experience is about the guest. It’s not about making ourselves feel good about the service we provided. It’s making the guest feel good about the hospitality we showed.

Many ministries have been “doing” this serving thing for so long that all they worry about is “doing.” We need to reimagine what it means to be the guest and what it means to add feeling back into it. This means prioritizing the feelings of the guest over the tasks we perform for them.

The question to ask when faced with this information is obvious: Do we simply let the tasks go in exchange for the feeling? No. This idea of merging function and feeling is about a perspective shift more than anything. It’s not strictly a behavioral change, though this will affect your behavior. It’s about focusing on the feeling of the task – not simply the task itself.

Jason Young and Jonathan Malm, The Come Back Effect

A NEXT STEP

Serving is task oriented; hospitality is feeling oriented. Simply performing tasks is not enough to compel a guest to come back. Hospitality should change the way we perform our tasks. Tasks are important, but it’s the intangible feelings we transmit that turn them into moments of hospitality.

At your next team meeting, expose your team to both the good and negative feelings so they can know what good feelings to deliver in order to replace the negative emotion. Using the list developed by the authors below, highlight the positive feelings that stick out to you. What are some additional feelings your team would add?

You want your guests to feel:

Confident                   Pleased                       Included

Safe                             Comfortable               Refreshed

Satisfied                     Excited                       Challenged

Accepted                    Interested                  Secure

Hopeful                      Valued                         In control

Acknowledged           Relaxed                      Delighted

Empowered               Welcomed

Educated                    Familiar

Now, underline the negative feelings you’ve experienced in guest services environments. What are some additional feelings you team would add?

You don’t want your guests to feel:

Confused                    Doubtful                     Frustrated

Unsafe                         Angry                          Uninitiated

Skeptical                     Hurt                            Overwhelmed

Cynical                        Distrustful                  Uncomfortable

Suspicious                  Processed                  Out of control

Ignored                       Rushed                        Helpless

Annoyed                     Uneasy

By knowing and understanding the negative feelings that can happen, your team what’s possible by replacing those negative feelings with positive ones.

Excerpt taken from SUMS Remix 99-3, released August 2018.

Interested in bringing your team (up to 5 people) to Auxano’s Guest Experience Boot Camp coming to West Palm Beach, FL on February 26-27? Find out more here.

This is part of a weekly series posting excerpts from one of the most innovative content sources in the church world: SUMS Remix book excerpts for church leaders.

Each issue SUMS Remix takes a practical problem in the church and looks at it with three solutions; each solution is taken from a different book. Additionally, a practical action step is included with each solution.

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 Remix provides 26 issues per year, delivered every other week to your inbox). 

> > Subscribe to SUMS Remix <<

Tags: Church Guest Experience, Guest Experience, Jason Young, SUMS Remix, The Comeback Effect, Values

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3 Movements Toward a More Outward Focus

by: Rich Birch

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I’m so excited to have Omar Garcia with us today. Omar is the missions pastor at Kingsland Baptist Church in Katy, Texas.

Omar arrived at Kingsland 12 years ago as the first missions pastor. The church had a great reputation in the community, with a great prayer ministry and great family ministry. However, everything at Kingsland was very inwardly focused. The church needed help in reaching beyond the church and into the community.

