Bill Easums Observations

For years now church gurus have talked about the seating capacity of a building.  You know- if your main worship service is 80% full you need another worship service. Well, even though that’s still true, how many you have in worship and the size of your building is not enough.  The real standard for evaluating success for a church is how many people does it send out into the community and world to share their faith.

Over the last ten years I’ve noticed more and more leaders catching on to this “sending” factor.  Some churches even send people out every week to bless the community in some way and spread the Good News. It’s a real blend of social action and evangelism. It’s not just doing good, although that happens.  It’s transforming the community in multiple ways- better schools, neighborhoods, jobs, salvation- well you get the picture.

So here is my question- how many people do you intentionally send out to bless the surrounding community? Is that even on your radar? If not, there’s something missing to your ministry.

If you want to see the “sending” in action, visit one or more of the following churches who have and are leading the way

The Healing Place in Baton Rouge
Cincinnati Vineyard
Dream Center in Los Angeles
Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham

Bill Easum
www.effectivechurch.com
easum@aol.com

Everyone of who follows my stuff knows I am a great fan of the local church. It is fundamental to the growth of the Kingdom, along with other forms of being the Church. I have no trek with those who say the day of the local church is over.

I can’t stand what the vast majority of mainline churches and many sideline churches have become.  They set back a wait for people to show up like a spider that spins its web waits for an unsuspecting victim. I call this the Jerusalem effect and the build it and they will come effect.  Oddly enough, this approach to evangelism worked when I started ministry over 50 years ago.  Today, however very few unchurched people come to worship on their own.

Interestingly enough a friend gave me a url to Mike Breens blog . It was right up my ally. I thought I would share a couple of his quotes with you.

“So let us be clear: missionaries are always better than mission projects. Leaders are more necessary then volunteers. And disciples are surely what we’re going for rather than mere converts.”

I couldn’t agree more.  I’ve always told churches that volunteers, missions committees, and programs are not the way to go.  In our new book , Effective Staffing for the Vital Church, I talk about “backyard missionaries.”  Everyone needs to be trained to be a missionary in their everyday life.  Also disciples are needed not volunteers.

Here is another goodie.

“There is a paradigm shift that needs to happen. We need to move from being a worshipping body that sometimes does mission to a missional body that gathers to celebrate and worship.”

I have started telling leaders that it is not enough to have small groups that make disciples; now small groups need to the missionary arm of the church.  Each small group needs a mission in the community.

That leads to Breen’s last comment I want to highlight.

“Missional communities are the training wheels that teach us how to ride the bike of oikos.”

Now this is brilliant.  He’s talking about 20-30 people acting as an extended family taking the message to their communities.  We need to focus on training Mom and Dad, Aunts and Uncles, etc. to help their extended families be those backyard missionaries we talk about.

What is your church doing to make backyard missionaries?

Welcome to 2013.

How are you going to measure the success of your church this year, and every other year for that matter- Worship attendance, Finances, Sunday School and or small group attendance, the number of baptisms, the number of new leaders raised up?

What if I told you none of these is the absolute measure of success even though they are all important.  Would you believe me? Well only one of them is even close – baptisms.

So what is the measure of success for a church? I think it is how much difference a church is making in the community and the world. So the key question is, Would your community miss you if you left? Or maybe, Does your community even know you exist?

The church is suppose to be the sign and example of the coming Kingdom of God. It was put here to make the world a difference place.  I doubt if God counts how many noses are in worship or what the take was.  But I know God is thrilled when the community and world is different because of your church.

So how to you measure the sending factor of your church? Let me suggest that you do the following:

1. Make a list of all the programs you have and then use a yellow marked to highlight those that are for your members and a red marker to highlight those that are geared to make a difference in your community and world.  We are how we spend our money.
2. Next, count the number of people working within your church each week for any reason and then count the number of people who went out from your church to make a difference in the community or world by actually doing an overt act of some kind.

Do you like what you see? If  not, start working toward changing the picture. It will make 2013 a much more productive year and will be a better sign of the coming Kingdom of God.

Happy New Year
Bill Easum
www.effectivechurch.com
easum@aol.com

Following up on my last post I want to consider further the importance of conviction for effective leadership.

Consider this quote from Martin Luther – “Here I stand. I can do no otherwise. God help me.” Or what do you think allowed Nelson Mandela to give hope to the people from his confinement?  Or what kept Moses driving the people toward the Promise Land when they would just as well return to making bricks our of mud? Or for that matter, what compelled Jesus to go to the cross?  One thing- a conviction that what they were about came from God.

