by Rich Birch: Have you ever watched people arrive on Sunday morning at your church and wondered what they’re feeling in that moment?

We know that feelings and emotions are incredibly powerful motivators and memory-makers. In fact, studies have proven that we make more decisions based on emotion rather than logic.

This is especially true when we think about people’s reactions to discussions of faith and religion. It’s an emotionally charged topic; similarly, people experience a wide variety of emotions when they visit a church for the first time.

It has often been said that polite conversation excludes both religion and politics, although we seem to live in a day that has discarded the idea of avoiding political conversations. The underlying concept of this “polite conversation” rule deals with the fact that people prefer to avoid emotional conversations, and religion certainly brings emotion to the surface. That being said, part of what we need to do is to understand the emotions people feel when they show up on a Sunday morning and to be able to respond by caring for and meeting people where they’re at in life. Our churches need to be first-time guest obsessed.

Here are five emotions first-time guests likely feel when they’re arriving at your church. I’d love to hear your thoughts, observations, and reflections on this topic in the comments below.

…

Source: 5 Emotions First-time Guests Feel When They Arrive at Your Church – unSeminary

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by Bobby Harrington: Discipleship.org pulled together top national disciple making leaders to map out a common disciple making process for churches and church leaders to use. The model we developed shows people moving from conversion, where a person starts as a spiritual infant, and then on up through becoming a spiritual parent and a grandparent who makes disciple makers (multiplication).

The following diagram illustrates the process:

The effective utilization of this process will be an important key to disciple making strategies. And having a disciple making strategy is the key to becoming a disciple maker and multiplying churches. This strategy drives missions, service, and sanctification. It is hard to overstate the importance of disciple making which is why we are creating tools to help you as a disciple maker.

We encourage our readers to examine the process as presented in the diagram. In the near future, Discipleship.org will be making more material on this process available.

For immediate reference material on this model, we recommend The Real Life Discipleship Training Manual by Jim Putman, Brandon Guindon, Avery Willis, and Bill Krause or the chapter entitled “Journey” in the book that I wrote with Josh Patrick, The Disciple Maker’s Handbook.

Written by Bobby Harrington

Bobby Harrington is the Executive Director of Discipleship.org, a national platform, conference, and ministry that advocates for Jesus’ style of disciple making. He is the founding and lead pastor of Harpeth Christian Church (by the Harpeth River, just outside of Nashville, TN). He has a Doctor of Ministry degree in consulting and has spent years as a coach to church planters and senior pastors. He is the author of several books on discipleship, including DiscipleShift (with Jim Putman and Robert Coleman) and The Disciple Maker’s Handbook (with Josh Patrick).

Source: A Discipleship Process to Help You Make Disciples

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by Rich Birch: Thanks so much for joining us for another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today I have Greg Curtis with me, director of assimilation at Eastside Christian Church.

Eastside Christian Church was founded in 1962 and was recently named the second fastest growing church in the country with four locations in California and Minnesota. The problem that most churches experience is not necessarily getting first time guests, but rather getting those guests to stay, and that is Greg’s area of expertise at Eastside. He’s here with us today to talk about the scalable assimilation strategy Eastside transitioned to since the last time we had him on the show.

