By NewChurches.com: In Episode 606 of the NewChurches Q&A Podcast, Daniel and Todd discuss what it looks like to build back better in regards to team development.

In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

Why you need a structure to team development
How to create an environment that engages feedback

 Shareable Quotes (#NewChurches):

“This is a great opportunity to audit your roles and audit the individuals in those roles.” – @toddadkins
“In retooling, it is a great time to take a step back and look at everything you do from the actual ministry that you do to the strategies, systems, and structures of it, to the volunteers and people themselves.” – @toddadkins
“Having a culture of development where people are learning and growing is important.” – @danielsangi
“The key factor is simple structure and systems that will help distribute the weight.” – @toddadkins
“Something as simple as a one page job description can really help you on your way to retooling.” – @toddadkins
“I recommend that all of your volunteer roles are only one year commitments and that way it forces you to do feedback.” – @danielsangi

Recommended Resources:

Listen to Episode 602: Remote Work
Listen to Episode 604: Staffing
Learn more about Ministry Grid

Help us Multiply the Mission:

Please subscribe
Leave a rating and review on iTunes
Ask a question by clicking Send Voicemail on the right hand side of NewChurches.com
If you’re on a phone or a tablet, then go to www.speakpipe.com/newchurches to download the app and record your message
When you’re recording, introduce yourself and your context in about 15 seconds and then record your question for 30 seconds

This Episode’s Sponsor:

Downline Ministries’ mission is to encourage a restoration of biblical discipleship in and through the local church by equipping men and women to know God’s Word and make disciples. 

The primary way we partner with churches is through the Downline Institute, a 9 month biblical discipleship training program that walks students through the Bible (Genesis-Revelation), biblical manhood/womanhood, and key discipleship lessons. Listeners can receive $100 off tuition cost by using the code LIFEWAY when you apply at www.downlineministries.com.

The post Episode 606: Team Development appeared first on NewChurches.com – Church Planting, Multisite, and Multiplication.

Source: Episode 606: Team Development

The post Episode 606: Team Development appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Source: Tendencies That Sabotage Team Building

The post Tendencies That Sabotage Team Building appeared first on Passion for Planting.

By Shawn Lovejoy: Of all of the tensions you will face as a leader, the tension you will have the most self-doubt and inner turmoil over is the tension around the people you lead.

I am talking about Team Tensions!

Ever felt those?

Thought so. So have I!

While I can’t give you the entire system for building a killer team without killing yourself or your team, I can give you one simple step towards what I call “fostering togetherness” on your team.

In fact, a couple of years ago when the NBA relaunched in the bubble to complete their season during the pandemic, Phil Jackson made the statement, “The team that emerges from the COVID-19 NBA bubble as winners will be the team that has the strongest sense of ‘togetherness.’”

Togetherness is the competitive advantage of effective teams in today’s culture; the ability to foster it is the superpower of today’s most effective leaders.

Here’s your simple step:

Schedule Strategic One-on-One Meetings with everyone who directly reports to you. 

Are you already having these meetings? Great! This article will help you get better at them by giving you a simple system.

Are you not having these meetings? You should be! Don’t beat yourself up, just make the adjustment and add them to your calendar.

(Do you have too many people reporting to you? We would love to coach you through that, but you can start the process toward narrowing that focus in our free teams course.)

Let me give you a simple focus and formula to get you started having deeply impactful one-on-one meetings with your team.

First, when meeting with the individuals on your team, be sure to…

Build People Rather Than Institutions. 

Maximize the potential of people and team around you. Not programs, productions, problems, processes…people.

This meeting is the time to get to know them personally. Ask about their family, their hobbies, their dreams. Share about your family, what you did over the weekend, the things you dream of.

Humanize this meeting and your team will begin to approach you with more trust and honesty.

Next, during your meeting…

Create a Simple, Predictable Agenda.

What is happening to predictability on intensely competitive, rapidly changing teams (especially in a virtual environment)? It is being destroyed.

The practices that leaders are adopting to make their teams more competitive often ignore the human need for predictability.

Many leaders I coach are frustrated by this, but the truth is, unpredictable meetings lead to erratic results and eroded trust.

Every one-on-one meeting should include space for asking good questions, listening, getting updates on projects, coaching and accountability.

Here is a short list of 4 good questions to ask in every one-on-one meeting with your team:

1. What’s working?

If your team is filled with high capacity leaders, they naturally focus on what needs to be fixed. Force them to start by identifying where they’re winning. Celebrate with them and celebrate them.