• Take ownership of ministry initiatives. // Omar wanted to help the Kingsland membership to stretch themselves and step into situations they never had before, locally and internationally, while demonstrating God’s love in practical ways. One of the first steps in reaching beyond the church’s doors was to challenge the community groups to take ownership of a local initiative. The church stepped outside of Katy’s upper middle class neighborhoods and into the inner city of Houston, forming an urban alliance with a church there. Omar took 45 moms and kids to deliver fans during the summer to elderly within these neighborhoods in Houston.
• Care for your community in various ways. // Once the local initiatives took off, Kingsland faced the issue of remodeling their worship center and having to be out of the church for a Sunday. The staff discussed the plan of finding another place to worship that day and what building they could rent. But instead the initiative of Caring for Katy was born, which filled the problem of needing a place to come together to worship. On that Sunday, everyone stepped outside of the church, found needs within the community and determined how they would address them. Caring for Katy is now in its tenth year and reaches out to people throughout the Houston area to bring the love of God to them in practical ways.
• Find passion among the staff. // An important part of finding success in initiatives like the ones Kingsland has done is to be passionate about seeing people grow in their relationship with Christ. Kingsland’s senior pastor is a passionate supporter of everything the community missions has done in reaching beyond the church. He recognizes that as his congregation grows in sharing their faith, they are investing in and contributing to the Kingdom of God. Often these kinds of outreach initiatives don’t work because there is no passion or full support from the senior leaders in the church. A senior pastor who is just as passionate about these projects as the groups doing them will encourage success and help provide resources needed for local missions.

You can learn more about Kingsland at www.kingsland.org and reach Omar at omar@kingsland.org.

Read more from Rich.

Learn more about living out the values of your church – connect with an Auxano Navigator.

Tags: Kingsland Baptist Church, Rich Birch, Values

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How to Eat, Sleep, and Breathe Your Values

by: Eric Geiger

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I recently met with all the managers and directors of the Resources Division at LifeWay, the division I am responsible to lead. We have nearly 650 employees in the division, and they all report to the leaders who were in that room. At the beginning of each calendar year, I remind our team of our mission and values, our identity that is foundational for all we do. For five years we have lived with the same mission and values and have seen the impact on the culture of being crystal clear about our identity.

I have given up on the fantasy that a leader can get in front of a group of people and declare a culture into existence. We are not the Lord; we cannot speak something into existence. Creating and cultivating a culture takes time. I asked our team if they really believe our mission and values have worked their way into our culture. They shared stories of how our values impact decision-making, inform execution, create shared energy and enthusiasm, and increase our ability to attract the right people to the team. Here is a copy of our team’s mission and values.

So how, over five years, have we driven these deeply into our team? Here are five practical ways:

1. Teach the mission and values.

We invest time to re-teach our mission and values to the team. Sometimes the whole meeting is about the mission and values (as in early January), but most often we embed teaching into our regular meetings. For example, for the last two years I have taught on one value each meeting at each of our division-wide meetings.

2. Discuss them regularly.

We discuss our mission and values in team meetings, and the language is a filter for how we make decisions. If values are only shared from the microphone, they have little chance of being driven into a culture.

3. Hire with a mission/values lens.

We hire through the lens of our mission and values. We want to make them so clear that if someone has not fully bought into them, they self-select out of the hiring process. If you don’t lead with mission and values, you cannot expect to hire the right people.

4. Celebrate stories that illustrate.

We give awards based on our values. The awards are based on great stories that illustrate the commitment to the mission and values we desire to live by. Stories can give people a tangible example of what living a value really looks like.

5. Evaluate honestly.

We regularly evaluate how our execution is rooted or fails to be rooted in what we say we believe. From annual evaluations to evaluating a particular project, evaluation through the lens of mission and values further drives them into the culture.

Learn more about driving your values deeply into your team – connect with an Auxano Navigator.

> Read more from Eric.

Tags: Eric Geiger, Values, Vision

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Are Your Values Adding Value?

by: Mac Lake

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A wise leader of any organization will spend significant time thinking through and carefully crafting organizational values. He understands as the team lives out these prescribed behaviors the organization is more likely to accomplish its mission.  While listing Core Values is a common practice, unfortunately living out core values is not.  In many cases organizational values are posted on a wall and forgotten or ignored.  In other cases the values are defined but no one is sure how they integrate into the daily life of the organization.  As a result the values lack the power and influence they’re intended to have.  So how do know if your values are adding value?

Here are four indicators that may help you find out.