What is the “no otherwise” in your leadership? What is it that you are not willing to negotiate about your leadership? What do you think about when you wake up and go to bed? How much do you believe that the direction you are taking your people is from God?

Answer these question and you have the beginnings of being a leader.  Of course, you have to say “Here I stand” and mean it.  You have to pick up your cross and…..

Albert Mohler in his new book “The Conviction to Lead” says ” You can divide all leaders into those who merely hold an office or position and those who hold great convictions.” Such convictions don’t change from church to church or location to location.  Conviction is who a leader is.

You see, it’s not enough to just feel called to be a pastor.  What kind of pastor? What difference are you going to make as a pastor and how? What does God want you do with your life and ministry?

The more lazer like your answer is the more conviction you have in your leadership. My favorite examples is still Mark Driscoll.  When asked what he was called to do he replies “To plant 1000 churches before I die.” Now that’s conviction!

Christian Leadership that matters comes from a deep conviction that the Christian story is true and is worth giving one’s life for unconditionally.

How deeply do you believe in the truth of the biblical story of redemption in Christ?

Our new book, Effective Staffing for Vital Churches is now on sale in print and for the Kindle version and maybe Nook Nov. 1. 67  Many have pre-ordered and we thank you.   We believe it is one of our best books to date.  Rick Warren thought so also. He wrote “This book is a winner.”

We are getting reports from people who are reading it.  Here is a comment from Randy on Facebook

Randy wrote: “I just received my copy. I am already resonating with the idea of an Antioch Church vs the more common models churches use to justify existence…to partner with God to change/transform the world is exciting and life-changing!”

Here is a brief excerpt from the book

“Because people no longer come to church on their own, the church must
spend most of its time, energy, and money filtering people out into the
community. The measurement of effectiveness shifts from “how many in
worship?” to “how much difference is the church making in its efforts to
transform the city?” The question “What is God doing in our community that
we can be part of?” is replacing, “How can we get more people to come to
church?”

We have a website for the book at www.effectivestaffing.us where you can order the book or if you want a closer look before purchasing it you can get two free chapters.

In the book you will discover

• Discover the Four Core Processes every effective church must staff.
• Learn how effective church leaders of growing churches manage their time.
• How to not make the #1 staffing mistake almost every church makes.
• How to ask the right questions so you can hire the right people with confidence.
• Master the skill of coaching your staff … including how to hold them accountable for results.
• When it’s time to hire the next staff member, and what position you need next.
• The skills you need and the personal values that must change as youlead your church through each growth barrier.

Go grab your copy

In our new book, Effective Staffing for Vital Churches, we write that all churches are missional or they aren’t a church.  Michael Slaughter fell in love with the book at that point.  Here is a brief excerpt

“We believe every church is missional or it isn’t a church! But we use the
word a bit differently than most of the books written on the Missional
Church. We believe every true church is focused more on transforming
the world than on building up its own membership. We subscribe more
to the type of ministry seen in the Antioch church than to the ministry of
Jerusalem church. The Antioch church was focused outward on the
world whereas the Jerusalem church was more focused on itself and how
to care for its people.
• We also believe churches that sit around waiting for people to come to
them have stopped being a church and that a purely Attractional church
has no validity on a mission field.
• Finally, we believe a church can be a church with or without a building.
The church isn’t about buildings; it’s about people. So we reject the longstanding
exercise taught children – “Here’s the church; here’s the
steeple; look inside and see all the people.”

How do you feel about the above statement?

And thanks to all of you who have pre-ordered our new book.

Bill
www.effectivechurch.com

Yesterday I wrote about the three changes every pastor needs to go through when a church moves through a growth barrier.  Although there are many interpretations of what these barriers are in our book, Effective Staffing for Vital Churches we  dealt with the broad barriers of 100, 200, 500, 1000+.  Passing through each of these barriers causes enormous strain on the mindset and culture of the church itself as well as its leaders.  As churches grow staff become more essential. Churches approaching the 100 barrier need to be thinking staff.  In fact, most of the church plants we deal with begin with some staff including a Worship Leader and someone to work  with children.  And by the time a church reaches the 1000 barrier staff are as important if not more important collectively than the Lead Pastor because of the number of relationships they have.

Most churches do not understand nor appreciate the importance of staff to their churches health both spiritually and physically. Our book sets out the reasons why growing a church depends on the number and quality of staff not in doing ministry but by multiplying themselves by mentoring and equipping the laity to do the ministry God intended for them to do.