Hearing what’s working also gives you perspective. You learn what your team thinks is most important, which helps you coach or be in the mind of your team. You also learn of what could be potential competitive advantages for your organization.

2. What are you challenged with?

Word this question right. Don’t ask what isn’t working. Ask what is challenging them personally. This opens you up to more honesty and for them to share more from their personal lives. When trust is high you should hear about work challenges and private challenges organically in the same conversation.

3. What do you need from me?

Availing yourself to serve your team is more than just symbolic leadership. Leaning into one issue someone on your team is having for just a few minutes can possibly fix a problem they have spent hours on, not to mention the value you add to them simply by be present in their problem.

4. How can I pray for you?

I am a spiritual person. That means I am a spiritual leader. You may not be. If not, this question may not be for you. For me, I want to pray with my team. In some instances, we pray on the spot. In the right setting, this is a valuable tool to help those on your team be valued at the highest level as human beings.

One of our coaches would love to walk you and your team through our process of building healthy one-on-one meetings, but first, let’s start by discovering how coaching could best serve you and your team on a Strategy Call. Schedule a call today!

Schedule your strategy call

— We JUST Launched THE COURAGETOLEAD PODCAST with Shawn Lovejoy SEASON 2 —

SEASON 2 of the podcast is filled with practical coaching from myself as well as interviews with seasoned leaders like Bill High from SIGNATRY: a Global Christian Foundation, Derwin Gray from Transformation Church, and Elizabeth Dixon from Chick-fil-A!

Episode 1, titled “The #1 Thing That Keeps Me Awake at Night” just dropped on May 18th.

Subscribe today!

Subscribe on Spotify

subscribe on apple podcasts

Watch the Podcast on youtube

Source: How To Lead Better One-on-One Meetings

The post How To Lead Better One-on-One Meetings appeared first on Passion for Planting.

By NewChurches.com: In Episode 594 of the NewChurches Q&A Podcast, Daniel and Todd discuss how you lead people you don’t like.

In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

Why it’s important to learn how to handle difficult team members
How prayer can draw you closer together

 Shareable Quotes (#NewChurches):

“In a multisite reality, you are not building your team from scratch.” – @danielsangi
“While you should love everyone on your staff or volunteer leadership team, it’s OK for you to like some people more.” – @toddadkins
“It’s important for you to realize that at some point in time you will end up with someone on your team that you don’t completely jive with.” – @toddadkins
“You have to manage expectations for what healthy boundaries are when you bring new people on your staff.” – @toddadkins
“We have to be friendly, professional, and courteous with everybody.” – @toddadkins
“You and your team member are both filled with the same Holy Spirit, so spend time praying for one another.” – @danielsangi

Recommended Resources:

Listen to Episode 588: The Relationship Between a Lead Pastor and a Campus Pastor
Listen to Episode 590: The Relationship Between a Campus Pastor and the Central Location Staff
Listen to Episode 592: What Ministry Planning Looks Like

Help us Multiply the Mission:

Please subscribe
Leave a rating and review on iTunes
Ask a question by clicking Send Voicemail on the right hand side of NewChurches.com
If you’re on a phone or a tablet, then go to www.speakpipe.com/newchurches to download the app and record your message
When you’re recording, introduce yourself and your context in about 15 seconds and then record your question for 30 seconds

This Episode’s Sponsor:

No matter how many people you have on staff at your church, there’s only so much you can accomplish in a day, right? Your church exists to serve your community, so the mission of your church and its staff is to reach as many people as you can.

So BELAY, the innovative staffing solution with over 10 years of experience serving churches with virtual assistants, bookkeepers and social media strategists, is offering a free download of their resource, ‘Church Leaders: Essential Strategies to Unleash Productivity.’

Let BELAY help your church live its mission in your community by helping you juggle less and accomplish more. Visit belaysolutions.com/lifeway for your free download.

The post Episode 594: Leading People You Don’t Like appeared first on NewChurches.com – Church Planting, Multisite, and Multiplication.

Source: Episode 594: Leading People You Don’t Like

The post Episode 594: Leading People You Don’t Like appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Shawn Lovejoy: Which comes first? Culture? Or Behavior?

Does culture drive behavior? Or does behavior drive culture?

Well, the answer, of course, is both.

Culture is determined by the accumulation of all the behaviors in an organization.

Every organization has a culture.

Culture happens either by design or default.

We don’t have to try to build a culture in our organization. One already exists!

Behaviors dictate a certain culture.

Culture happens. (That would make a great bumper sticker, wouldn’t it?)

However, culture can also drive behavior.

