Tag Archives: church

The Three Characteristics of Quality People

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What is the most valuable resource to your organization?

There are lots of different answers—all of which might be important, but let me go ahead and tell you the right answer—people. The people are the most valuable resource in any organization.

In my context, we rely heavily on people who serve on the church staff and others who serve as unpaid servants out of a commitment to the mission and vision. Money is important and nice to have. Facilities are key as well. But the overwhelming need in any organization is people and the right people can overcome a lack of any other resource. So how do you know if you have the right people?

Here are the top three characteristics that define quality people* as the greatest resource.

1. Quality people are committed to the mission.

The mission of the church is to be a vehicle for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in Heaven. This includes ushering people into relationship with Jesus, encouraging people to follow Jesus, and equipping them to fully live into this mission. Quality people deserve the opportunity to speak into the vision of how this mission plays out, but there is no room for personal agendas. We can discern together how best to get there, but if you are more interested in promoting your “stuff” (I’m hesitant to name examples of the stuff here), then you will always create sideways energy keeping those who are committed to the mission from moving further faster.

Quality people strive to live out this mission in their own personal lives.

2. Quality people exhibit a positive and encouraging demeanor.

Quality people demonstrate a friendly demeanor. They understand that this is a team effort. They are positive, flexible, teachable, and generally excited to be a part of the team. And when things do not go as planned, they want to know what they could have done differently, rather than pointing the finger at others or crossing their arms with a “told you so” smirk across their face.

Alternately, you know the “expert” in the group. You know the “negative Nancy” in the group. Those who are completely inflexible and always right—who never exhibit any signs of remorse, mistakes, or teachability—are poison to the team. The interesting thing, is that those without the right demeanor can be some of the best talkers around the mission. But their true colors will eventually show through.

There are lots of dynamics that play into an individual’s demeanor and many times he or she may not even be self-aware of how he or she comes across to others. Others simply don’t care how they come across. Poison.

3. Quality people are ambitious.

Have to be careful here, because those with a detrimental demeanor can also be very ambitious. Their ambition looks great at first, but it will cost you in the long run.

Quality people do not just rely on you as the leader or the systems you have created to produce the work. Instead, they create solutions to roadblocks of the mission on their own and their ambitions leads them to filter potential solutions, updates, and tweaks through the values of the organization. They bring their ideas and do not simply consume whatever is being fed from above. They think, create, and challenge.

These are the top three qualities I look for in people as we develop leaders to build a faithful and successful organization.

How about you? How would you describe the quality people in your organization? What am I missing?

* Disclaimer: By using the term quality people, I do not mean to pass judgement on anyone being more or less valuable as a person. At the same time, I often witness leaders operate out of a naiveté that all people are quality people “deep down” and, although I think people can develop these three specific qualities, I have found that energy spent moving difficult people toward being quality people is not energy well spent. I try, however, to love and serve all.

Advocate, Apathetic, or Curmudgeon?

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A few weeks ago, one of our leaders here at Matthews United Methodist Church closed a meeting using a concept with which I was previously unfamiliar. He spoke about a principle used in business called NPS, which stands for Net Promoter Score.

The NPS illustrates the level at which people are promoting your service, product, or whatever you offer to the public. This system is vital for gaining feedback that decision makers use to improve the overall experience for their target audience. The NPS all begins with one question: On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our service/product to a friend or colleague? An organization then takes the responses and places each into one of three categories:

Those who answer with a 9 or 10 are Promoters.

Those who answer with a 7 or 8 are Passives.

Those who answer with a 0 to 6 are Detractors.

This system of evaluation and pursuing feedback hit me right in the heart! The NPS is a great revealer of passion. Promoters radiate passion. And people follow passion. I immediately began to wonder how many people I lead would be in the 9-10 range as promoters of both their relationship with Jesus Christ and their love for the local church.

Everyone who professes the label “Christian” and is somehow affiliated with a local church needs to answer this question for him or herself.

So here is my churchified equivalent applying the NPS principle to my world:

On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to speak about your relationship with Jesus when given the opportunity and, secondly, invite a friend to attend your local church?

