Off the Agenda: Conversations for Building Church Leaders

Few barriers can subvert the depth and transforming power of a small-group discussion faster than one or more group members who dominate the conversation. Such members can monopolize entire gatherings with their problems and perspectives and can hinder the participation of everyone else in the group.

Here are some practical tips for handling small-group members who talk too much.

Be Assertive
The best way to handle a dominant personality is for the group leader and/or facilitator to be assertive.

· Be assertive before the discussion. Prior to a discussion, or prior to asking a question, tell the group that you are looking for brief answers and thoughts. You may even consider setting a cap on the amount of time people are allowed to speak on each question—no more than one minute, for example. Also, make it known that you want to hear from as many people as possible on each subject.
· Be assertive during the discussion. If a group member ignores your request for brevity and begins to monopolize the conversation, the best thing to do is nip it in the bud—even if that means interrupting. Thank the person for his or her contribution, and then move the discussion in another direction by calling on another member or by asking a new question.
· Be assertive after the discussion. If a person continually monopolizes the group’s time, you may need to discuss the issue with that person in private. State that you appreciate his or her willingness to contribute to the group’s discussions and recognize the depth of his or her answers and opinions. But also be honest in sharing that the frequency and thoroughness of the person’s responses can make it difficult for other group members to participate. As a result of these conversations, it’s possible to ask the dominant person for help in encouraging the rest of the group to talk, thus turning a difficult person into an ally.

Continue reading "When Group Members Talk Too Much"...

I remembered the value of cleaning the office desk recently as I happened upon my notes from Willow Creek's 2007 Leadership Summit. During the conference, I made a specific point not to capture every single word possible, which I am prone to do, thanks to my background as a journalist. Instead, I attempted to listen and soak up what I could from the summit's impressive list of speakers.

But I broke that self-prescribed rule when I listened to Pastor Bill Hybels' pre-recorded interview with General Colin Powell. Looking back on those notes, I'm glad I did.

Powell, the former U.S. Secretary of State for President George W. Bush, provided his thoughts on leadership. I counted no less than 15 tips he offered, some of the obvious nature, some not. And while I recall feeling somewhat disappointed at the time that the interview didn't cover any leadership lessons Powell drew from his experiences in the events leading up to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, I was pleased with the rest of the ground he and Hybels covered.

In particular, Powell emphasized the power and importance of conflict done well. In a culture where conflict often gets viewed in negative terms, I found this advice particularly wise for leaders. Some of his other tips can be a bit unnerving--"Be prepared to disappoint and/or anger some people," and "Prepare to be lonely." Others were of the refreshing variety ("Check your ego at the door," and "Remember that perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.")

So, in the order Powell gave them, here's a quick summary of leadership principles through his eyes:

Continue reading "Colin Powell: 15 Tips on Leadership"...

I recently joined the leadership team for my church's small-groups ministry. During a recent Saturday breakfast, one of the church's longtime small-groups leaders (we'll call him Tim for this post) shared an unusual, and uncomfortable, predicament.

For several reasons I'll explain in a moment, Tim's group of eight years--one so close that members actually stood bedside with him a few years ago as his wife passed away from a difficult illness--decelerated during the past six months, basically to the point of becoming defunct.

But no one was willing to officially call it quits.

"I honestly don't know what to do," Tim said. His eyes screamed with frustration and disappointment. How could he pull the plug on a group that meant so much to him and its members?

The demise stemmed from a few factors. One couple valued the group's closeness to the point of insisting no new members get added. Another couple didn't want to study the Bible or read a book as a group--only social activities were acceptable. And another couple felt spurned when other members didn't provide the support they needed during the deaths of two parents and the developing health issues of the other two.

In time, the twice-monthly gatherings didn't attract full attendance, or they got postponed due to scheduling conflicts. By midway through last year, postponements grew in frequency.

Which led to Tim's question: How do I end it?

Continue reading "The Long Goodbye: Can Small Groups Break Up Well?"...

After looking at the diverse dragons that can threaten a church, what are the best defenses?

Landscapers know the best way to prevent weeds is not to attack them individually. Uprooting stubborn dandelions or chickweed one by one will improve appearances temporarily, but within days, the troublesome plants will be back. The best way to handle weeds is a thick, healthy lawn, which keeps them from springing up in the first place.

Likewise pastors, who are charged to "see to it … that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many" (Heb. 12:15), find that the best way to prevent dragon blight, or at least minimize its damage, is to concentrate on developing a healthy church.

Taking opportunities to build a close, cohesive church will produce better results than the shrewdest political maneuvers after problems sprout. Defusing potential problems before they arise is far better than troubleshooting later on.