For example, at the Vanderbloemen Search Group, one of their Cultural values is “Radical Responsiveness.” This cultural value drives their behavior day in and day out. They pride themselves on their radical responsiveness to their clients and they hold themselves accountable to that value.

Another organization I’m part of has a key value of FUN. You heard me, FUN. They hold each other accountable to having fun, as well as each staff member being a fun person to be around! They don’t allow critical, or negative staff to hang around. I can honestly say I haven’t met a staff person there, that’s not fun to be around there!

Culture should be backed up by behaviors!

This week I’m helping you take advantage of this quarantined time by giving you the tools to work on the Culture so your organization can reemerge from the COVID-19 Crisis stronger.

Yesterday I sent you part one: Why You Must Work On The Culture. You can read that HERE.

Today, I’m giving you the two things that create healthy or unhealthy culture!

At the end of the day, a healthy or unhealthy culture will be determined by two things:

The first is INTENTIONALITY.

The dominant driver of health and growth among teams in today’s leadership economy is culture.

Healthy culture doesn’t happen by accident.

We must be intentional about the culture we’re seeking to build or maintain.

You’ve got to want it, work for it and stick to it.

The second is ACCOUNTABILITY.

Culture is often created by what is tolerated.

Systems and coaching are needed to hold ourselves and our organization accountable to maintaining the culture we’re seeking to live out!

This will requires both courage to hold others accountable and coaching to keep us as the leader accountable.

What about the culture in your organization?

What’s healthy? What’s less than healthy?

What parts of the culture have been determined by design? By default?

Today, start building health into your culture.

Be clear. Be consistent. Be bold. Be courageous.

Before you know it, you (and everyone else) will love being part of your team.

Schedule a free coaching call with one of our Coaches. Talk through the potential opportunities to improve your culture with one of our coaches and get the accountability to make it happen! Schedule a time that works for you today.

schedule a free coaching call

talk to a coach

Source: 2 Drivers of Healthy (or Unhealthy) Culture – Culture Series Part 2

The post 2 Drivers of Healthy (or Unhealthy) Culture – Culture Series Part 2 appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by NewChurches.com: In Episode 486 of the NewChurches Q&A Podcast, Daniel and Todd discuss how to introduce church membership as part of a church plant.

“I am calling in with a question regarding introducing church membership as part of launching a church. I’m in a team which is planting in the UK. We’ve been running an outreach mission center for the past 16 years, but in the next few months we plan to launch our church. One of the things that is worrying us is, up to know, there has been no distinction between the people who come to the groups and the outreach center and we are looking toward church plant with a membership as we would have in our sending church.”

In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

Why a clear vision is important
How to equip launch team members for the minstry

 Shareable Quotes (#NewChurches):

“My first recommendation would be to not lose the mission and the vision of your outreach mission center.” – @danielsangi
“When you start the church and there are individuals who are part of other churches who will be joining this, everyone will come with their own existing values.” – @danielsangi
“As you are recruiting a launch team, make sure that your vision, mission, and values are so clear that people know what the church will look like.” – @danielsangi
“Church membership has gotten hijacked in the last several decades. Make sure that they understand that God didn’t give us the local church to become a country club.” – @toddadkins
“God placed us in churches to serve each other and our community, and care of others, and pray for each other, and learn to teach, give, and in some places die for the gospel.” – @toddadkins
“Help people understand from a biblical context what it means to be a local church and the responsibilities that come with it.” – @toddadkins
“Your church is only as healthy as its average attendee or member.” – @toddadkins

Recommended Resources:

Read No Silver Bullets by Daniel Im
Learn more about Developing a Core Team

Help us Multiply the Mission:

Please subscribe
Leave a rating and review on iTunes
Ask a question by clicking Send Voicemail on the right hand side of NewChurches.com
If you’re on a phone or a tablet, then go to www.speakpipe.com/newchurches to download the app and record your message
When you’re recording, introduce yourself and your context in about 15 seconds and then record your question for 30 seconds

This Episode’s Sponsor:

For more than 25 years, Portable Church® has helped thousands of churches launch strong and thrive in a mobile setting. They design custom solutions that fit each budget, vision, and venue. Everything you need to launch a mobile church — an inviting worship space, kids ministry areas, welcome spaces, storage cases, etc — all in a system refined to make it fast, easy & fun for the weekly volunteer teams.

The post Episode 486: Introducing Church Membership appeared first on NewChurches.com – Church Planting, Multisite, and Multiplication.

