By Justin Gravitt: Understanding your church’s culture is like doing a connect the dot worksheet, but with no dots and no lines. Instead, just information scattered on the page.

The challenge is to sort out the important information from the noise that seeks to hide it. Lack of clarity isn’t the only challenge. Every culture presents noise and information differently, and each can be interpreted in several relevant ways. In most cultures, we find that traditions, activities, and the urgent needs of the present prevent a true picture from emerging. The near-constant whirlwind of church activity often prevents transformational disciple making from happening. What separates culture experts from culture participants is their ability to see through the whirlwind of church activities. These cultural experts uncover relevant clues and discard the rest.

That’s not all they do. Culture experts find ways to connect the dots; to make connections, from here to there, from there to the next. It takes time. It is s l o w. Yes, cultural connect the dots pays off in big ways. In a church, cultural clarity can be drawn out by using a tool I call LEAP. When used carefully the image LEAPs off the page. When it does, it brings with it a new understanding, new actions, and eventually the right kind of change.

Exciting, right? Let’s look at the LEAP tool, so you can employ it in your culture and context.

L – What’s Lifted Up?

Every culture lifts up an ideal. In healthy cultures, the ideal is consistent with the big vision or goals of its leaders. It communicates to everyone about what’s most important in the culture. In unhealthy cultures what’s elevated is a subset of the main thing or, perhaps even unrelated to the main thing. Questions that help uncover what’s lifted up are: “Who has status here?” “How does someone else win influence here?” and “In the past, who were the culture’s heroes?”

Jesus repeatedly made it clear that He was on earth to do the will of God the Father (John 5:19, 10:37; Matt. 7:21, et al). He expected those who follow Him to do the same (Matt. 12:50) and told the disciples to do what He was doing over forty times in the Gospels.

E – What’s Expected?

Humans are social creatures. We long to connect. Cultures carry a set of expectations that help people understand what to do to fit in as well as what’s forbidden. Since these are deeply embedded in the culture’s DNA they are rarely mentioned. They are real nonetheless and function as a blueprint for belonging.

These are often as simple as how to dress and customs of socializing (norms of greeting, leaving, helping, etc.). However, they can be elaborate too, such as language, sequenced involvement, and prohibitions. These aren’t moral issues of right and wrong but are the difference between in and out. They communicate we (culture insiders) do this, they (culture outsiders) do that. To find the customs within a culture ask, “What should I do?” and “What shouldn’t I do?”

A – What’s Asked?

There are one or more asks in every culture, but they are more explicit in church cultures. Most of the time, an ask points backward to the goal the culture elevates and forward to the culture’s answer to how that goal is reached. In other words, what’s asked of people is also the way the culture proposes people are to reach the lifted-up goal. A culture that elevates faithfulness will ask people to fulfill specific obligations. A culture that elevates understanding will ask the people to proscribed things in proscribed ways.

Sometimes the ask is difficult to discern. This is especially true in churches that practice buffet-style ministry. In some cases this ask is implicit. Their ask may not be explicit, but the communication is clear, find something and get involved because we have something for you.

P – What’s Prioritized?

A culture’s heartbeat can be clearly heard when values collide. Every culture has lots of values, both expressed and unexpressed. Some of those values are lifted up to the top, while others function in a support role. The true character of a culture comes to light when a situation brings about a collision of those values. For example, when a people-first culture realizes that it’s only leader for the women’s ministry needs to step-back. Do the leaders encourage her to do so swiftly or to delay for the sake of the group? Or when a disciple making culture discovers a prominent disciple maker has drifted in predictable ways. Is he encouraged to be honest with those he’s influencing or to hide and find help in secret?

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Time and again we see Jesus’ deepest values on display when life brings about value collisions. His love for the Jewish leaders is on full display at the cross when he pleads for God to forgive them, yet he didn’t allow that love to cloud what was right and wrong (John 7:17-24; Matt. 5:21-22, 27-28, et al).

The LEAP tool is effective for sorting the helpful information from the noise. Once you find it, connect the dots. Now, there’s an image on the page. You drew it with your own hand, but you aren’t the only author. The cultural picture was created with others and its meaning must be understood with others.

