This week you won’t be hearing much from me by way of the blog. My family and I are heading to Florida for a short get away trip. Taking the girls to Disney!!
I am looking forward to a short break from work, but will still be with the church in thoughts. It is so hard for me to disengage from this church because I LOVE THIS CHURCH. God continues to do amazing things as we saw several people take Next Step kits this past weekend. I am so pumped about our future. I believe we are on the verge of something incredible and we are preparing for it now.
Just a short reminder for the church in case you missed this past Sunday. Get your Christmas Eve tickets NOW. Tickets for two of the four services are almost gone. If you haven’t made plans yet and are flexible, please consider the 6pm on the 23rd or 3pm on the 24th. The other 2 are pretty much sold out.
Don’t forget to congratulate our new Executive Pastor, Joe Miller, on his new position at the church and for the birth of his 2nd child, Addison. She was born early this morning. If you aren’t sure what I’m talking about, then apparently you missed church on Sunday. Stinks to be you! It was AWESOME!
I will write again sometime next week.
Until then…
We all know what time it is, right? It’s turkey time! That time of the year when we gather with family to gorge ourselves and watch football. Sounds awesome to me!
But this week, in all your gluttony (which by the way is a sin), take some time to thank God for the many good things in your life. Here are some of mine:
God, thank You for…
…saving me!
…my hot wife.
…my wonderful kids. (most of the time)
…my health.
…my job.
…my car that is old but is still running well.
…my amazing church.
…the people I get to work with every day.
…how financially blessed I am.
…my Iphone.
…allowing me to make dumb mistakes, but still using me.
…the leaders who are crazy enough to lead with me at Crossroads!
…giving me an opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives.
…asphalt at the church.
…the many people who are investing their lives and money in our kids future at church.
…the people who serve every weekend at our church.
…my wonderful administrator who takes very good care of me.
…my wonderful in-laws who invested in this church plant with me several years back.
…the many great pastors who have mentored me from afar.
…my Iphone. (did I say that already?)
…saving me! (Yes, I did say that already, but I don’t ever want to take it for granted)
Take a moment and think about all that God has done for you and in you!
One of the hardest things to do is to look objectively and honestly at yourself or your organization for what might need to change to break a barrier. If you want to lead a church or an organization of a larger size, then you must take a hard look at what you are doing that is operating in a “smaller” mentality.
It’s amazing how many things you overlook or become comfortable that might keep you from breaking through to the next level. (Crooked pictures, boxes piled up in public areas, unfinished construction work, papers taped to the wall…) All of these things might be overlooked in a smaller setting, but in a larger setting they leave a very bad impression. There are many things that worked in a smaller setting that will NOT work if you want to move to the next level.
If you are in the place of transition, you must take a hard look at everything you do. Everything you do on a small scale it should reflect the quality of where you are trying to go.
Take a look around your church or your place of work today. Is it clean? Is the quality of display revealing where you are headed or holding you back from getting there? Seems like a trivial thing…but absolutely necessary to make the transition.
One of the most difficult things for a person with vision and drive to do is to sit still. I struggle with it all the time. I always want to be moving forward. But just because we want that doesn’t mean we are moving in that direction. Often we will have to make the appropriate changes or moves to get us there.
One of my favorite definitions for stupidity is to do the same thing but to expect different results. Unfortunately, we often don’t realize that what got us here won’t get us to the next level. The things that we did to move us beyond 125 will not be good enough to move us beyond 400. We can’t just keep doing business as we have and hope to break the barrier. We must be willing to make possibly some very difficult decisions.
What difficult decision is staring you in the face that you need to make? Perhaps you need to hire another sales employee even though you don’t have the sales to justify the position. It’s a catch 22. You need the sales person to move beyond where you are but you can’t afford them where you are. There are times in business and in church growth where you have to take a risk.
Perhaps you need to get rid of someone who can’t move with your organization to the next level. Do you have a leader that can’t handle the larger growth? If that is the case, you might have the difficult task of moving them to another position in your organization or releasing them. That can be a very hard conversation to have. But if you are not willing to have them, you will stay where you are.
This can apply to your personal life as well. What changes do you need to make that are maybe hard to do but are necessary for your spiritual growth? Do you need to cut off a relationship that isn’t leading you closer to Christ? Do you need to stop a sinful habit that is hard to give up? Do you need to cut down your hours at work to address your marriage?
You must be willing to make the changes if you want a breakthrough!