See what isn’t working. // One of the first programs Eastside used was called First Step With Gene, where those new to the church could have pizza with Senior Pastor Gene Appel. Each year they had an average of 1200 people attend. During this program people heard Gene’s story and the church’s story. At the end, they learned about a seven-week program which everyone was pointed to. It was a kind of discipleship launch into small groups. This worked extremely well, but the problem was that they only did this program quarterly. There were so many new people coming through the doors, this system couldn’t support the growth, especially since Gene couldn’t be everywhere at once. Ultimately this lead to people waiting too long to attend the seven-week program at all and they never quite got plugged into the church.
The Four P’s. // Greg has worked with churches across the world and seen their assimilation process. From there he worked to develop a scalable system for assimilation that could be applied anywhere, regardless of church size and location. This lead to what he calls the Four Ps: one place, one program, two processes, two placements. This can be done in a myriad of forms. The idea is to send your guests to one place, maybe using an incentive such as giving them a free gift. At that one place, invite them to your one program, whatever it is, whenever it is. That one program is then engaging them into two processes, a volunteer placement process and a small group placement process.
Develop a program that works for your community. // Gene was exposed to Chris Hodges and his four week Growth Track program at Church of the Highlands. It’s ongoing and someone can jump in anytime or leave anytime. Eastside took this idea of providing an experience, rather than a class, and turned that into their Next Steps program. There are four steps and each step runs a different week of the month, but newcomers can start anytime and finish anytime, or attend the weeks out of order. The first step is Connect, featuring Gene on three short videos. Here people are encouraged to connect with Gene’s story, Eastside’s story and discover how pursuing God can impact their stories as well. Step two is Community where people enjoy some fun activities and discover how to build community by making friends, following Jesus and making a difference in a small group. Step three is Change Makers, where people discover how they are uniquely shaped to impact others. Week four is Compassion where people explore how they can unleash compassion both locally and globally.
Connect like people. // The table time during Next Steps is the most critical part. Greg explains that assimilation is bringing visitors from a seat (in the auditorium) to a circle of friends. Next Steps functions almost like a restaurant, with a host at the front to direct newcomers to a certain table of people that match their demographic, for example seating young adults together, or empty nesters together, or newlyweds together. Greg says, “The unspoken question when a guest comes to your church: is there anybody here like me?” If people who are new are able to connect with others in their same stage of life, it puts them at ease and sets them up to make friends more easily.

You can learn more about Eastside Christian Church at www.eastside.com or visit Greg’s website, Climbing the Assimilayas.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

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Source: Greg Curtis Offers Next Level Assimilation Insights For Your Church – unSeminary

The post Greg Curtis Offers Next Level Assimilation Insights For Your Church appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Carey Nieuwhof:

So are you an organizational leader, or are you more of a relational leader—a shepherd?

It’s an interesting question, and a highly polarizing one in the church today. Ditto for this blog. Just check out the impassioned comments on this post, where I argue the church today needs more entrepreneurial leaders, not more shepherds.

Why does this matter?

Well, it matters for a few reasons.

First, if a church is ever going to reach more than 200 people in their weekend services, that church will require leaders who are skilled in organizational leadership, not just relational leadership. 85% of all churches never break that barrier. (I’m offering a new course on scaling the 200 barrier this fall. You get on the insider track for that course here.)

Second, many church leaders grow frustrated because they want to reach more people but can’t understand why that proves so difficult.

Third, sometimes congregations expect leaders to behave relationally when what’s required to fulfil the mission is a more organizational style of leadership.

Finally, many leaders get frustrated when they are asked to lead in a way that’s different than their natural style. When an organizational leader tries to lead like a relational leader (and vice versa), frustration erupts.

When an organizational leader tries to lead like a relational leader, frustration erupts.Click To Tweet

Some Clarity

Some of us are organizational leaders, and some are more relational leaders.

You might be able to push your number higher through skill acquisition and hard work, but can a relational leader with a capacity of 100 really lead an organization of 10,000? Probably not. We might be able to double our number (from 200 to 400), but to stretch far beyond it might be too much for most of us. And it might never have been God’s plan for us in the first place.

Before you dismiss this as some kind of corporate leadership idea opposed to faith, think through it.

Moses embraced this kind of distinction between leaders when he reorganized a nation around leaders of tens, fifties, hundreds and thousands. And, I suppose he was the leader of hundreds of thousands.  You could argue Jesus followed a similar instinct when he organized disciples into groups of 70, 12, 3 and ultimately 1 (Peter).

Your Problem (And Mine)

Your problem (and mine) happens when an relational leader tries to fill the role of an organizational leader. And to a similar extent, when an organizational leader tries to fill a relational role.