The process of understanding feels a lot like this: Where did we start? Why weren’t the dots, dots? Who decided to add all the other noise? Did we really focus on what was important? Are the lines too curved? Too straight? What if we missed something? What does this have to do with ________?

A culture can’t be intentionally shaped until it’s understood. The LEAP tool gives leaders the handles it needs to proactively understand a culture even while they live in it. As you put this tool to work in your culture be prepared to see things that are partly encouraging and partly discouraging. That’s normal. The difficult work of developing a disciple making culture is promoting the right changes from the center “dots” out.

I talk more about this in my new book, The Foundation of a Disciple Making Culture (a Discipleship.org Resource). Click here for a free download.

By Justin Gravitt

Used by permission. Originally posted here:

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by Healthy Growing Churches: In our first post this month on Leadership Development, we talked about how everything rises and falls on leadership. There’s much as stake in us getting this right. We then talked about how to lead ourselves well by keeping Christ as the First Thing. And then we talked about how our families cannot fall victim to us leading well in the church and us leading poorly at home.

This week, we dive into leading our teams well. Understand, however, that we will never get this part right until we have our relationships with Jesus and our families in proper alignment. The teams you lead can either launch your vision forward, or those teams can suck all of the life out of your vision and your ministry.

A Few Thoughts on Leading Teams Well

1. The Health of Your Team Depends on You.

Self-assessment is a great tool to use here. What is your leadership style? Greg Wiens’ DISC assessment can help you understand how you function within the structure of your team. If there are deficiencies in your leadership, with whom are you surrounding yourself to overcome those? You don’t have to lead alone!

Then ask yourself if you’re actively discipling members of your team. Think of Jesus’ model here. We see Him having a deep connection with 3–Peter, James, and John (Mark 3:16, 17; Luke 6:14).  After that, there are the 12 disciples with whom Jesus spends the three years of His earthly ministry, teaching them all things. And then, in Luke 10, we see Jesus sending out the 72 to go out and teach and preach the Gospel He had taught them. How is that model working in your own life/ministry?

2. Know the Vision and Communicate It Well (and Often).

You may have a charismatic personality–someone easy to follow and incredibly likable. This character trait will only take you so far as a leader. Charisma will help you par on the golf course, but knowing and communicating a clear vision will take your game to a whole new level. People are not so easily impressed these days with smooth-talking leaders as they are with a vision that means something. The vision has to tell them where they’re going, what they’re doing, and for Whom they’re doing it! This vision should be woven in and through regular, everyday conversations and permeate the DNA of your organization.

3. Handle the Conflict Quickly, Precisely, and With Love.

This point could be a post all on its own (and likely will be). But just briefly here, I will mention that the longer you let conflict fester within your organization, the more toxic your organization will become. Not taking care of issues undermines your leadership and devalues the others on your teams. Learn how to have Crucial Conversations, cover those conversations with prayer, and love fiercely even when there’s no resolution to be found.

4. Be Authentic, and Be Vulnerable.

Authenticity and vulnerability can seem dangerous! I believe that there used to be a time when, as a leader, it was acceptable to have this façade that, “I’ve got all my stuff in order, and I’m basically perfect.” I’ve personally experienced this type of leadership a lot in the church, and it’s problematic to me. With the advent of social media came lots of fake-ness, right? Millennials and Xenials, in particular, can sniff out the fake like no other generation before. What they crave, however, is authenticity. They expect this in their leaders.

When the people you lead look at you, they want to know and understand that you’ve walked where they have. They need to see that not everything in your life is perfect, so they don’t feel so bad about their own lives not being picture perfect. This vulnerability creates a deep sense of connection between you and those you lead, and that connection is key!

I hope that you will take these four points and look for ways to incorporate them into the way you lead. Healthy Growing Churches wants to see you, your families, and your ministries and teams succeed!

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Carey Nieuwhof: So this isn’t an easy post to write, nor a glib one.

I’m not even sure what I’m about to write is accurate.

