How do you find momentum and growth in a season when everything you spend your life working toward changed overnight?

A lot of churches and organizations are struggling deeply with momentum right now, and in many cases it feels like there are no good options.

The Coronavirus is not abating nearly as quickly as anyone hoped it would. Short term blips (like remote work, closed schools, and closed or restricted large gatherings) are morphing into longer-term realities.

Life is not going back to what we once thought of as normal any time soon. And as you know, when things change and you don’t, you’re on the fast path to irrelevance.

Obviously, there’s no silver bullet answer to finding growth and momentum in a season of chaos. But there are clues.

And as you already know, this is not a season of decline for everyone. Some churches are growing. So are some businesses.

The question becomes, how can you find momentum and growth in the midst of a bunch of non-ideal options?

Before we jump into the post, my brand new online, on-demand course Lead a Better Team can give you and your team a serious advantage in this tumultuous season, getting everyone on the same page and improving results.  Launch pricing ends soon, so learn more before it’s too late.

To find momentum, here are 7 things to look for.

When things change and you don’t, you’re on the fast path to irrelevance.

Click to Tweet

END .ss-ctt-wrapper

1. Pour Fuel on Anything the One or Two Things that are Growing

It’s easy to look at the overall view and conclude, “We’re not growing.” But a closer look usually reveals a more complex reality.

Chances are something you’re doing is growing. Maybe you’re picking up a few new social media followers, or your email list is growing, or you have a variety of new people (or a different mix of people) showing up to your events.

The best thing you can do when you find any momentum is to pour more fuel on it.

The temptation in leadership is to be “fair.” To put equal amounts of time, energy and resources into everything you’re doing, but that rarely works.

Instead, focus most of your efforts on what’s producing the majority of your results.

If you can apply the Pareto Principle to all areas of your organization, you’ll go further.

For example, let’s say your kids’ ministry is seeing some momentum right now, but your adult ministry is flat. Do you try to prop up adult ministry with more resources, or do you give more money and resources to kids’ ministry to further their growth?

I would vote for giving more money and resources to kids’ ministry, knowing full well if you can get momentum with kids, you’ll get momentum with parents, who happen to also be adults.

Focus most of your efforts on what’s producing the majority of your results.

Click to Tweet

END .ss-ctt-wrapper

2. Cut or Discontinue Things You’re Manufacturing Energy For

There’s a term I picked up years ago from the leaders at North Point that I love: manufacturing energy.

Maybe a program that was once effective has stopped being effective. It takes so much energy to keep going that even the staff are only there because they’re paid to do it. No matter how much you promote it, you know you’re manufacturing energy and hype to keep it alive.

If you’re consistently having to manufacture energy, it can be a sign it’s either time to stop doing what you’re doing.

You know what most leaders do instead? They market harder. We just need to announce this more often, email everyone and plaster social media with it. 

As the famed marketing genius David Ogilvy once said, “Great marketing just makes a bad product fail faster.”

Great marketing just makes a bad product fail faster.

Click to Tweet

END .ss-ctt-wrapper

As hard as it is to admit, maybe you’ve plateaued because what you’re offering isn’t that great. So either make it great or kill it.

You need to prune and cut your organization as much as possible to fuel momentum. In the same way that a pruned apple tree grows more apples, a pruned ministry bears more fruit.

In the same way that a pruned apple tree grows more apples, a pruned ministry bears more fruit.

Click to Tweet

END .ss-ctt-wrapper

3. Start Something New

One of the great things about ministry is that while the message is eternal, the methods aren’t, and leaders who try new things often see great results in their generation.

From the Reformation, the emergence of Methodism, to the (at the time) radical ministry of Billy Graham who used TV and travel to spread the Gospel, new methods give new life to an eternal mission.

New methods give new life to an eternal mission.

Click to Tweet

END .ss-ctt-wrapper

Years ago, Andy Stanley gave a powerful talk on momentum where he pointed out the pattern for creating momentum is founded on new, improved, improving.

