SkintightTransformation

A Question from God

What are we dying for?

This is a question God asked me this morning. It caught me by surprise because the reality is, most people are LIVING for something. Living for their family, the weekend, their kids, a paycheck... Almost anything.

Philippians 1:21 says, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." (NASB)

There is a big difference between living for something and dying for something. Dying involves sacrifice and it is intense. Dying for something requires a passion that lives deep within us. Jesus demonstrated this kind of passion when he died for our sins.

So what am I dying for? I'm not living for a career in ministry... I'm dying for pastors, small and medium sized churches and for the salvation of my family!

WHAT ARE YOU DYING FOR?


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Sabbaticals for Pastors 101

Taking time for sabbatical rest is crucial to the success and longevity of your ministry. How often you take a sabbatical and what you do while on sabbatical is incredibly important.

 

Rhythm

We all have natural rhythms to our lives.  We take our vacations at a certain time every year.  We ramp up ministry seasons for short periods of time and have special focuses in our churches on missions, prayer and leadership from time to time.  Getting into a rhythm can be helpful in sustaining a healthy ministry pace as well as setting up a good way to plan from year to year.

 

Just like our ministries, our lives have a rhythm also.  Take a few minutes looking at your yearly calendar.  Where are the natural places for you to rest?  Keep in mind that you may need a first, second and third choice.

 

Frequency

How often should you take a sabbatical?  For every person it is different but here is a good rule of thumb for pastors:

 

• Once a month do a quick recharge –            

Take 1 full day where you don’t produce anything for a quick recharge to your personal batteries

• Once a year, unplug-

Every year take 2-3 days, get alone with just you and God to unplug from your duties and responsibilities

• Every 6 years take an extended sabbatical

Plan an extended sabbatical that includes time away, time for family, time for counseling or coaching.  This could be for 1-3 months

 

Types of Sabbaticals

 

Quick Recharge

Most people assume that if they have one day off a week, it is enough rest and they simply continue with ministry and life.  For most people, however, this is not true.  Your mind, spirit and body need a regular recharge.  This could be a day for prayer and fasting, relaxing or time in the Word.  If we’re honest, most of us would admit that our one-day-off a week is more about catching up with things around our home and doing things that keep us just as busy as we would be at work.  Take one day a month for a quick recharge

 

Unplug

Ministry life can have a fast pace and it can take a toll on us over long periods of time.  Unplugging helps to get us out of task mode and focused on what God is doing.  It’s important to take a 2-3 days a year to get away and listen to God.  Consider that a good time to take a 2-3 day sabbatical, is right before you begin planning.  Use this time to discern where God is moving in your church.  One possible upgrade to this plan is to take a key elder or staff person with you and spend time listening and praying together.

 

Extended Sabbatical

This is the most difficult sabbatical for most pastors to take.  It requires more planning beforehand and it is more about getting you, the pastor healthy than it is about just resting.  Most of us identify who we are with what we do.  An extended sabbatical forces us to clarify our identity, passions and calling.  You can use this time to do almost anything… as long as it has nothing to do with work!

 

Where to start

If you haven’t taken a sabbatical in more than 10 years, then I would suggest you start small, versus jumping right into the extended sabbatical.  (an exception would be if you feel like you are on a crash course to ministry burnout)  Start with doing six months of the quick recharges and then move to an ‘unplug’ (2-3 day) sabbatical.  This way when the time is right for you to take an extended sabbatical you have some good disciplines worked out before hand.

 

You Need a Mentor

No matter which sabbatical you are taking you need to have a mentor.  A mentor is someone you talk to about what you will be doing on your sabbatical before it starts and your mentor is the person you connect with to process after your sabbatical.  If you do even a one-day sabbatical and don’t use a mentor you’re missing out on perspective and good accountability for how you use your time.

 

A mentor can be someone in your church, like an elder or it can be someone outside your church, such as another pastor or elder.  You can also choose to hire a coach.  A coach will be able to set you up with an agenda and offer you valuable outside perspective.

 

Do you have any sabbatical practices that are helpful?   Please share them!