But once again last week, we heard of yet another mega-church pastor who isn’t in leadership anymore, this one fired by his church because of character issues.

I’m not naming names or linking to any post. If you’re plugged into church world, you probably know who I’m talking about, and if not, it’s not that hard to think of a bunch of others over the years.

Sadly, even if you read this months or years after this is published, chances are there will be yet another large church pastor who went down in flames.

The hardest part is there are just no winners. At least not in the short term. God is a God of redemption and he writes better stories than we do, but the pain of deliberate sin is something we’re best to avoid.

If there are direct victims (affairs, abuse, fraud), and sadly, often there are, their lives are devastated and their faith too often shattered or snapped. The people who were part of any movement or congregation associated with said fallen leader are crushed. The families of leaders are devastated, sometimes beyond repair.

And in the midst of it all, the unchurched gain one more reason to run in the opposite direction.

For those of us still in church leadership… think about that and let it sink in.

Bloggers and commentators who pile on to grab headlines or express outrage further destroy any hope left. I don’t want this to be that kind of a post.

And remember, for every mega-church pastor who has exited, there are probably 10 or maybe 100 smaller church pastors whose congregation and families are just as devastated. Only their stories never make the headlines.

Please hear me. I write this with a heavy heart and after a lot of reflection, introspection and prayerful consideration.

I’m far from perfect. There’s been no affair (by the grace of God) or fraud or anything worth headlines. But just talk to my family or my team. They see me on good days and bad days, and I write about the struggles of leadership as openly and candidly as I know how, as any of you who read this blog regularly or have read my latest book will realize.

So I’m not casting stones.

But I am writing so that all of us who lead anything (big or small) can look inside and notice the warning signs before it’s too late. Before yet another church loses its leader. Before yet another countless thousand people wince and say, “I told you so” or “Yeah…figures” and the collective eye roll/anger wave gets unleashed once again and more people walk away from Jesus.

Because, believe it or not, I think failure is in all of us. And yes, I think the seeds of failure are in me too. None of us are exempt.

But if you know what to look for…if you know where the danger lies, maybe, just maybe, you can finish well. Because not only are the seeds of failure in all of us, so are the seeds of finishing well.

So what’s the difference?

That’s why I’m writing this post.

Nobody who starts out in ministry sets out to fail. But all the time, people who never thought they’d fail, fail.

Every time another story breaks about a pastor who resigns, my phone lights up with texts from friends asking, “How do we make sure this doesn’t happen to us?”

A few years ago I wrote a post about the exit of two megachurch pastors…I think the observations are still true:

Most pastors aren’t fake. The struggle is real.

It’s hard to lead anything.

God uses broken people.

Even if all of that is true, still, why all the failure?

Here are some new thoughts…and some things I look for inside me in the hopes of finishing well.

The seeds of failure are in all of us. So are the seeds of finishing well.Click To Tweet

1. It Just Got Bigger Than I Could Handle

Please hear this: leading something large is not inherently bad.

Although I hear the argument all the time, I personally don’t believe there is anything inherently bad about a large church or organization.

But there is something inherently difficult in it. And to some extent, the larger something is, the harder it is.

Please know, this doesn’t mean leading a small church or venture is easy. I have led small churches. I get it. Few things in leadership are easy.

But I’ve also led some larger ministries and organizations, and the larger it is, the greater the pressure and the more there’s at stake.

I remember when our church grew past 300; my mind was blown. Now it’s five times the size.

Or look at this blog or my podcast. Honestly, 100,000 readers or listeners was inconceivable six years ago. Then millions showed up.

Nothing gets you ready for that.

It’s way too easy for your platform to outgrow your character. And that’s where all the danger lies.

There isn’t anything inherently bad about leading a large church or organization. But there is something inherently difficult in it.Click To Tweet

Add to it one more fact: you and I are not naturally made to lead thousands or millions.

It doesn’t mean you can’t do it. It just means you’ll have to grow your character faster.  Much faster.

As I outlined in Didn’t See It Coming, that has come in the form of hundreds of hours of counseling for me, some dead honest conversations, and a lot of painful personal growth. And in my case, I’m so thankful that groundwork was laid before things became bigger.