The culture we live in raises the tension because:

We assume that bigger is better

The conferences we attend and books we read are written by leaders of large movements and organizations

We’re caught up in constant comparison and feel inadequate if we’re not moving toward the ‘next stage’

Add to that the outward thrust of the mission of the church and many leaders find themselves in a position where they are trying to lead in a way that pushes past their natural number.

You may dream of leading a big organization, but your wiring keeps pulling you back to a small one.

So…what are you? A relational leader or an organizational leader?

Relational Leaders

Here are some characteristics of relational leaders I’ve observed. Relational leaders:

1. Are Fueled By Direct Contact With People

If a day behind the computer screen or in meetings drains you, it might be a sign that you’re a relational leader.

You don’t care who you’re meeting with as long as you’re meeting with someone.

Relational leaders don’t care who they’re meeting with, as long as they’re meeting with someone.Click To Tweet

2. Hate Not Knowing Who’s In The Room

A relational leader feels an innate sense of panic if they don’t know everyone in the room.

They want to find out who’s who, catch up, and make sure they’re ‘known’ by everyone in their organization.

3. Stay Up To Date On The Details In People’s Lives

Because of the desire to know everyone, relational leaders will often want to know all the details at play in people’s lives.

Who got a new job.

Who’s sick and who’s healing.

Who’s in love.

Who got accepted to which college.

Who’s thinking of moving or a new job.

Who’s expecting.

They just want to know. They can’t help it. And they care. Deeply.

4. Think Systems Drain Energy Out Of A Great Community

There’s a world of difference between bureaucracy and systems, but a true relational leader struggles with systems.

They can’t imagine an organization where they don’t know most people, and the idea that ‘systems’ can care for people chafes at their core.

5. Struggle To Develop Other Leaders

Because of a relational leader’s desire to be known and to know others, relational leaders always struggle with developing other leaders.

Some might see other leaders as a threat. But some simply can’t imagine the idea of being in an organization larger than their personal span of care.

For this reason, most relational leaders will never lead an organization larger than 200 people. (I also wrote about this from several other angles in this post on 8 Reasons Why Most Churches Never Break the 200 Attendance Mark

An exceptionally gifted relational leader might be able to grow an organization or ministry area to 400 or even 500, but after that, they burn out and the span of care breaks down. This isn’t bad; it’s just true. You end up trying to be someone you’re not.

I’d love to hear from some relational leaders on the tension, struggle or blessing you feel from being a relational leader. Leave a comment! As you may have guessed, that’s not my style. I’m wired more as an organizational leader.

Organizational Leaders

By contrast, here is how organizational leaders think and operate. Organizational leaders:

1. Are Fueled By Systems That Help People

An organizational leader doesn’t have to care for people directly; he or she is content that people are being cared for well (by others). They think about how the system or organization can be improved to care for more people.

Again, it is very easy to characterize relational leadership as ‘Christian’ and systems as ‘non-Christian’, but that’s just not true. Read Acts 6 for more on how systems expanded the early church’s capacity to care for more people. No side can claim the moral high ground here.

2. Have No Deep Desire To Know Everyone In The Room

An organizational leader realizes by instinct that if the mission is going to grow, it’s going to mean their personal span of care is limited.

They are more excited that people are being reached by the mission than they are energized by knowing the people who are being reached personally. That doesn’t mean they don’t care, it just means they realize that a system that is going to reach hundreds or thousands demands that they not play a personal role in every aspect.

Organizational leaders realize if they need to know, their church won’t grow.

Organizational leaders realize if they need to know, their church won’t grow. Click To Tweet

3. Track Closely With People Within Their Direct Circle

Instead of trying to know a lot of people, an organizational leader will go deep with a few.

Strong organizational leaders will have an excellent relationship with 5-12 people who report to them or to whom they report. They are not people who simply sit behind a keyboard all day, because any great organization (even large ones) are always driven by people and healthy relationships.

Rather than being there for everyone, organizational leaders are there for the hospital visits, life celebrations and every day moments of a few of their closest and highest capacity leaders.

It doesn’t mean they never step outside that span of care to help others, it just means that inner circle of their closest leaders receive 80-95%% of their relational focus.