Everyday language: You know your values are adding value when they become the common language that team members are using on a day-to-day basis. Keywords or phrases from your defined values are showing up in everyday conversations, meetings and in the way that others describe your organization. These words or phrases become insider language that your people understand and use to help move your organization towards the mission.  If you’re values are not showing up in everyday language it’s likely they’re not adding value.

Decision Making: Values can add a great clarity to your decision-making. Every decision you face has multiple options and the option you choose will either keep you on or get you off mission. Your values (I actually prefer to call them Core Behaviors) are a set of a pre-decided ways that you and your organization will behave.  Therefore if a decision doesn’t align with one or all of your values then you need to find an option that will.  These pre-decided behaviors are intended to keep you on mission.  If you’re not referring to your values in the midst of decision making then they’re not adding value.

Changed Behavior– Not everyone you bring into your organization automatically reflects your values.  That’s okay at the beginning but a clearly established set of values that are communicated regularly will overtime shape the behaviors of the individuals on your team.  This will bring greater alignment to the way people behave, think and make decisions in your organization.  If your values are not shaping the behaviors and decisions of individual team members they are not having their intended impact.

Clear Reputation – It doesn’t take too many touches for people outside your organization to quickly discern what you value.  Whether we like it or not what we value is highly visible.  This is why one of the leader’s greatest responsibilities is to manage and shape the corporate culture of his or her organization.  We do this by modeling and teaching the values/behaviors we expect.  When team members live out the values in daily activity others quickly pick up on “how we behave around here”.   And it’s those day-to-day expressions of our values that establish the reputation of our organization.  What is your church or company known for?  If you’re unhappy with the answer to that question then your values are not adding value.

What next steps do you need to take to ensure that your values are adding value?

Would you like to learn more about developing Values for your organization? Connect with an Auxano Navigator and start a conversation with our team.

Read more from Mac here.

Tags: Mac Lake, Values, Vision Frame

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How Your Church Can Leverage Five Trends in Retail

by: Will Mancini

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I am currently helping a large, non-profit Christian retailer go through a visioning process. Last week a retail consultant led two hours of dialogue in a meeting I attended. These points are heavily adapted from that conversation with some additional thoughts on how they relate to the church.

Trend #1: Tweets and Seats- Provide free wifi and places to sit.

This is fairly simple to apply at church. Don’t wonder wether you should have wifi or not in any church space. Provide it! Retailers understand this is not a distraction for their customers but is a part of how their customers live (constant mobile connectivity). In addition, its an opportunity for customers to engage the retail space itself in deeper ways like getting more product information, validating lowest price or seeing creative applications and outcomes of certain products.

In church, the connectivity that wifi provides can translate to deeper engagement to everything that matters for the mission. Examples:

• “Can I download the music I am worshipping to right now for personal worship on tuesday morning?
• “Can I sign-up for a group while I am listening to a sermon on biblical community?”
• “Can I use my preferred digital copy of God’s word while following the sermon?”
• Can I take notes in way that will be automatically accessible in a cloud before I leave the service?”

The possibilities are endless.

Trend #2: Big Data- Know my wife’s birthday—and remind me—before it comes to my mind.

Big data is used to describe the massive amounts of data that retails are able to gather, configure and use to better serve their customers. As connectivity, social media and technology accelerate, big data will yield mind-numbing implications for how people are served. For example, imagine Hallmark cards reminding you of your wife’s birthday at the right time, the right place in the right way (device & medium) for you.

Today at Elevation Church, every attender was strongly urged to tear off a response card and answer three questions. The first question is “What year were you born?” The big deal is the appeal that was made in the moment of asking. The creative pastor shared that, “We want to do everything possible to design the best worship experience for you and this information will help us.” This is Elevation’s way of building their data.

There are a few big players out there in the church information space (I recommend checking out CCB). Be sure to select the one that is most usable and relevant for the future possibilities of big data. More importantly, think creatively of the umpteen ways that you can collect and use information to serve people. For example, I was recently scolded by my church’s student ministry assistant for missing the cut-off of camp sign-up. (Okay, it was my fault). But there’s about 3-4 different ways that this ministry could have reminded me of this info, if they used the data they already possessed. Is a simple text reminder asking too much?  Think of the implications way beyond event sign-up, like daily discipleship tools, digital missions and social story-telling. Quite frankly, the possibilities are amazing if church leaders wake up to this opportunity!