Those who answer with a 9 or 10 are Advocates.

Those who answer with a 7 or 8 are Apathetics.

Those who answer with a 0 to 6 are Curmudgeons.

So where do you fall on this CAS (Church Advocate Score)?

Self-awareness is key. I’m afraid that too many Apathetics and Curmudgeons view ourselves as Advocates. “I love my church,” we claim. But how many of us can point to a real life conversation in which we share the story of our faith or invite someone we know to a worship experience or small group environment? Raising CAS self-awareness is my problem to figure out and I will continue to do so as I encourage people to advocate for how God is continuing to deliver on His promise of hope in our world.

The CAS is a concept that the organized local church sometimes misses. We tend to simply do what we do and give little attention to evaluation expecting everyone involved to be an Advocate just because they should be. We are then shocked when people fall into the Apathetic or Curmudgeon category. We, as church leaders, must determine and evaluate people’s level of passion about their faith and their view of the local church. One responsibility of the local church is to be a vehicle leading people into relationship with Jesus. If those we lead are not exuding passion, then the vehicle is sputtering, and we need to know why. Then do some maintenance on the vehicle.

By the way, if you qualify as a Curmudgeon, I strongly recommend you spend your energy finding a local church about which you can be a strong Advocate.

To better understand the NPS concept, check out this video.

Generational Degeneration (Part Two)

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Should the focus of the local church be different for different age groups? If so, how does it change over the stages of life? What are the opportunities for people of different ages to interact if the focus changes between different age segments? When we decide the focus should be different for people in different stages of life, the natural trend is toward programs and event, so we then shift our efforts away from discipling students from a young age to providing activities in which they participate. Perhaps the assumption has always been that discipleship would occur in the home so the local church needs to provide social opportunities for students who are learning to live like Jesus at home. I would agree that the greatest discipling relationships are those into which we are born. God perfectly designed us to naturally live into relationships where we would disciple each new generation. I firmly believe that I will be held accountable for how well my children are discipled—not the staff at my local church. Somewhere along the way, however, the work of discipling was passed from the home to the local church for many “Christians.” In 801South, we focus on making disciples; which we define as a person who chooses to learn from Jesus and apply what he or she learns to his or her life. That’s it. Fairly simple I think. We do this mainly through coming together for communal worship, reading the Bible, praying, and listening to other disciples. If the great commission is to make disciples of Jesus, I suppose I’m fairly unconvinced that this mission requires a lot of programs and events. Instead, I think we need more relationships. Programs and events might be helpful as a means to an end, as a tool toward developing new relationships, but programs and events cannot be the end themselves. Another area where we are seeing intergenerational ministry is in our children’s ministry. Our children’s team servants are working hard to train teenagers (and even some preteens) who are active in discipling younger children. This naturally provides an ownership of teenagers in the ministry and is one dynamic about which I am super excited when I look to see where God is taking us next! So in 801South, we will continue to use events as we feel they are beneficial in the mission, but we refuse to let them become expected traditions. We want to equip each generation to be a discipling generation, rather than a generation who participates as long as events are being planned for them to attend. One of the events we are planning for the near future is an 801South Summer Serve; an opportunity for those involved in 801South to serve our local community over the summer. This event is being inspired by the passion of a 10 year old who attends 801South and I can’t wait for you to hear her story. So how can the church be intentional to showcase multigenerational ministries that equip each other to be and make disciples?

Generational Degeneration (Part One)

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It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve taken the time to sit down and craft a new blog post. I don’t have any good excuses, but I do have some less than satisfactory reasons. They include writer’s block, a lack of energy, focusing attention on seemingly more pressing matters, working to bring a full-time worship leader on the staff team, and others.

But now I’m back and committed to posting at least once a week. I have seen a benefit in being able to connect through this blog with those who I may not see on a regular basis otherwise. It also makes a great vehicle for continuing to tell our story as it unfolds.

Now to the topic of today’s post, which is one that will surely elicit a strong response from some readers. This post will actually be split into two parts. I will post the conclusion next week.