We make the case for the Keystone of all staffing to be equipping and sending people out into the local mission field to be backyard missionaries to their community.   You can read more about staffing in our book Effective Staffing for Vital Churches: Finding and Keeping the Right People.

it will available Nov. 1 in print and for Kindle. You can get it at Amazon.com or Baker Books.

The more I work with lead pastors the more I realize how hard it is for them to fire a staff person who isn’t either performing, or a team player, or is just downright disruptive. Too many pastors put up with so much crap from one or two on their staff that they shoot themselves in the foot.  Take a look at what it does:

• It says to competent staff that you really don’t care if the staff demonstrates competency.
• It says to the staff that you either don’t realize how disruptive or harmful the person is or you don’t have the guts to do something about it.
• It says to the staff that you aren’t a leader or you would pull the trigger.
• And guess what, competent staff won’t stay around very long when the lead pastor allows someone to remain on the staff that is either incompetent or disruptive. Sad to say incompetent staff will stay no matter what the lead pastor does.

Listen to what Dave Ramsey says in his book, EntreLeadership, about the leader who can’t pull the trigger and fire someone who everyone knows needs to be fired.

“My friend, John Maxwell, says that ‘Sanctified incompetency demoralizes.’ If you as a leader allow people to half way do their jobs and don’t demand excellence as a prerequisite to keeping their job, you will create a culture of mediocrity If you allow people to misbehave, underachieve, have a bad attitude, gossip, and generally avoid excellence, please don’t expect to attract and retain great talent.”

Lead pastors, post this quote on your frig.  Read it every morning before going to the office. Paste it on your desk and read it every time you know you need to fire someone. And be a Nike person- just do it. NOW!!!

Okay. We’ve looked at how to break the 200 and 500 worship barriers; now it’s time to examine how to push through the 1,000 barrier.  Keep in mind that each barrier builds on the essentials of the previous two barriers. So you might take a look at them also to make sure you have each essential in place before implementing the essentials for the 1,000 barrier. Any one of the essentials that is missing will make your leadership much more difficult.

Essentials for Breaking the 1,000 worship barrier

1. The Pastor or an Executive Pastor or Business Manager does the hiring or firing and not a committee.
2. The Pastor has begun identifying the Peter, James, and John who will become his inner circle and “go to” people.
3. All staff are specialists in what they do but are flexible when it comes time to either changing positions or moving up the leadership chain.
4. All staff understands that it is more important to reproduce other leaders than to do ministry.
5. The church has a system in place for taking people from the marketplace to discipleship and back out into the marketplace to be backyard missionaries.
6. A strong small group system is in place that focuses on sharing life together around the scriptures.
7. All staff function with little supervision and most of them could step in a take the Pastor’s place if incapacitated for a short time.
8. The following areas of ministry are staffed with full time people- children, worship, discipleship (could include small groups), administration, and evangelism outreach.
9. Whoever does the hiring and firing has spent time honed their skill.
10. Leading a staff requires that the lead pastor:

• makes sure the right people are on the right bus in the right seats,
• sets the agenda,
• clarifies the “how-tos” of reaching the agenda,
• holds people accountable to the “how-tos,”
• coaches them along the way so they constantly improve

Over the weekend I posted the essentials for breaking the 200 for worship barrier.  Today I’m listing the essentials for breaking the 500 worship barrier.  Keep in mind these barrier numbers are just that- numbers.  These barriers aren’t broken the moment you average higher than they are.  For example: you really don’t break the 200 barrier until you pass the 500 barrier and so on. It takes that long for the culture of under 200 in worship to go away. That’s why the faster a church grows the easier it is to blow past the barriers because the culture created by that size church doesn’t have time to take effect. So you see, barriers are sort of messy.

Now keep in mind that the essentials listed below to break 500 in worship are built upon the essentials for breaking the 200 worship barrier. So you add them to the following list.

To Break 500 in worship you need the following:

1. The pastoral/program staff equals one to one hundred people in worship including children.
2. The pastor and staff hand off most ministry and act more as coaches and scouts than players (Baseball analogy).
3. The children’s ministry is sterling and not in a classroom design.
4. The Nursery is one of the nicest and cleanest rooms in the house.
5. The Pastor focuses more attention on the growth of the staff than that of the church.
6. The staff is an extension of the DNA of the pastor and fill in all of his/her weaknesses.
7. Everyone on staff is able to picture and articulate the needs of the church if it were twice its size.
8. The pastor hones his or her hiring and firing skills.
9. The pastor does all the hiring and firing.
10. All staff are learning to hand-off ministry and reproduce leaders.

Next we’ll take a look at breaking the 1,000 barrier.