Learning To Delegate

One of the keys to Effective Church Leadership is delegating work to others - no one can do everything for themselves. Learn to delegate aspects of your ministry properly, and you will have time to complete the most important needs of the church successfully.

The process of delegation consists of the decision to delegate, the briefing, and the followup. At each of these points, anticipate the potential problems.

The decision: Persuade yourself to delegate. You will not benefit if you lead the Church with the assumption that it takes longer to teach somebody else to do a job than to do it yourself. Delegation has its own rewards. Once somebody has learned a particular task, they will be able to do it in the future without repeated briefings. However, be sure to delegate each job to a person with the appropriate skills, experience and knowledge.

The briefing: Make sure that the person to whom you are delegating clearly understands the brief - what you want them to do and by when. Offer ongoing support and guidance.

The followup: During the course of the project, check the standard of work produced. Provide positive feedback, but beware of overdoing it - there is a narrow line between helpful supervision and debilitating interference.

Delegation does not mean handing over control of a project, but handing over responsibility for certain tasks. Encourage people to work using their own methods, providing they stick to the instructions you have given them. This allows you to utilize their specialized giftedness or to provide them with an opportunity to develop a new area of expertise. One of the common contentions arising out of delegation is conflict over responsibility, so it is vital to define exactly what the person is responsible for.

How to Build a Team of Leaders

Whether the church you pastor is a big, thriving church or it is a growing church with twenty members it is very important to have a great team of leaders.  You may only have one other person on your team or maybe you have a hundred.  However many you may have, it's important to make sure you have the right people on board and that you are all going in the same direction.  Here are a few ways to choose the right people for your leadership team.  Remember when you start out to build your leadership team to build a team that is based on Biblical principles and characteristics.

Note:  The night before Jesus chose His twelve disciples, he continued in prayer all night.  When is the last time you prayed all night before you made a decision?

Choosing the right leadership team members.

You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit.                                             -Harry S. Truman

Are You Listening To Me!

I can hear my mother still to this day yelling, "Are you listening to me?" Being the single mother of 5 children left her without much patience.  I believe much of her frustration as a single, struggling mom, was she felt that no one heard her.

Mom worked all kinds of jobs to try to provide for us kids, so she was not home much. We pretty much raised ourselves. My 4 brothers and sisters were just about as unruly as children left to their own devices could get.

When Mom finally made a pit stop at the house, she would find it in shambles. Then, with the frustration of a mother trying to do her best, but failing miserably, she would simply lose it. "Are you kids listening to me?" The truth of the matter was, we weren't listening to a word she was saying. We were too busy having a blast doing our own thing.

I once read a story of a pastor who was asked by a woman in his church for a few minutes of his time. The pastor agreed to meet with her and while they talked, she said flatly to the pastor, "My father molested me when I was a little girl". Without missing a beat, the pastor said, "I believe you." The woman was shocked! She couldn't believe that someone had finally believed her.

Through tears she said, "For years I have tried to tell my family members, but no one would listen to me". It was such a relief to finally have someone who listened and believed her. The pastor asked, "What can I do for you?" "Nothing she replied, I just needed someone to listen and believe me."

The Role of a Mentor

As common as the word mentor is in society, and in the business culture in general, when it comes to many religious organizations and the individuals that comprise them, mentoris often still a mysterious term. Confusion and misperceptions abound, and yet mentoring has been around since the dawn of man.

Just the mention of the word mentor causes an insecure leader or pastor to manifest jealousy, others to cry out that "I already have mentors in my life", and a few to simply confess they still do not know why they would even need a mentor.

Nonetheless the reality remains the same . . . the leadership actions of most leaders validate their need of a mentor. Every new endeavor of life often brings to the leader a need for mentoring. In essence, business training seminars and workshops is a multi-billion dollar industry because it is mentoring in real life to those desiring to improve and advance in their skills and knowledge.

Please read on.

A mentor is not some mysterious know-it-all guru that floats in and out of your life dressed in a white robe and riding on a cloud. Neither is a mentor a genie in a bottle that appears with the answer when you have a need and rub him correctly. Nor is a mentor a replacement for the pastor and influential individuals in your life.

A mentor is someone with the willingness, temperament, skill sets, gifts, talents, compassion, understanding, whit, intelligence, experience, and general life balance that shoulders up beside you to enable you to succeed at a higher level in life. A mentor is someone who cares about you enough to invest him or herself into you.

Whether paid or unpaid a mentor places more value in your life, aspirations, and goals than you ever return to them. Their primary reward is in helping, steering, advising, and equipping you toward the success they believe you have the potential for.

Every great leader attributes their success largely and in part to the influencers that played a key role in their pathway to success. Those influencers are mentors.