My prediction: the pastor of digital engagement will be the fastest growing new church job of the future.

Trend #3: The Back Story- Sharing why you sell what is you sell is more important than what you sell.

If you look, you will see many retailers returning to their roots and telling their creation story to emotionally connect you to their brand. Johnston & Murphy wants you to know they have been making shoes since 1850 and, it just so happens, they are the shoe provider for U.S. Presidents. While we see this all the time with creative upstarts and social entrepreneurs, more and more big for-profits are going there.

The simple lesson for the church is that values are important— a practice we are constantly trying to help church leaders advance at Auxano. This trend should be the church’s constant centerpiece, at least with regard to the biblical ideal. Why we do what we do is the heart of any ministry. The relevant application of this is pushing your ability to articulate—and then integrate—how your unique creation story and ministry values help people see, experience and engage the vision. The first step is to communicate the difference. Why does your community need your church anyway? (And don’t give me with generic answers.) Here is an article just posted on the Vision Room that will help.

Trend #4: Store within a store- Speak to specific segments within your tribe.

Stores like JC Penny or Best Buy are leading the way. At Best Buy you can make a purchase at several different stores within the big store. For example, you can buy standard cables for your new TV in the standard Best Buy aisles or you can go to Magnolia section, with a distinct in-store look and feel, and pickup higher-end cables. You will pay more, but you will also get customized service, like a follow-up phone call, to see how your TV installation went.

This is a harder point of application for churches, because of the pre-existing problem of fragmentation. In other words, if your church already has too much stuff, creating another sub-ministry logo won’t help. (Here is a post on that challenge.) The best way to apply this principle is not with a sub-ministry program in the traditional sense, but with an equipping feature in the “tools and resources” sense. For example, Mountain Park Community Church has a “Home Team” area in their lobby with tools for families based on specific family issues and life stages. The resource center does not clutter the church’s programatic offering but provides a “value-add” to certain segments of their congregation. The key question is “How can you add specific value to specific groups in your church?”

Trend #5: Generational Training- Teach a millennial how to greet a boomer.

Retailers know that age-segment values and practices can make people feel like arrived on a different planet.  You can’t just expect a 23 year-old woman to know how to great a 63 year-old woman. Tight-niche retailers worry less about this because they will hire to mirror their demographic target.

But most churches don’t have this tight-niche luxury, so this trend is particularly appropriate. When was the last time you trained your first-impressions team or welcome ministry in generational preferences? Beyond greeting, imagine the rich implication for all of discipleship. In many churches with history over 30 years, generational viewpoints on walking with God may be your greatest under-utilized asset. How are you leveraging the variety of perspectives, convictions and practices of generations for the sake of the mission?

I would love to hear of any practical applications along these lines at your church!

Read more from Will here.

Tags: Communication, Retail, Values, Vision Frame, Will Mancini

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Would You Recognize Inward Drift in Your Church?

by: Thom Rainer

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All organizations tend to lose their focus and forget their original purposes over time. I call this almost imperceptible movement “inward drift.” The attitude becomes one of protecting the way we’ve always done it rather than looking back to the original purposes and reasons for existence. Numbers of stagecoach businesses failed, for example, because they thought their primary purpose was to make stagecoaches rather than to provide reasonable and rapid transportation.

The primary dangers with inward drift are twofold. First and foremost, the organization can forget the very reason it was created. Second, the drift is often imperceptible. Many organizations don’t realize there is a problem until it’s too late.

When Inward Drift Comes to Church

Local congregations are not immune from inward drift. To the contrary, the vast majority of churches in North America are likely in crisis because of the negative impact of inward drift.