It doesn’t mean I’m off the hook. It just means God beat some things out of me that had to go before the stakes were any higher. And he continues to do that. Daily.

It’s way too easy for your platform to outgrow your character.Click To Tweet

So what can help you when things get bigger than you thought, whether that’s two hundred or two million?

Try this.

First, your platform isn’t yours. It’s God’s. It’s not your church or your organization. It’s His.

You don’t have a ministry, but God does (and out of his grace he chooses to use you).

Your life isn’t your own.  Are you allowing God’s spirit to loosen your grip on your life?

The more I remind myself of these things, the healthier I am.

Second, it’s a platform, not a pedestal. There is a world of difference between a platform and a pedestal.

Pedestals are about ego and adulation.

Platforms are designed to be shared and used for the benefit of others.

On the days I remember that, I’m a better leader because I’m a better servant. On the days I forget it, the clock starts ticking.

There is a world of difference between a platform and a pedestal. Pedestals are about ego and adulation. Platforms are designed to be shared and used for the benefit of others.Click To Tweet

2. I Created a World Where Nobody Challenged Me

So…let’s be honest…nobody likes critics.

But the bigger your organization or church becomes, the easier it becomes to surround yourself with like-minded people who won’t challenge you.

Please hear the distinction. You need like-minded people. You have to run with people who get your mission, vision and strategy. Otherwise, your organization descends into internal chaos.

But what you really need is likeminded people who can challenge you.

You need people committed to the same vision, mission and strategy you are, but who will push your thinking and who will push you.

Sure…maybe you have an accountability partner. You can spin your accountability partner. You can say it’s better at home than it is. Maybe they should ask your wife how it’s really going.

What you really need is people who have influence with you and power over you who can speak into you. Like a board and an inner circle to whom you are transparent and to whom you are truly accountable.

I realize in the age of social media, those of us at a distance might think we have a responsibility to speak truth to power or to criticize someone from afar. But I promise you, most leaders just tune out an angry person or troll 1000 miles away from, and perhaps to some extent rightly so. You don’t know them. They don’t know you.

There are also critics inside your church who intend to harm you or the mission. Learn what you can from them, but move on. They will not help you or your church long term.

But what you and I need most is people in our lives who know us inside out, who love us and as a result of that love, tell us the truth about us.

But you’ll be tempted—so tempted—to tune those people out. Don’t.

Keep them close.

Cultivate an atmosphere in which your team and those around you can tell you the truth. How you hurt them. What you’re not seeing. What you don’t realize is that they’ll be afraid to do that. You can fire them or dismiss them.

Just welcome their feedback, and encourage their critiques.

They may feel like your enemy in the moment, but I promise you they’re your best friends. They’re on the same mission as you, and they want you to win. And to help you win means they have to call your sin.

To help you win, your friends have to call your sin.Click To Tweet

The way to cultivate that is to thank those on-mission people every time they critique you. Welcome it. Tell them how much it helped you.

And if it hurts, get on your knees and talk to God about it. Ask what needs to stick and what you can discard, but for God’s sake (literally), listen.

And in the further need of transparency, a few things that have helped me.

First, give the people close to you your passwords.

My wife can look and at times does look at anything on my phone or devices. She has ALL my passwords and I let her see ANY of my conversations. DMs. The whole thing. Especially with the women I work with and talk to.

To make it even more interesting, because of the nature of my team, they have access to virtually everything in my life—all my inboxes, my passwords, my notes. So even if my wife’s not looking, they are. Everything. And that’s a wonderful thing.

Should you share that with everyone? Of course not.

But just because everybody doesn’t need to know everything, it doesn’t mean nobody does.

Give people access. And let the people who love you challenge you.

Just because everybody doesn’t need to know everything, it doesn’t mean nobody does. Click To Tweet

3. I Stayed Too Long

This isn’t a problem for everyone, but it is a problem for many of us.

I’ve been in the same church for 24 years. And you know what, we grow bored and accustomed to power. So I change it up. Regularly. That’s another story for another day.