Kingdom Building

In one of our recent family devotions, my wife and I sat our three children down to talk about the importance of 'family.' We do this ever so often because our children, and probably yours as well, often withdraw into their own world of fantasy and ignore the rest of the family. They each have their own room and their own ideas about how to spend their free time. If we allow them, they will shut themselves out from the rest of us to do their thing. While this can be cute when they are very young, my wife and I have noticed that it lends itself strongly to an attitude of selfishness. It becomes all about 'me' and less about others in the family. When the kids do get together, it becomes a war of words or worse, as each of them stand up for what they feel is 'their rights'. They have no sympathy or compassion for their siblings. It is almost as if they desire to build their own little 'kingdom' or 'empire' in their own little space.

As I was thinking about this it struck me that this is also a danger for all of us in ministry. If we are not careful, we can allow ourselves to get caught up in building 'our kingdom' instead of building 'His Kingdom.' Even though we feel like we are doing the work of Christ, it can become more about 'me' and less about others. There is a grey area here where the lines of demarcation become blurred. 'His Kingdom' begins to blend into 'my kingdom.' Motives become mismanaged. Desires turn dangerous. And it is not too long until 'my kingdom' becomes more important than anything or anybody else. Because of this danger, we all need to test ourselves every so often. We do this by asking; How do I feel about the others in this Kingdom? Do I truly have sympathy and compassion for their needs? Or, are my desires more important?

As we all do, I understand the importance of caring for others, but recently, while listening to a Jewish Rabbi, this understanding became crystal clear.

Rabbi Daniel Lapin was speaking of the typical Orthodox Jewish family. I paraphrase his words;

Why is it that everywhere in the world the Jewish people are so successful and wealthy? Why are their families so close knit and strong? Why is there very little divorce?

The obvious answer is they put God first. However, beyond that, it is because of their strong sense of 'family'.

The origin of the Hebrew word for 'family' means; to serve. A family is not a family unless they serve one another. Brother serves brother. Sister serves sister. Husbands serve their wives. They put others needs in front of their own. The Jewish people live this way.

When Do We Engage In Conflict?

Matthew 15:18-19; James 4:1-12

There are times when we as Christians are called to arms, as the song goes, “onward Christian solders.” As they said in the Middle Ages, “if the cause is just…”of course most of the causes were not just. But for us, if there is a situation that must be defended, we need to prepare ourselves and be willing to fight for our Lord. Conflicts that are worth fighting for are such as moral and value issues, spiritual warfare, evil desires, or physical attack.

“When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong.” (Galatians 2:11)

If someone is going to assault you or a family member and all means available to involve the authorities is exhausted, then we fight. I personally do not get into fist fights, but as a youth pastor, I was on a trip where one of my girls was being assaulted and I had to respond to that situation with physical force or the girl would have been raped. There have been numerous times I had to keep bad intentioned people away from my group to protect them and even use physical force. We as leaders must protect the people God entrusts to us. In working in some inner-city areas, I hired security to prevent potential problems with various events. Yes we are to trust in the Lord, but we are also to use commonsense and practical judgment. As Jesus told His disciples to buy a sword, we to need to follow suit. I do not believe we need to literally be buying swords and wearing guns like the old west. But, we do need to protect the people under our care.

A case in point, several years ago I was doing some intervention counseling with a couple. The husband was severally beating his wife. So I put her into a battered women’s shelter. He then came to me very violently, threatened my life if I did not disclose her location. The police were immediately called, but there was nothing they could do. I heard that the husband found her location so I took some elders with me to the women’s shelter to protect the wife. She got scared and left the shelter and went home. The husband was in the process of literally killing her when we showed up; the police were called and we had to wrestle him to the ground. He was a very big man. I had to knock him out in order to subdue him. It was one of those situations that you may never have to deal with, but they do accrue. By the way, it took the police over two hours to show up as we sat on him; life in the inner city of America.

Some Announcement Pointers

All churches must learn to use their announcements as a tool to create anticipation and excitement for the future growth of the church, both short and long term.

Announcements are part of the 'marketing' campaign of the Church. Why is it that corporations will spend millions of dollars and months of planning on their 'announcing', yet we spend very little time and money concerning the marketing of our church and its events.

·        Make sure to announce only those events that pertain to the entire body of the church.

·        If you start announcing personal events, you are guaranteed to forget something or somebody along the way, and you will end up offending somebody.

·        Personal events such as showers, weddings, etc. can be included in Church Bulletins, and Church Websites.

·        Another easy way to announce personal events is to create a power point slide show of all of the upcoming events of the church including these personal events. This slide show can be shown before each service as part of a countdown, or simply as a media presentation before service.