What are the keys to dragon-proofing a church? Obviously no technique is 100-percent sure, but there are several principles pastors have found helpful in building church health.

Continue reading "The Best Defense for Conflict is a Good Offense"...

Several years ago, I had to look in the eyes of someone and tell her she could no longer be part of our team. Her final day would be in two weeks. She looked back, unblinking, almost uncomprehending, and then her large, brown eyes began to well with tears.

Her friends on the team felt hurt by the decision. The farewell party, despite the fancy cake, was visibly strained.

Meanwhile, I was reading Good to Great (HarperBusiness, 2001), in which Jim Collins explains the traits of leaders who transform good organizations into great ones. "We expected that good-to-great leaders would begin by setting a new vision and strategy," he writes. "We found instead that they first got the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seat—and then they figured out where to drive it."

Makes eminent sense: If you get the right people, in the right seats, then you and they will be able to figure out where to take the organization. Once you've heard, "First, get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus," it seems self-evident.

Before we dutifully apply this principle as Christian leaders, however, we'd be wise to consider a few things.

Continue reading "Arranging the Passengers on the Church Leadership Bus"...

In mid-January, the Wall Street Journal published an article about church discipline, choosing for its focus a case in which a 71-year-old woman was expelled from her congregation. The article made almost no use of concepts that are central to church discipline—redemption, unity, and discipleship. Almost immediately, a small niche of the blog world erupted at the overwhelmingly negative portrayal of discipline. A few secular blogs picked up on the article, too, and they used it to bolster cynicism.

Off the Agenda decided to take the opportunity to address and to expand upon the core issue brought up in the article—how leaders and congregants can survive the pitfalls of conflict. In the following article, Ken Sande, president of Peacemaker Ministries and a member of Building Church Leaders’ Ask the Experts panel, explains several steps that leaders can take to avoid destructive conflict. This article first appeared on Peacemaker’s website:

Every year hundreds of churches and ministries are thrown into turmoil when someone criticizes or raises serious questions about the conduct of a pastor or ministry executive. All too many of these situations end in resignation, dishonor, or division—usually because those who are responsible for addressing the allegations commit one of two major errors.

Continue reading "Holding Leaders Accountable"...

Good decision makers make sure they are working on answering the right question. They know that answering the wrong question, even precisely, doesn't accomplish anything; in fact, it keeps leaders and organizations tied up in counterproductive pursuits, with potentially disastrous results.

Pastor Ned finally realized that changing the worship style and moving the worship times at his church were the wrong problems for him to be working on. This realization came only after he had paid a terrible price personally in terms of the conflict generated by his new initiatives. He had endured months of criticism from church members who resisted the changes before they happened as he nurtured the hope that the new worship would draw many new faces into the church, making all the pain worthwhile. Trouble is, it didn't happen. Now, four months into the new schedule and services, he was looking at the same faces—actually, fewer of those faces.

Ned finally came to grips with the real issue: the congregation's lack of mission. The right question involved helping the church gain God's heart for people, especially those who have yet to hear the gospel of God's redemptive love. Absent this conviction, the church members just viewed the worship and schedule changes as a loss for them.

This beleaguered pastor is not alone. All over North America churches and church leaders are busy addressing the wrong questions. Answering them not only won't address the critical issues facing them, it will, in fact, compound the wider church's dilemma and hasten its slide into spiritual obsolescence in the emerging culture.

Continue reading "Reggie McNeal: Ask the Right Questions"...

Several years ago, my pastor left our church and moved 45 minutes away to plant a congregation. Thankfully, he had a family of six, so that more than doubled the waiting group of five people.

My wife and I decided to join the group because we're church-planting junkies; if we're not sitting on folding chairs, we don't know how to worship God. Still, it had been some time since our church fit in a living room and served Holy Communion from a card table.

I figured the new church would soon be like the former one, for it had the same senior pastor, the same worship style, a similar location, and, including our family, 10 of the same people.
I was wrong, hilariously wrong.

The church became radically different from its ancestor. Their demographics, passions, and projects diverged widely, even wildly. One example: They have a ministry for home-schooling families; we have one for Gen-Y professionals. The churches stand as a case study for Lyle Schaller's point that churches are progressively becoming more unlike each other.

That fact challenges every church leader today to discern and affirm the congregation's unique spiritual calling. This sounds easy, but it's surprisingly difficult. To understand and accept these people, to see what God wants to do in and through them, requires us to lay down much of what we know and what seminars teach. It requires listening and letting go of our plans.

It's much faster, when entering a church, to franchise, to use an approach proven in a larger congregation. It worked there, it should here. (Besides, we like that approach.)

Continue reading "What We Have Uncommon"...