Making Creative Planning Fun

Today I had the privilege of hanging out with the creative team that puts our weekend services together at Canyon Ridge. One of the cool values of this team is to make sure they are having fun. (because sometimes being creative can be hard work or can lead too intense conversations)

To help keep their creative meetings fun, they keep any empty waste basket in the center of the table. At any time, anyone in the room can call for a paper basketball shoot off if they see things becoming too serious or if they attention spans starting to drift.

This is a great way to keep the intensity from getting out of control and to have the whole team participate in keeping everyone engaged.

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Location:Las Vegas, NV

Strategic Planning 101

For most organizations, strategic planning is something you think you do pretty well, but deep down, you know you could be better at it.  Everybody and every organization plans, some are really intentional and strategic and others pretty much fly by the seat of their pants.  Here are some things to think about as you approach planning in your life, ministry and church.

 

Determine your loop

Your loop is the amount of time you need to evaluate in order to make sure that you new plan takes into consideration your past successes and failures.  If you don’t know where your blind spots are, you’ll miss crucial opportunities to avoid repeating mistakes and the chance to capitalize on some of your strengths. 

 

Consider this: how well you have implanted previously plays directly into your ability to implement in the future.

 

If you’re planning for something in the next three months, then look closely at the past three months.  What were the hang-ups and misses that prevented you from implementing well?  How have things like teamwork, morale and other changes in your church helped or hindered forward momentum?  If you’re planning for the next year, then look at the past year for insights.  If you’re working on a ten year plan... then, you guessed it, look back over the past 10 years.

 

Your loop is determined by how far out you’re planning.

 

Let your dreamers dream

Who are the dreamers in your church or ministry?  The process of dreaming is usually cut short for a couple of different reasons:

1. People are uncomfortable with coming up with new ideas because it’s not their strength.  Put the people who like to dream in a room together and let them have a no-holds-barred dreaming session (or two).
2. Some people get frustrated with creative planning sessions because they feel a need to implement. This is because you told them to implement, but because they immediately go to thinking about how to implement a new idea before its ready.  Dreams take time, and need to be kicked around the room for a while first.
3. Your first idea isn’t always the best idea.  Unfortunately, overly eager implementers will take the first idea they hear and start working on it right away.  Let the dreamers dream, and ask them to come up with multiple ideas.

 

Be committed to the dreaming process.

 

Run your dream through 3 filters

Not every idea is a good idea.  Use these filters to weed out some of the bad ideas.

1.    Does this fit our vision and culture?

Some ideas come from outside sources.  Something you saw at a conference or maybe its something you saw on the Internet or in a book.  Make sure the ideas being presented line up with “who” your church or ministry is.

 2.    What are the obstacles (everything has a cost)

Some ideas are great, but not possible to pull off.  Maybe they are possible but the price tag makes the risk too great.  Consider if you have the finances, the time and the gifts/talents on your team to pull it off.  Perhaps the idea is not for the immediate future and you need to wait for God’s timing.

 3.    What do we need to consider based on what we learned from our loop?

Lastly, take what you learned from your loop (see above).  What are the key learnings about your strengths and limitations that will help you make your plan a reality.

 

Develop an action plan and assign responsibility 

Every good plan needs milestones (major goal points), tasks (a list of what needs to be done) and it all needs to follow a calendar plan.  If communication is a struggle for you, then consider some ways to manage your project with some tools.  I recommend these project management tools.

 

Manymoon- is free and it has a paid upgrade service

Huddle- offers a free trial before you pay for their service 

Basecamp- has a free 30-day trial service and then several pay options

 

Build in accountability

Every good strategic plan needs accountability attached to it.  Someone (or some people) who will hold the people implementing the plan accountable.  It’s very easy for entrepreneurial leaders to be sidetracked by the next great project and let their current projects slide.  By building in accountability, you’ll be able to protect your organizations reputation of being able to implement what you start.

 

Surrendered & Untamed

 God is involved in our lives every day.  He is in the big details and the small details.  Jason Clark, in his book, Surrendered and Untamed, gives us a chance to see how the stories that make up our lives are God calling us to live an exciting and abundant life. 

I believe you will especially relate to this book if any of the following statements are true about you: 

When it comes to living the Christian life, it seems I’m on the outside looking in.
A lot of people find it difficult to ‘fit in’ to the normal Christian life or in church ministry.  In his book, Jason recounts his journey with stories from his recent and distant past that led him to key crossroads in his life.  If you feel like you’re out on the fringe and looking in, then you don’t want to miss Jason’s honesty about his calling and ministry.