Source: Episode 486: Introducing Church Membership

The post Episode 486: Introducing Church Membership appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Source: A Healthy Team Ratio

The post A Healthy Team Ratio appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by NewChurches.com: In Episode 452 of the NewChurches Q&A Podcast, Daniel and Todd discuss how to approach a conversation with your lead pastor about your interest in church planting.

“How do you have a conversation about you wanting to plant a church with your lead pastor?”

In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

How to approach your lead pastor if you are afraid of his response
Why your posture is important in this situation

Shareable Quotes (#NewChurches):

“The worst thing you can do is talk to a network or denomination leader about planting a church behind your lead pastor’s back.” – @danielsangi
“Whether you are blessed or bombed in this whole scenario depends on your posture.” – @toddadkins
“He is in authority over you. You are having to submit, at least in the moment, to his leadership.” – @toddadkins
“It is really hard to plant a church without a blessing from your lead pastor.” – @danielsangi
“Make sure as early on as possible you are bringing your lead pastor into the conversation so they can be praying for you.” – @danielsangi
“If you are wanting to plant a church two blocks away, that is going to be tricky.” – @danielsangi
“If you were a lead pastor and someone on your staff was super excited about planting a church, would you want to say no?” – @danielsangi
“The trust between you and your supervisor is so important for their health, your health, and your church’s health.” – @danielsangi

Recommended Resources:

Listen to the Making Disciples podcast

Help us Multiply the Mission:

Please subscribe
Leave a rating and review on iTunes
Ask a question by clicking Send Voicemail on the right hand side of NewChurches.com
If you’re on a phone or a tablet, then go to www.speakpipe.com/newchurches to download the app and record your message
When you’re recording, introduce yourself and your context in about 15 seconds and then record your question for 30 seconds

The post Episode 452: I Want to Plant a Church. How Do I Tell My Pastor? appeared first on NewChurches.com – Church Planting, Multisite, and Multiplication.

Source: Episode 452: I Want to Plant a Church. How Do I Tell My Pastor?

The post Episode 452: I Want to Plant a Church. How Do I Tell My Pastor? appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Shawn Lovejoy: You can build a great career based on your skill set and talent alone.

However, if you want to build a legacy, you have to learn to build and develop other leaders.

Calling out and nurturing the potential of those on your team not only solidifies your leadership, it also promises your organization will stay strong without you having to be around to make every decision.

One of the best ways to develop the individuals on your team is through an annual Performance & Development review. In fact, most leaders I know do this near the end of the year (there’s still time if you don’t already have this on the calendar!)

There’s A LOT you can accomplish in these reviews. Part of our coaching process is actually helping leaders implement a high-impact performance & development system in their organization. In addition, we share our Performance & Development Review for you to use on your own.

To get you started, here are the 3 overarching areas you need to focus on when evaluating those on your team:

1. Actions

What are the people on your team actually DOING?

What have and are they accomplishing? Comb back through the year. Celebrate and evaluate both their major wins and losses.

While you don’t want to focus solely on their mistakes, you can’t ignore them. Their mistake today can make them better tomorrow.

Be sure you speak into the decisions they make, get inside their head to discover reasoning, give feedback on their performance and correct what you do not like. Tell them what was wrong and ask them why they did it.  Then be quiet.  Listen.  Hear their responses.

2. Attitudes

Don’t just evaluate what your team is doing, but also pay close attention to HOW they are doing it.

Provide feedback and coaching in areas such as personality, people skills, body language and overall attitude. It’s ok to for a team member to have a stronger personality, but it’s not ok if other tiptoe around them because of it.

One of the key attitudes you want to develop in your team: Teachability. Do they receive coaching well or are they defensive? Are they thick-skinned or do they crumble if they’re coached? Are they willing to re-learn what they already know or are they quick to remind you of their expertise?

Coach and develop attitudes because the today’s attitudes quickly become tomorrow’s actions.

3. Aspirations

Evaluate what a team member is doing, how they are doing it, but there is power in discussing WHY they are doing it.

To help people win in the future, you need to know how to define a win for their future. Remember, you are evaluating a person, not a machine. You need to know what makes that person tick. What is their personal why? What are they dreaming about? What are they passionate about? Where is their energy invested?

Getting a sense of what an individual on your team aspires to not only helps you know how to coach them, it also makes clear if they are still the right fit for the team. People and dreams evolve over time. It is important to know the heart of a team member is still aligned with yours. You need to be headed in the same direction. Synergy beats isolation every time.

Evaluation, development and coaching need a system. Create space in the calendar to have frequent one-on-one dialogue with those you lead and focus on these three areas: Actions, Attitudes and Aspirations.