It was 2:45 p.m., and my son, Cameron, and I were lost and already 15 minutes late for a birthday party for his 7-year-old friend. True to the male stereotype, I was bent on finding my way without directional assistance. Convinced that he was missing crucial elements of the party, Cameron piped up and pleaded, “Dad, stop and get directions! If you had asked somebody for help as soon as we got lost we could have been there by now.”

My 7-year-old had just taught me an important lesson in leadership. The I’ll-find-my-way-on-my-own attitude can impair your ability to navigate effectively, and the situation gets worse the longer you dig your heels in. Whether in a car or a leadership role, openness to input can get you where you want to go faster than figuring it out on your own.

The phrase “I don’t know” should be a staple of every leader’s vocabulary. To think that you have the answers for every leadership situation you’re faced with is unrealistic. Take advantage of the varying knowledge base and experience of those around you. There’s nothing wrong with asking for help now and then. Being closed to input destines us to the limited outcome of what we can think up, problem solve, or achieve on our own.

I see this a lot in my role at Leadership Transformations. We have a church health assessment that allows leaders to do their own “church health check up” over the internet and get feedback from the entire congregation and leadership team. In one month, leaders can gather feedback as to how their ministry is going, all with minimal effort from the church staff.

Whenever I mention this concept to a pastor, I can tell within a couple sentences of his response if he’s the type of leader who is open to feedback or not.

Continue reading "Directionally Impaired Leadership"...

Rick Allnutt, the pastor of Faith Evangelical Covenant Church, where I attend, preached Sunday on Colossians 1:15-20. While the message focused on the supremacy of Christ in our lives, I was struck by this passage on a somewhat different level.

Verses 17 and 18 particularly stood out because I find them to be great encouragement to church leaders during the hectic schedule of the holidays. Christmas pageants, outreach events, soup kitchen service days, parties, and so on loom during the next 3 1/2 weeks. So do the inevitable conflicts, mishaps, and other offenses great and small that occur whenever a team must lead and coordinate so many things at once.

No doubt there will be a moment or two when it feels as though everything is coming apart. When those times come, and they most likely will, remind yourself that Christ reigns supreme in every place:

"(Christ) is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy."

What a reassurance to know that the very God of the universe holds all things together, including your church and mine.

We’ve all been there: patiently biding our time as a team meeting, board meeting, or committee meeting rolls forward. Old business is being reviewed and discussed; new business, tossed back and forth; the agenda is moving from opening remarks to closing prayer, no surprises in sight.

And then divine lightning strikes. You have an epiphany that can change the course of the week, the year, your church, perhaps it can even usher in the kingdom! You raise your idea, excitedly presenting what is no less than a revelation. As conversation begins, enthusiasm mounts; others are buying into your vision.

And then someone older and, possibly, wiser begins to speak. He (or she) judiciously probes the weaknesses of your idea; soon it is no more impressive than a deflated birthday balloon.

Bad memories and emotions aside, the moments in which a good idea dies are some of the worst for team morale. My church recently conducted a business meeting in which a great idea (in my opinion) met vigorous opposition and soon gave up the ghost. The main weakness of the idea had nothing to do with the concept. Rather, it became palpable early on that the groundwork of highlighting the need for this new idea was virtually untouched. Without a foundation, the idea had nothing left to stand on, and it soon fell to strong—and at that point justified—resistance.

In the spirit of protecting your next idea to fight another day, here are three structures that General Henry M. Robert built into Robert’s Rules of Order. They won’t get a bad idea through a committee meeting (I hope). But they can give a good idea a fighting chance—whether you rigorously follow the book of order or not.

Continue reading "When a Good Idea is Under Attack"...

A ministering laity doesn't happen naturally. Many people still expect the pastor to do the ministry while they watch — and criticize. Changing that image requires shaking up time priorities. Pastors who develop strong lay leaders have learned to honor those who minister, not those who demand it.

Church members notice whom the pastor chooses to spend time with. They appreciate pastors ministering to the chronic dependents, but they lose respect if the emotionally needy or the "squeaky wheels" are able to dominate. Worse, they begin to assume the pastor is the designated minister, and valuable opportunities for building an active lay ministry are lost. A breeding ground for dragons begins to develop. Even if the solid, ministering lay people are not taken for granted, often they aren't given the time they deserve.

Continue reading "Stop Oiling Your Church's Squeaky Wheels"...

"Every church wants to grow, right? Not necessarily. Some leaders and members subconsciously may see growth as threatening and prefer to keep things ‘the way they used to be.’ This secret resistance among key people will surely inhibit growth.” —Douglas J. Brouwer, from the Building Church Leaders Assessment Pack, “A Welcoming Church.”

Have you encountered a secret resistance to growth at your church? How did you respond?