 

It is hard for me to see God at work in my daily life.

I love to listen to someone share a personal story; stories are great because they are easy to identify with and fun to listen to.  Most of us don’t really see God at work in the ‘average day’ in our lives.  In fact, I can go days and weeks with out taking the time to reflect where God is at work in my daily life.  This book will help you to see how significant our day to day lives are as Jason unpacks the big and small truths of God’s nature from his life.  This book is jam packed with story after story of how God’s truth impacts Jason’s life.

 

I think God is calling me to take new risks for His Kingdom

I can only play it safe for so long before I am chomping at the bit to take some risks in my personal, spiritual and ministry life.  I love to see God reward faith in my life and in the lives of others.  Jason does a great job of building your faith in his book to take some risks and live a Kingdom minded life!

 

There is something new for me, I just know it!

Is there something intangible about your future that you can’t quite put your finger on?  Deep down you know God is calling you to more or something new but you’re not sure what that is.  This book will challenge you to take what God has deposited in your life already and apply that in new ways.  Maybe you’ve had a few false starts or times when things didn’t go the way you wanted.  What do we do with these kind of experiences?  Through his own life, Jason demonstrates how to recover and use what seems like a set back and see how God wants to use some of our negative experiences to propel us forward.

 

Values :: Core vs Cultural

Are they written down?

Every church has values.  Most churches have these values written down.  If you don’t have yours written down then you’re not leveraging the power your values can bring to the church.  I’ve heard it over and over “Values sag”.  If you’re not revisiting your values as a church, evaluating which of your values is starting to sag, then chances are your church is off course or at least has a value for flying by the seat of your pants.  I’m being a little bit sarcastic, but if you really don’t take time for reinforcing the most important aspects of what makes your church unique, then your church will end up being very susceptible to changing winds and fads.

 

Missional Values

Thanks to this guy named, Rick Warren, most churches these days have some variation of the 5 Purposes as presented in his book, The Purpose Driven Church. Worship, Evangelism, Discipleship, Serving and Community are 5 solid missional values.  Your church may have more or less.  I’ve seen some churches simply state their missional values as, “Love God, Love People.”  These are examples of missional values.  They affect what we do as a church, how we disciple people, very often they end up on a wall, in our membership classes and if we’re smart, we revisit our missional values often in our teaching schedule.

 

Cultural Values

Cultural values are a little bit trickier to figure out.  Most churches haven’t figured out what their cultural values are.  Most of them are unspoken, but with the right kind of exercises, they can be brought out, celebrated and maximized for your churches benefit. 

Some examples of cultural values are: excellence, work ethic, preaching style, seeker-sensitive, recovery focused, education, social justice,  and simplicity.  The list goes on and on.

 

Two Kinds of Cultural Values

There are two kinds of cultural values: realized, aspirational.  Realized values are already apart of your churches identity.  When you talk about these values you can be proud and show specific examples of how it shows up in everyday life.  When realized values aren’t followed, everyone notices! 

Aspirational values are what you WANT to be a part of your church’s culture.  Sometimes these are revealed to you through God and you just have to work on them. 

Sometimes aspirational values are discovered when you noticed them in another church or organization.  Maybe you like something about how Starbucks treats it’s customers and you want to bring that into your church’s culture. 

Sometimes aspirational values are pipe dreams.  It’s important to do a values discovery to figure out which values are which so that you don’t waste your time on values that are counter-cultural to your church and to figure out which ones you can maximize to accomplish the vision God has given you and your church.

 

Taking a Break

I will be taking a 10 day break from my blog. I'll see you all when I get back. I'm taking a little R&R with my family!


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Discipleship Pathways :: Is Discipleship Linear?

I used to think people need options, maybe even lots of options when engaging their discipleship pathways.  For a while I was kind of anti-steps, bases or check-points.

 

People do need choices, right? 

 

There is some merit to this way of thinking.  The more limited and fewer options a system has, the more people it will not serve.  If you’re a door company and you only offer brown doors, you’re only going to serve people who want a brown door or who are willing to settle with a brown door.