This week I am talking about growth barriers, especially as it applies to the church. But I believe you can approach it the same in most any organization or business.
What many don’t realize is that there are CHANGES that need to happen to move beyond these growth barriers.
The sad truth is that most churches never grow beyond 75 people because someone or some committee is not willing to make the appropriate changes to support the growth. The reason most churches remain a church of <100 is because one person is trying to do it all! That model will only support 75 or so. And the argument that God doesn’t want quantity, but wants quality is a load of crap! God cares about people and there are too many people going to hell for our churches to sit around and think our 4 and no more is making God happy!
When our church was stuck at 100-125 people, I had to make some drastic changes in myself, our leadership and environment. I spent far too long at that barrier because I honestly didn’t know what to do. When you find yourself at a barrier I would suggest doing a couple things:
1) Educate yourself! Buy books from other leaders who have done what you are trying to do. Don’t just sit there and feel bad for yourself. The reason you haven’t moved beyond this point is because you haven’t learned enough to lead at that level. If the leader doesn’t not grow to lead a larger organization, it will not happen!
2) Seek God for His direction. Just because something works for another leader doesn’t mean it is what God wants YOU to do. I spent hours in prayer and fasting asking God for His direction and for Him to open the doors for us to break beyond this point. He gave it to me, even after some pretty heated conversations between us! By the way…God always wins!
This week I hope to get some more time to blog about something that has been on my mind for a while now. It seems there are cycles of church growth where you hit what are called “barriers”. These barriers are not just unique to churches, but I would say to all organizations.
Perhaps you could look at it like the natural growing pains that you experience as a kid. (Remember those painful times when all your joints hurt and you could eat a cow everyday?) There are times when you sprout up quickly and then times when you stay where you are. But when it is time for your bones to stretch out again – it hurts. It’s hard on the body!
The same can be true for a church. When you find yourself up against a growth barrier it doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. It is often just part of the course of growth. It is what we do when we find our organization at that point that can make or break you.
This week I’m going to share what few insights I have found and the many things I am learning right now for our church.
Is your organization stuck? Are you personally stuck in a rut spiritually? Perhaps you need to make some real changes!
This past Sunday we launched our 3 weeks series called The Truth. Many have been praying and fasting for this series and already we have seen God move in amazing ways. We saw many people surrender their lives to Christ in just the first week. I don’t know about you but I never get tired of seeing God move in that way.
One of the highlights of the day was an interview that I did with earlier in the week with Satan. Enjoy!
I am looking forward to how God is going to move over the next 2 weeks. Continue to pray and fast and do anything to get someone who needs to hear the Gospel to church on Sunday!!!
This week I’ve had all of our staff take the Myers Brigg Personality Profile test. It’s amazing how answers a series of questions can pinpoint people’s personalities. These test can be fun, but it is what we do with these test that is important.
As I read the description for the type of personality I am, I was confronted with the things I’m not that good at doing. I realized I must deal with those revelations in one of two ways.
I can say, “That’s not true” and ignore my perceived “weaknesses”.
I can say, “That must not be how I am wired.”
When we try to fight the way God wired us, we will struggle. God wired each of us differently. I’m learning that I don’t need to try to become something I’m not, but rather surround myself with people who can be what I’m not. Just because I’m not wired to do a specific job doesn’t make me weak…it proves that’s not who God made me to be.
Begin to honestly assess yourself. Here’s a link to a free typology test. Begin to embrace the way God made you even if that means seeing how He didn’t make you. Be unique. Know your type.
This past weekend I spent some time with a leader of a large growing church who continuously kept imparting to me SELF-AWARENESS. As I keep replaying those conversations in my mind, I am beginning to realize what it means to be self-aware. What I have found is that most of us don’t want to be self-aware (including myself). We would rather be self-liars instead.
Many times we think we are good at things we are not.
Often we kid ourselves into thinking we can handle things we cannot.
We often fail to see our weaknesses because we think it makes us weak.
We easily over inflate our strengths to provide us with self-worth.
As I have begun to assess myself HONESTLY, I have found that I must embrace my weakness and personality tendencies. I am beginning to see that things I don’t do well doesn’t make me a failure…it just shows me what I’m not WIRED to do. Only when we can truly become honest with who we are can we get the right people around us to move us to where we want to go!
So what are some weakness you have that you need to embrace? In the next few posts I’ll share some more insights to discovering self-awareness.