·        Announcements can also be used to create excitement for

Money Matters - The Budget's Attitude

One of the top reasons that so many people, including Christians, fail at budgeting is simply attitude.  It a person thinks of it as a penny-pinching sacrifice instead of a means for achieving one’s financial goals, then it is unlikely they will stay with it.  To increase the chances of a successful budget, it is important to work on the attitude. 

If ”budget” sounds too harsh…consider it as a “financial plan” for the home.  The plan can help you get ahead; control spending, and save for future spending.  Budgeting really does matter in the process to help one reach their goals and without some formal plan of working with the finances, goals and dreams can never be reached.

Money is a tool…and a tool that everyone needs in today’s society.  This tool can enable a person to reach their goals in life, however, until a person knows where their money goes and how it is spent, a conscious decision about how to use this tool effectively is impossible.

So it is important to get the right attitude and not give up.  Quitting too soon or tiring of the process is simply a means of failure in reaching the potential goals and dreams one has.

The following scriptures give spiritual guidance for the finances of the home.  Take the time to read these and study God’s plan for financial survival.

• Prosperity:  Genesis 39:3; Psalms 1:3; Joshua 1:6-8; Luke 6:38; John 10:10

• Provision:  Genesis 41; Exodus 15; I Kings 17; John 21:2-6; Matthew 4:11

• Giving:  Deuteronomy 14:23; Malachi 3:10; Matthew 23:23; Hebrews 7:1,2

• Budgeting:  Proverbs 22:3; 24:3,4; 27:12; Luke 12:16-21; Luke 14:28-30

Guard the Gates - Part 2

The expression of guarding the gates really has to do with guarding the mind. As noted in the previous message, John Bunyan wrote another classic although much less recognized than Pilgrim’s Progress entitled The Holy War which tells the story of Mansoul being captured and taken over by Diabolus because of the gates being compromised. That same plan is still being effectively carried out in our generation. People of every kind and status within the church have a responsibility to not let this kind of thing take place. This is especially true of those who are actively called into the ministry. If the shepherd can be toppled, the sheep will scatter.

It was explored how that study allows a man who serves a church to guard his mind. While that is a good measure to take up, there is another crucial “guard” that we have to recognize. It is the aspect of prayer. Of all the disciplines involved in a Christian’s life, prayer is the most difficult one to maintain conversely it can be one of the most joyous and powerful tools we can find in our spiritual arsenal. A preacher must maintain regular habits of communion with God in prayer. If a minister is not careful he can come to the place in which he will neglect his place of prayer because of his attention to the Kingdom. He may have all kinds of grand truths rolling through his soul because of the constant exposure to the Word. He can be so busy with various meetings, discipleship of new converts, and counseling of those who are in the throes of some dilemma of life, and obligations to duties of the organizational stripe, that he can entirely neglect his prayer life. In fact a minister is more likely to omit his praying than a new convert who has just come in to the church.

Diabolus loves to get the men involved in ministry to fall to the temptation of substitutes for prayer. Sermons on prayer, reading books on prayer, attending prayer conferences, and hearing sermons on prayer can never take the place of prayer. One can even come under the belief that church attendance, praise, singing, giving, and doing measures of physical labor at church can be a valid substitute for prayer. What soon happens is a tendency to resort to all of these things to move us into a position for revival without true heart-felt prayer.

Pastoral prayer is a great biblical concept and it has great authority. There is an ingredient of spiritual authority that comes to life when a pastor will discipline himself to prayer for his people. From the outset, I have to tell you that this is NOT an easy task to do. Prayer that is truly heart-felt and sincere rarely takes place (for me, perhaps not others) when we just decide to get on our knees and begin to pray. There has to be some stimulus of preparation that is involved in it. There are useful things that you will learn to use to help put your mind into a vein of prayer.

There are times when reading books on prayer will be very helpful to put you into a mindset of prayer. Some of the ones that I have regularly gone back to frequently and year after year are listed below:

E. M. Bounds Complete Works on Prayer—There are eight books in a single volume and are very rich and motivational toward opening my heart for prayer. The Necessity of Prayer, The Essentials of Prayer, The Possibilities of Prayer, The Reality of Prayer, Purpose in Prayer, The Weapon of Prayer, Power Through Prayer, and Prayer and Praying Men.

Leonard Ravenhill on Prayer—Ravenhill’s material is becoming increasingly rarer to find in bookstores these days. He was a staple for many of the preachers who attended the Deeper Life conferences scattered around the nation in the 1970’s. There have been times that I have read just a page or so of Ravenhill’s material and found it incredibly rich in preparing my heart and mind for prayer. Particularly helpful a [ read more...]