Some of the labeling of congregations is unfortunate. Particularly, when we speak of “traditional churches” or “contemporary churches,” we rarely come to consensus on a clear definition. My son, Sam Rainer, popularized the term “established churches,” a term I prefer to use today. An established church is simply a church that has been in existence for a few years and is thus susceptible to inward drift. Indeed most any church three years or older will likely begin to experience some of the symptoms of inward drift.

When an organization such as a for-profit business begins to experience inward drift, it will change or die within relative short order. The marketplace will not buy its goods or services if the company doesn’t address the needs and the hearts of the consumers.

An established church, however, can exist for years and even decades with inward drift. The church may not be making disciples. It may not be reaching the community and the nations with the gospel. But it continues to exist more as a religious social club than a true New Testament church. Its members and constituents are willing to fund the congregation since it meets their perceived needs and desires.

Signs of Inward Drift in Established Churches

The signs of inward drift in an established church are clear even though the members don’t often recognize them:

1. Most of the ministries and programs are focused on meeting the desires and needs of the members.
2. The budget of the congregation is directed primarily at funding the projects and even comforts of the members.
3. Conflict in the congregation is not uncommon since members are more concerned about getting their perceived needs and desires met.
4. There is little to no focus on evangelism, reaching out to the community, and getting the gospel to the nations.
5. Leadership is weak and reticent to address the problems, because that leadership emphasis could disrupt the status quo.

Addressing the Issue of Inward Drift in the Church

I recently drove through my hometown. I lived in the same house and the same town for my first eighteen years of life. But it had been more than a decade since I visited the town. I was shocked. Businesses on the main street were closed. Some were boarded. Many of the homes I knew and loved had deteriorated greatly. The major industries had exited and left large vacant buildings. It was almost a ghost town.

Someone who had never left the town, though, told me that things were really going well there. They were serious when they said it had not changed much since I left. For me, the change was stark and shocking. For him, it was slow and imperceptible. When we fail to see the deterioration that is taking place, we will not see the need to make changes to reverse the course.

Such is the crisis in many of our established churches today. And it is that imperceptible inward drift that often makes it so difficult to lead a congregation toward healthy change. In a future post, I will address some of the possible steps to lead an established church toward change without destroying it in the process. I hope you will join me then.

Read more from Thom here.

Tags: Mission, Thom Rainer, Values, Vision Frame

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Vision + Values = Organizational Strength

by: Mac Lake

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Vision without a clearly established set of values will hinder an organization from achieving it’s maximum impact.  One of the key competencies we teach church planters at LAUNCH is “Evaluate your core values and integrate them into the DNA of your church”.  Church planters are some of the most optimistic, enthusiastic, visionary leaders on our planet.  I see it all the time, God captures a young energetic leader and burns a vision into his heart and he becomes virtually unstoppable.  But sometimes those very same leaders become discouraged or disillusioned when their God given vision doesn’t seem to be getting traction.

Leaders love to think, dream and inspire people to pursue a better future.  While this type of visioning is essential for organizational direction, if the leader doesn’t provide a clear set of values it may be difficult to achieve the desired outcomes. Having a clear vision doesn’t ensure the necessary behaviors to achieve that vision. That’s why the church planter must invest as enthusiastically in values as he does in the vision of his church.  Values are not cute “statements” that you post in the hallway of your office.  Values are the core behaviors that define the very fabric of who you are.  Values describe how you will behave on a day-to-day basis.  In fact, personally I’ve stopped using the word values and have substituted it with “core behaviors”.

You may have a great vision but if the people in your organization don’t operate according to a unified set of core behaviors you will find yourselves unable to move forward in an aligned and productive way.

What are the essential core behaviors (values) for your church?  How well are those demonstrated in the attitudes and actions of the leaders in your organization?  What adjustments need to be made to ensure that all leaders are living out those core behaviors?

Read more from Mac here.

Tags: Core Behavior, Mac Lake, Values, Vison Frame

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