And just over three years ago, I moved out of the Lead Pastor role and into a Founding and Teaching Pastor role at our church. Why? Because I sensed the season of me being the point leader at the church I founded was ending.

I wanted to jump before I was pushed. I wanted to leave while I was still serving the church, not when the church was serving me. I wanted to go while I was still fresh, not when everything grew so stale that everyone knew it was time for me to go except me.

By all accounts, I left early. But looking back, I think the timing was perfect.

Don Miller did an incredible interview with author Stephen Mansfield who shared 10 signs a leader is heading toward a leadership crash.

Sign #1? The leader stayed too long.

I get why leaders stay too long: it’s all you know how to do, and financially, you can’t afford to leave. But that’s such a mistake.

First of all, you’re supposed to serve the church. It’s not supposed to serve you. Secondly, I get that you’re not ready for retirement. But that’s not a tenure or honour issue: it’s a financial issue. Boards should get far better at handling financial issues as financial issues, not tenure issues. (I wrote more on why pastors stay too long and the succession crisis facing the church here.)

When I jumped out of the Lead Pastor role, I took a pay cut. It was a huge trust issue.

But I promise you, trusting God is never a bad thing. So trust God.

Leaders, you’re supposed to serve the church. It’s not supposed to serve you.Click To Tweet

4. Somewhere Along The Way, I Lost My Soul

You got into this for the right reasons. I know you did. Everybody does.

But somewhere along the way, it’s too easy to lose your soul.

How exactly does that happen? Well, it’s a subtle art.

Most leaders who sell their souls aren’t 100% on the right track one day and the next day wake up in someone else’s bed. It just doesn’t usually work that way.

Selling your soul starts with compromise.

You look at a little porn. Once. Okay, twice. Okay, a little more, and soon it’s a habit…

You flirted with her once…then again. Then you were emotionally entangled.. And then…

You started justifying your impulsiveness. If they only knew the pressure I’m under, they’d be this way too, you told yourself. And you repeated that to yourself the next day, and the next…

You swore a bit because just because you think cussing a little doesn’t mean you’re not a Christian.  But now, you internal dialogue is just so foul…

You had the one drink…then the other, then every Friday, then most days…

You blew your stack at the meeting the other day, but man they were being dumb, and you’re the leader, and you can get away with it, and…

And before you know it, a thousand little compromises left you compromised.

You’ve gotten so ugly you don’t recognize yourself in the mirror.

The challenge is several fold.

The more I see leadership as a trust, the less likely I am to use it for personal gain or to indulge my flaws.

Second, the more sensitive I become to the impact of my actions and attitude on the people closest to me, the better I lead. The gravitational pull is to to make excuses to those closest to you or find people who tolerate your weaknesses. And that’s a mistake (see #2 above).

I need to become expert at noticing the little compromises.  I don’t have to confess them to my whole team, but I need to confess to someone.  Bringing them into the light when they’re small prevents them from growing into something sinister.

The challenge in leadership is to live in a way that people closest to you become the people most grateful for you. And people become truly grateful for you when your life is characterized by humility, confession and grace.

Live in a way that people closest to you become the people most grateful for you.Click To Tweet

5. I Invested Too little Time at Home

Often—not always, but often—when you talk to leaders who are no longer in leaders, you realize that there were some serious issues in their marriage that were either neglected or never resolved.

And that can create a vicious cycle where because things aren’t going well at home, you throw yourself even harder into your work because you feel you can win there, all of which makes home go even more poorly.

Here’s what I’ve come to believe: Ultimately, everything rides on how you lead at home. 

If you’re winning at work but losing at home, you’re losing.

The stakes are high.

If you’re winning at work but losing at home, you’re losing.Click To Tweet

The difficult issues you work through in your home life will make you a wiser, stronger leader organizationally. Like many couples, my wife Toni and I have worked through some difficult seasons and (thankfully), came through to a better place.

But in my thirties, I became so consumed with work because it was honestly just easier to win at church than it was to win at home.

Why do so many leaders fall for that trap? There are at least three reasons.