At CourageToLead we help leaders and organizations develop an impactful performance and development process. To get started with that you can schedule a free Strategy Session with one of our coaches or download the free e-book on Performance and Development Reviews HERE.

talk to a coach

order today

Source: 3 Easy Ways To Evaluate A Team Member’s Performance

The post 3 Easy Ways To Evaluate A Team Member’s Performance appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Tim Nations of Leadership Network: I was recently with a church staff in an affluent, well-educated East Coast suburb. They were trying to shift their church model from “hired staff” managing volunteers to where staff’s primary role would be developing members to lead in ministries inside and outside the church.

As we worked together on this shift, we discovered the staff had been basically operating by asking congregants to help them do the ministry. As inevitably happens, many of the volunteers got tired of being “helpers” and the staff would run around trying to find someone else to replace them.

The staff was also growing tired and felt that they were employees at Nordstroms serving consumers, struggling to get some of their “customers” to help get their jobs done. As we met together, the church leadership, who desperately wanted things to change, asked what things they needed to do to help shift their model.

Here are the top 5 things we worked on to help shift to a leadership development culture.

1) Re-imagining staff roles. While it may be a small thing, we added leadership development as the first item on all their job descriptions and the first thing that would be on their performance reviews. We had to get staff’s attention that this was going to be a shift- from primarily doing to  “discovering, developing and deploying spiritual leaders”. They were now going to be evaluated on how they did in shifting the culture that they had created and allowed to foster.

2) Re-equip the staff for a new approach to recruiting. Staff had to shift from recruiting doers to recruiting leaders. What we have discovered is that doers respond to tasks, but leaders respond to vision. If you wanted to recruit a leader, you have to approach them with a particular vision and ask them if they wanted to step up to own and give leadership to that vision. The staff’s role would shift to equipping them to lead rather than primarily equipping them to do.  We asked staff to work on a 1-minute pitch that would help them frame the vision of what their ministry was all about. They had to pitch the kingdom impact someone could have through their ministry, asking them to take ownership of that vision.

3) Frame what good potential leaders look like.

The staff needed to know “What does a good potential leader look like in our context? What are the raw materials you look for when fishing for leaders?” What I encountered as I asked that question were blank faces followed by 5 different ideas from 5 different people. Churches that do a great job in recruiting, developing and retaining leaders have effectively determined together what they’re looking for. Once you do that, your staff have a better chance of identifying good potential leaders.

4) Outline the development process. This church didn’t have a clear process for developing and nurturing leaders. They had to through some questions:

Do we want to have an apprenticing/coaching model?
Do we want a class model?
Do we want quarterly leader development meetings?
What’s our content we’re going to use to supplement our apprenticing and coaching? Why that content?

5) Start Tracking Results. Most churches don’t measure leadership development. Churches that have anchored leadership development in their culture have figured out how to count to know if they’re making progress. Some churches set goals on the number of leaders needed in each staff area. Some churches track the percentage of their staff that has at least one volunteer leader they’re developing. Once this church started measuring staff, departments and themselves as a whole, they began to see significant progress.

Do you see your church in this story? As a leader are you challenged to discover, develop, and deploy the quality of volunteers necessary to accomplish the vision of your church? Is your staff growing tired of “doing” rather than leading the ministry of the church?

Here’s how I can help…

I’m inviting you to join a FREE webinar titled “Latest Trends in Leadership Development: How to Discover, Develop, and Deploy Spiritual Leaders for Your Church.”

During our 55 minutes together we will:

Take a deep dive into the new 10 Things Great Leadership Development Churches Do resource (if you haven’t already, download it here)
Answer the most common questions about new trends in leadership development, based on your pre-webinar submissions
Discuss three things all leaders must be good at to be a great leadership development church.
Share how a few pioneering churches are leveraging data to identify and develop more potential leaders.

We will be hosting two webinars: one for churches under 1000 and one for churches over 1000 in average weekend worship attendance. This will allow us to address questions that are unique to churches of different sizes. Here are the two webinar offerings:

Tuesday, June 25th at 1 PM Central – Designed for churches OVER 1000 in WWA

To register for this webinar, tap or click on the button below.

Wednesday, June 26th at 1 PM Central – Designed for churches UNDER 1000 in WWA

To register for this webinar, tap or click on the button below.

The post Keys for Identifying, Developing and Retaining Volunteer Leaders appeared first on Leadership Network.

Source: Keys for Identifying, Developing and Retaining Volunteer Leaders

The post Keys for Identifying, Developing and Retaining Volunteer Leaders appeared first on Passion for Planting.