If you look at the label of any product in your kitchen pantry or bathroom, it’s surprising how often even a legacy brand like Colgate or Arm and Hammer has the words “new” or “improved” on their packaging. From new scent to new flavor, new formula to new packaging, long ago, marketers figured out that the key to sustained momentum was new, improved, or improving.

So the question becomes, what’s new or improved?

Often the answer in the church is ‘nothing.’ You’re trying to get more people to come to the things you’ve always done.

What new approach might you try? How can you improve the way you’re doing what you’re doing?

In the first month of COVID, so many leaders tried new things. Now, mostly what you see on your social media feed is “watch our stream.”

We can get more creative than that.

In the first month of COVID, so many leaders tried new things. Now, mostly what you see on your social media feed is watch our stream. We can get more creative than that.

Click to Tweet

END .ss-ctt-wrapper

4. Avoid the Trap of Doing Nothing Well

There’s an emerging trap for church leaders that’s worth avoiding at all costs: the trap of doing nothing well.

Almost every church is now trying to do in-person attendance and online church right now. The challenge is both require time, money and resources.

If the longer-term trend is that in-person attendance numbers will be lower even after COVID is completely a non-issue (which could be months or years from now), then that creates a challenge.

Namely, that many churches have the highest level of staff and budgets invested where they’re seeing the lowest returns.

Meanwhile, online is understaffed. You probably won’t have a big impact online if you spend 1% of your staffing resources on it.

The trap is that you end up doing nothing well.

I wrote a full post on that here with some suggestions if you want to explore that more deeply more.

You probably won’t have a big impact online if you spend 1% of your staffing resources on it.

Click to Tweet

END .ss-ctt-wrapper

5. Study the Micro and Macro Shifts in Culture Happening Right Now

Wayne Gretzky, arguably the greatest hockey player of all time, famously said his strategy was to skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been.

Some of the shifts happening right now are deep and permanent. Cultural patterns are changing before our eyes.

In this interview, Brian Chesky, co-founder of Airbnb, talks about how Airbnb saw an 80% drop in revenue in 8 weeks, but how they reversed that within months.

What Airbnb did, by reading the market, is create a new home cleanliness and sanitization benchmark for wary travelers scared of catching COVID. In addition, they realized most people wanted to vacation, but now it was a place in the country or a small town within driving distance of where they lived. So, Airbnb immediately pivoted to local, more rural rentals rather than basing their whole strategy on people flying to exotic cities, a pattern which of course, collapsed in minutes when the world shut down.

So where’s the puck going? Obviously, things are still changing quickly, but there are two cultural shifts I’m watching.

The first is the emergence of the home as the new epicenter of life (work, school, shopping, entertainment and eating). As church leaders keep trying to regather people in a building, perhaps a longer vision is to figure out how to come alongside people in their homes.

A second, related trend is smaller, localized gatherings. For the immediate future anyway, it appears people are most comfortable with home gatherings and smaller clusters. The church can very easily function in those settings (gathering is important), and it scales much more easily than a central facility-based strategy.

Just a note: as of August 2020, Airbnb is now even with last year’s revenue simply by shifting how it did travel. If they left calcified their business model as dependent on people getting on planes to fly thousands of miles, it might be the end.

What cultural trends can you cooperate with?

A strategy based on past behavior won’t reach people in the present, let alone in the future.

A strategy based on past behavior won’t reach people in the present, let alone in the future.

Click to Tweet

END .ss-ctt-wrapper

6. Focus on Your Sweet Spot 

You have a sweet spot as a leader, and my guess is your church has a sweet spot, as well.

Crisis throws everyone and everything off balance, and it’s easy to forget what you’re truly gifted at and excel at as a result.

Jim Collins asked the question this way: What can you be best in the world at?

I know that’s an audacious question, but the more you can align your gifting and passion with how you spend your time, the more effective you will be.

Sure, in start-up mode, you need to do a little of everything. But over time, the more you spend doing what you’re best at, the more you will love what you do and the greater value you’ll bring to your team and cause.