 

Has your experience in church included working alongside mainly people your own age or has your work cut across many generations? (Sitting in the same room with people of different ages on Sunday mornings does not count.)

Seeing multiple generations working alongside each other toward a common goal is one of the greatest components of 801South. In fact, one of the original goals was to create environments where people of all different ages could actually serve together and we have seen that happen in the early stages of 801South. There are a handful of environments where we are setting up multigenerational ministries.

Hands Up Band Cropped DSC_0143

The 801South Band Team, Setup Team, Tech Team, Hospitality Team, Small Groups Team, and others include individuals as young as 15 years old up to those beyond 50 years of age serving together.

Some of our first small groups have included individuals who were empty nesters sitting next to young singles sitting next to high school students—all in the same room. Another area where we see multiple generations serving together is on the Band Team. We’ve had musicians and vocalists as young as 15 and as old as…well we won’t go there. It’s been very cool to see them come together around a common interest and ministry; rather than seeing people only serving (or being served) in siloed-by-age ministry compartments.

Through my interaction with some of the middle and high school students in 801South and in reflecting on my years serving as a student (youth) ministry director, I have come to understand that the traditional church has done a great job of setting up expectations for students to experience particular programs and events. Students tend to be most passionate about the upcoming events in which they have seen older students participate with great anticipation.

But perhaps there has not been the same emphasis placed on discipleship of students in the traditional church.

Parents can sometimes fall into the same trap. I remember a mother telling me, “My daughter and her friends are excited. Way to go!” following a big event we held for hundreds of middle and high school students. So if your children have a good time and are excited about an event, then that is your win?

We talk about the percentage of students who leave the church when they leave the home. This is a complicated issue and there are several layers, but perhaps part of the problem is that there’s no one planning events any longer.

(To be continued next week, but feel free to comment on Part 1.)

Stupid Rich Denominations

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The decline of mainstream Protestant denominations in America is one topic that has been discussed, written, and researched to death. There’s no use in debating or even explaining the statistics detailing this decline. The situation speaks for itself.

So what can we, who are young and remain in a denomination, do moving forward?

We can listen and adjust. What if there is a different posture we can assume on this whole topic?

Last week I was having lunch with a campus pastor of a very large multisite church; which has done an incredible job of using today’s popular culture to reach those who have little, if any, interest in church. His grandfather was a Baptist pastor. His parents were pastors in a different denomination. He studied at a very prestigious religious school—even researching denominational history specifically.

So what is his take on denominations? “Denominations are stupid.”

Serving within a denomination, there have been many, many days that I’ve shared his take on the dogmatic and doctrinal divisions of denominations. These differences are something for which people my age and younger have absolutely no room in our daily lives. If curmudgeons (curmudgeon is a posture and state of mind, not a number) want to sit around arguing about particulars of the faith, then have at it. The rest of us will spend that energy checking our Twitter timelines. Oops, I meant to write “we’ll spend that energy changing the world.”

The most interesting part of this situation is that we will never know the true answers to these arguments that divide us, nor do either side of the arguments actually change anything about our daily behavior.

So in one sense, yes, denominations are stupid. But maybe we don’t have to stop at stupid.

The other side of denominations is that many denominational churches are rich. The resources denominational churches possess can be reallocated to new ministries—to new ways of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and caring for widows and orphans. These resources can be used to share the message of Jesus in new ways to reach a hurting world with our infinite hope.

Some denominations are real estate rich. They possess some of the most functional facilities in the most desirable locations. Some denominations have deep pockets in the pews and just because those who possess these pockets aren’t emptying them into the offering plates every week doesn’t mean the money is not there. I have seen pockets emptied when the leadership void is filled and the mission is prioritized.

It has also been my experience that the bureaucracy and committee models of being a local denominational church only impedes ministry if you let it. If you assert leadership and confidence, the political structure serves as accountability rather than interference. Then you get to redirect and reallocate the current resources toward the mission of the church—not the institution.

So some parts of denominations can be labeled as stupid. But rather than abandoning the ship entirely, perhaps there’s a more effective solution. Maybe the most well-resourced plan moving forward involves sticking it out within our stupid rich denominations.