There’s a clearer scoreboard at work. You can accomplish things far easier at work than you can at home.

It’s easier to earn respect at work than it is at home because you hold a title, and for senior leaders, direct a team.

You can avoid the hard conversations at home by staying later and working longer.

All of these are terrible reasons of course, but that doesn’t keep leaders from falling for them. I’ve fallen for them in different seasons too.

The challenge with home, of course, is that no one is that impressed by your title, latest progress or corner office.

But lead poorly at home for more than a season and the consequences will play out in several ways throughout your life and leadership:

You may win in ministry but lose the heart and affection of your family. Most of us have met leaders whose family is still together but deeply resents the leader’s organization.

Your leadership in ministry might be permanently stunted as unresolved character issues leak from home into your organizational leadership. Your flaws tend to eventually impact everything you lead and touch.

You might lose it all – the collapse of your family might lead to the collapse of your ministry and leadership.

See what’s at stake?

But here’s the truth.  You can’t have a great ministry and bad marriage. A bad marriage will eventually undermine a great ministry.

So if you’re struggling at home, invest more there. It will be painful at first. It may involve expensive counselling and hours (days, months…) of wading through mud. Do it.

I look at the investment I’ve made over the last 15 years in counselling, coaching, retreats and more time on my knees, and I can’t believe how much it’s paid off. Naturally, I still have a long way to go. The ancients called this process sanctification, and it’s never done. But things can get better. They really can.

Lead well at home, and you will inevitably become a better leader in your ministry or organization.

It’s just too easy to lose at home. So don’t.

You can’t have a great ministry and bad marriage. A bad marriage will obliterate a great ministry. Click To Tweet

Addendum: Four Likely Reasons Billy Graham Finished Well

The news is not all bad. There are more than a few long-time leaders who appear to be leading and finishing very well.

Billy Graham was certainly one of them.

Most people in church leadership are aware of the Billy Graham rule: never meet alone with a member of the opposite sex. And while it has its critics and limits, it’s helped many people.

Thank you to Kadi Cole who alerted me to the origin of the Billy Graham rule in her fantastic  new book, Developing Female Leaders.

As Kadi points out, the Billy Graham rule actually had four aspects. Billy and a few of his colleagues got together in 1948 in Modesto California in 1948 after seeing other evangelists become entangled in affairs, greed and running down local churches.

It consists of four rules:

Financial integrity…so that Billy Graham and his team would not raise money themselves at crusades.
Sexual integrity…so they wouldn’t fall victim to affairs or impropriety.
Respect for local churches…so they would build up local churches, rather than compete with them.
A commitment to accuracy in reporting…so they would not exaggerate how many people attended or how ‘successful’ their ministry was.

All four issues are still real issues. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

You can read Billy Graham’s own description of the Modesto Manifesto here.

Some Deeper Help

13 years ago, I burned out. By the grace of God, there are no affair, nothing that precluded me from moving forward in ministry except my loss of energy and passion.

By the grace of God, I recovered, and it’s become a passion of mine not only to thrive in life and leadership, but to help other leaders do the same.

Of course none of us have mastered this entirely and it’s an ongoing commitment, but I recently released two resources that I hope can help you.

The first is my latest book, Didn’t See It Coming, which outlines how issues like cynicism, compromise, pride, burnout and disconnection can take out leaders or stunt their potential. You can explore more or get a copy here.

The second resource is my High Impact Leader Course, where I show you how to avoid burnout, get more done at work and have more time to be fully present at home by getting time, energy and priorities working in your favour. It’s an on-line, on demand course that outlines the principles I’ve used over the last decade+ to get healthy. The course has helped thousands of leaders do the same.

You can learn more or enrol in the High Impact Leader here.

What Do You See?

I would love to hear in the comments some of the things you see in your own life that you need to watch.

Please don’t pile on leaders who are already down or take cheap shots at people or the church. I’ll delete those comments. This isn’t a place to make the problem worse.

I want this to be a place to help us all find solutions that create a better future.

So as you look inside, what seeds of failure and seeds to finish well do you see inside yourself?

Scroll down and leave a comment.

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