Often churches and leaders who plateau get stuck because they’re not operating in their area of peak giftedness or effectiveness.

For me, I realized I’m essentially a communicator. Everything I do (this, podcasting, speaking, writing books) is geared around communication. So, the best gift I can bring to any organization is clear and compelling communication.

What’s your gift? For some of you it’s relationship. For others, strategy. And what’s your church best at? For some churches, it’s caring for the poor and marginalized. Others host great services. Others, it’s content creation. For still others, it’s facilitating relationships and connection.

You may be good at many things, but you’re only great a few things. Spend your time there.

You may be good at many things, but you’re only great a few things. Spend your time there.

Click to Tweet

END .ss-ctt-wrapper

7. Ask What Your Successor Would Do

This is a fun mental exercise.

Ask yourself what your successor would do. If you left your role today and a new person started tomorrow, what’s the first thing he or she would do?

Strangely, you almost immediately sense an answer to that question. Oh, they’d shut down X and move Sean to this role. 

Once you figure that out, just go do it.

Often reframing the question gives you clarity about the answer.

Answer this: If I left this role today, what’s the first thing my successor would do? Then go do it.

Click to Tweet

END .ss-ctt-wrapper

Get Your WHOLE Team Solving The Problems You’re Facing

Sometimes leadership feels lonely, and that’s often because you struggle to get your whole team working together.

It’s never been more important for your organization to hit your goals. It’s also never been more difficult.

70% of employees tell Gallup they’re disengaged at work.

If you want to reverse that, here’s how.

Lead a Better Team is my brand new, online, on-demand course that gives you a comprehensive, step-by-step strategy to:

Get far better results with the same team (you don’t need to fire everyone and start over)
Deepen employee engagement
Actually achieve the goals you set
Eliminate toxic culture and deal with toxic team members; and
Stop micromanaging because you’ve built a self-motivated team.

All the while freeing up time for you to do focus on what you do best.

The best part? Lead A Better Team gives you the tools you need to help your team thrive whether they work remotely, in person or you lead a hybrid team.

Get instant access to Lead a Better Team NOW and start taking your team into a better future.

Introductory pricing expires soon, so hurry.

How Do You Find Momentum?

Those are a few strategies to help you find momentum.

What have you found helpful? Scroll down and leave a comment.

The post 7 Keys to Finding Momentum and Growth When There Are No Good Options appeared first on CareyNieuwhof.com.

Source: 7 Keys to Finding Momentum and Growth When There Are No Good Options

The post 7 Keys to Finding Momentum and Growth When There Are No Good Options appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Carey Nieuwhof: There’s no question we’re undergoing one of the biggest transformations in history, but the digital disruption that’s happening around us every day has caught most church and business leaders off guard.

Clay talks about how large and small organizations are missing out on one of the greatest opportunities there is, and some ideas on how to respond.

Welcome to Episode 193 of the podcast. Listen and access the show notes below or search for the Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts and listen for free.

Guest Links

Clay on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | ClayScroggins.com

How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge

CNLP 035: Leading Young At North Point – An Interview With Clay Scroggins

CNLP 153: Clay Scroggins On How To Lead When You’re Not In Charge

Free Downloads

Carey Nieuwhof Resource: Connexus Church Online Philosophy Document

Clay Scroggins Resource: 4 Big Moves

Links Mentioned

Join The Art of Better Preaching waitlist today! Don’t miss out on open enrollment coming summer 2018!

BelaySolutions.com/Carey

How to Do Crazy Good Turns – Frank Blake on The Tim Ferriss Show

CNLP 174: Jeff Henderson On The Dos And Don’ts Of Marketing Your Church Or Product And The Backstory To The #FOR Initiative

CNLP 173: Craig Groeschel Deconstructs His Approach To Preaching, Leadership, Success, The Future And More

CNLP 115: Sean Seay On Winning In Leadership While Failing At Home And How He Got Healthy

3 Insights from This Episode

1. Ignoring digital disruption is a bad idea

Many churches and businesses are staring at their declining numbers and scratching their heads; totally dismissing the digital explosion happening around them.