4. Are Comfortable With The Reality That Systems Are Key To A Growing Community

Organizational leaders have a heart for scale and systems because they believe that effective systems create capacity to care for even more people.

While being ‘organic’ and ‘authentic’ and ‘decentralized’ sounds more romantic, the truth is the most effective organizations that change the most lives (even for good) are the result of careful systems. The reason the device on which you’re reading this post works (or doesn’t work) is directly dependent on the system that produced it.

Ditto for the quality of your Disney vacation, or the organic food you’re eating for dinner tonight (assuming you didn’t pull it all from your garden today…and even if you did, you would need a minimal system to ensure it didn’t rot and the rabbits didn’t eat it all.)

5. Love Developing Other Leaders

Organizational leaders realize that as the organization grows, they have to develop and release more and more leaders. So they develop and deploy them.

Although in some respect that creates more distance between them and others in the organization (and sometimes that’s sad even for the leader), they understand it’s part of how growing systems work on this side of heaven.

Further more, they find considerable pleasure in watching other people develop their God given gifts and leading areas that they themselves used to lead.

While there can be a tendency to think releasing others to do what you used to do can make you less valuable to your church, ironically it makes you more valuable.

Releasing other leaders to lead doesn’t make you less valuable, it makes you more valuable.Click To Tweet

Anything to Add?

Those are some key difference I see between relational and organizational leaders.

I hope this helps you figure out which you might be and where you might best fit within an organization. At least, I hope it helps you address a tension many of us face when we try to figure out why things aren’t growing as fast as we had maybe hoped (again…not that growth is a goal for every leader…it just is for me and many others given the mission we’re on).

What do you see? Leave a comment!

The post Are You an Organizational Leader or a Shepherd? (10 Easy Ways To Tell) appeared first on Carey Nieuwhof.

Source: Are You an Organizational Leader or a Shepherd? (10 Easy Ways To Tell)

The post Are You an Organizational Leader or a Shepherd? (10 Easy Ways To Tell) appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Dick Blanc: As we continue to introduce more and more large churches to our RoadMap process, we’ve found this introductory content to be extremely beneficial to leaders who are looking to understand what it takes to grow and lead high-performing organizations. Over the next few weeks we will be republishing this series of content in hopes that it will be useful to you and your leadership team.

In my previous blog post, “How Do Large Churches Become High-Performing Organizations?”, I highlighted one of the key differences between high and low performing organizations.  The leaders of enduring high-performance companies regularly use a process to measure and assess the organization’s leadership alignment and capacity to achieve the vision on at least an annual basis. The question becomes, “What exactly are they measuring?”

In 30 years of advising leaders of high-performing companies, I’ve observed there are nine foundational areas of operational capacity that enable highly effective organizations to thrive over the long term.  These 9 foundations of organizational capacity were first developed through a collaboration between McKinsey & Company and Venture Philanthropy Partners, based on insights from hundreds of highly successful organizations.  The outcome was the creation of the Organizational Capacity Assessment Tool which has been used repeatedly by some of the strongest companies across the globe.

© 1996 – 2013 McKinsey & Company (edited for use by Leadership Network)

This survey tool has also been custom-designed and tailored to the non-profit social sector that comprises churches, ministries and other social enterprises focused on changed lives.  In fact, Leadership Network and McKinsey are collaborating on behalf of large churches on a RoadMap process for large church leadership teams that utilizes the highly proven McKinsey assessment tool and Leadership Network’s capabilities in facilitating ideas to actions and outcomes for your church leadership team.

In order to grasp the significance of this assessment for large churches, I want to dive deeper into each foundational areas of organization capacity and vision alignment.  Through two blog posts and a 7-week email series, we’ll discuss examples of what high performing organizations have done to thrive in each of the above 9 capability areas, and how each of these applies to your church.

How well is your church doing in the 9 organizational capacity areas?  Do your leadership team and key volunteers have clarity and strong alignment with your vision?

The Roadmap Process can help you find out!

Source: What Do Highly Effective Organizations Measure?

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