 

I discovered that too many options however could be equally as bad.  It’s kind of like the scene with Aladdin and the Genie in Disney’s Aladdin.  The scene where they are on the magic carpet and Aladdin is informed that there are exits in all directions.  If our people have discipleship options in every direction, how can they determine which direction is the best for them. (Do I work on prayer and Bible study or do I go and participate in an outreach project?)

 

Shouldn't we have a system that directs people where to go? 

 

As it turns out, some people approach things in life linearly; and others are never concerned if something has a sequential order.  Some people want step by step direction and some individuals have a more adventurous approach to their discipleship path.

 

The discipleship systems in our church should encourage the people who need a first and second step approach to growth, and our system should envision the adventurous individuals to try something new in their spiritual growth too.

 These days, I'm finding that each step (linear step) needs just two or three choices.  Choices that help a person 'triage' their next best step.  I also believe that we have to be OK with people bypassing whatever system we're using.  I'm not going to say some people are rebellious, just that they like to find their own way of doing things.

How about you, do you need steps or choices… maybe a mix of both?

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Other Posts Like this ::

Discipleship Pathways: Effortless Discipleship?

Discipleship Pathways: Christ-Centered Discipleship

 

Unlocking Church Health :: A True Story

This year past year, Canyon Ridge raised it's overall health by focusing on it's Worship Value. Attendance has gone up over 11% and compared to other churches internationally, Canyon Ridge is an above average church when it comes to overall health.

You may be wondering how focusing on the value of Worship raised the overall health of the church and how this information was obtained. It's really quite simple. Using the Natural Church Development (NCD) tool, we discovered that focusing on worship would have the greatest positive affect on Canyon Ridge's health.  This also set the church up for potential growth. After taking the assessment we discovered that Inspiring Worship was the lowest of the eight signs of a healthy church.

We developed a strategic plan, we implemented it and then we re-evaluated the church's health again this year. Overall, worship went from a 60 (slightly below average) to a 73 which is a great, healthy score and an awesome turn around in one year's time.

When combined with good evaluation and solid strategic planning, the NCD assessment can be a powerful way to turn a church's growth potential in the right direction. Many churches move from one hot button topic to the next without knowing which area of the church should receive their focused attention first. NCD takes the guess work out of figuring out what to work on first and helps any church get the most out of it's time and energy.

For more information about the NCD Survey and church health consulting check out Legacy Coaching.

Discipleship Pathways :: Christ-Centered Discipleship

If you have been discipleing people for 10 years or 10 days, Jesus still remains at the ultimate example of effective discipleship.  If anyone ever says they want to learn how to disciple people more effectively they should take a careful look at how Jesus did it.

 

Jesus Modeled

I’m putting this one as the first example because I’ve heard this principle repeated many times over my life.  It’s true!  Jesus modeled ministry to his disciples first.  Here’s the challenge, if you want people to be great preachers then all of your modeling can be done from the stage/pulpit.  If you want people to become known for bringing the Kingdom of God to our present reality, then they will need to see you do that too. 
Are you REALLY modeling what you want people around you to do? 

 

Jesus Listened

Jesus was interacting with God the Father and the Holy Spirit on a regular basis.  Many times in scripture, we see Jesus pull away to pray; followed up by immediately joining God with His will on earth.  Jesus was in tune with what the Spirit was doing.  Many times the disciples were surprised by Jesus’ “deviation” from “the plan” in order to speak with someone or to pray for their needs.  (Check out the e-book, Fight Clubs: Gospel Centered Discipleship for more thoughts on this topic.)
Are you listening and looking for the small changes in your day or are you implementing ‘the plan”?

 

The Work of the Cross

Jesus didn’t try to teach or prepare his disciples for every possible circumstance possible.  Jesus actually made the work of the cross to be centric in their preparation.  Even though they didn’t fully understand what he was saying, Jesus kept reminding the disciples of what was to come, what the Son of Man would go through.  Jesus knew that if the disciples would rely on the work of the cross as their preparation they would have the compassion and the servant’s heart to accomplish their calling as well.
Are people becoming experts on what a disciple does or how to BE a disciple of Jesus Christ?

 

These are just three examples.  Jesus provided many more than this.  How else did Jesus demonstrate great discipleship?

 

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