The largest car service in the world owns zero cars.

The largest hotel industry in the world owns zero rooms.

The largest retail store in the world owns zero inventory.

It’s unwise to ignore what’s going on in today’s culture. In order to reach more people, the church has to work through what it looks like to engage a digital world.

2. Live experiences matter, but today’s culture calls for a screen-first mentality

Live experiences are absolutely relevant and matter, but don’t be limited to the boundaries of a building. The needs of people can’t be left to be met only on Sunday mornings or weekdays from 9 to 5.

There are very few places anyone goes in life prior to first visiting them on a screen. A quick search online is the first impression that can lead to continued online and physical engagement. Buildings can host a lot of people, but websites can reach so many more.

3. It’s hard to leverage digital touches with an analog mindset

The digital world and analog world need each other, because they fuel each other’s growth. We Amazon Prime some things and drive to a store to purchase others. Online and in-store go hand-in-hand and the same is proving true in churches who keep track of their online attenders. The more people watch church online, the more people engage in the church community.

The definition of attend is changing. It’s hard to keep track of how many people are engaged in your services online, but digital attendance needs to count in some way. Every church has to figure out a strategy for what to do after someone clicks on your site. What’s the pathway in place for them? Start with what you want to measure and build a strategy around it.

Quotes from This Episode

Leverage the tools of the day to reach people with the message and hope of Jesus.” – @clayscrogginsClick To Tweet

Engagement is the new attendance.” – @cnieuwhofClick To Tweet

There are very few places we go in life that we don’t go to a screen first.” – @clayscrogginsClick To Tweet

The front door of the internet is way bigger than the backdoor.” – @cnieuwhofClick To Tweet

A building can’t create the boundaries of your ministry.” – @clayscrogginsClick To Tweet

The map will appear when the car is in motion.” – @clayscrogginsClick To Tweet

Join The Art of Better Preaching Waitlist Today

Carey teams up with Mark Clark in his next online course The Art of Better Preaching. Join the waitlist now to receive exclusive insider bonuses and secure your spot when enrollment opens summer 2018!

The podcast releases every Tuesday morning

Subscribe for free and never miss out on wisdom from world-class leaders like Brian Houston, Andy Stanley, Louie Giglio, Ravi Zacharias, Craig Groeschel, Sue Miller, Kara Powell, Chuck Swindoll, Greg McKeown, Jon Acuff and many others.

Subscribe via

iTunes

Google Play

Stitcher

TuneIn Radio

Plus, I host a second podcast every month called the Canadian Church Leaders Podcast. If you’re Canadian, or just interested in ministry in a post-Christian culture, you can subscribe for free as well at:

iTunes

Google Play

Appreciate This? Rate the Podcast.

Hopefully, this episode has helped you lead like never before. That’s my goal. If you appreciated it, could you share the love?

The best way to do that is to rate the podcast on iTunes and leave us a brief review! You can do the same on Stitcher and on TuneIn Radio as well.

Your ratings and reviews help us place the podcast in front of new leaders and listeners. Your feedback also lets me know how I can better serve you.

Thank you for being so awesome.

Next Episode: Jerry Hurley   

Jerry Hurley joined the staff at Life Church in 1998, when it was a single campus and running about 600 people. He’s been on the senior leadership team as it’s grown to over 80,000 attenders and 29 locations today. Jerry shares his top insights on scale, leaving the corporate world and recruiting staff and volunteers. Plus, he tells the story of how he challenged Craig Groeschel to make a change that Craig calls one of the most important in his early ministry.

Subscribe for free now and you won’t miss Episode 194.

The post CNLP 193: Clay Scroggins on How the Digital Disruption is Changing Everything For Churches and Businesses appeared first on CareyNieuwhof.com.

Source: CNLP 193: Clay Scroggins on How the Digital Disruption is Changing Everything For Churches and Businesses

The post CNLP 193: Clay Scroggins on How the Digital Disruption is Changing Everything For Churches and Businesses appeared first on Passion for Planting.