Archives For Leadership

Money to Fund the Mission

December 12, 2011 — 1 Comment

Mark Driscoll tweeted this weekend about a video in which he describes THE game changer in the history of Mars Hill.

A single thing that took them from 40 people to 800. A turning point that made the difference between their church shutting down and being the global influence that it is today through the Acts29 Network and Mark Driscoll’s teaching.

It wasn’t hiring a key staff. Putting on a big outreach. Giving a great sermon. Getting a new website. Him yelling at a bunch of men (that was a different video).

It was money.

A gift from a generous couple – a $200,000 gift that was 100x greater than any gift they’d ever received.

As ministry leaders we spend countless hours thinking through how to reach more people with the gospel. We plan ways to raise up new leaders. Get excited about new books/ideas that could be gamechangers. Dream of new websites that will singlehandedly reach the campus with the gospel. But we rarely think of money.

We just finished a week of planning and money didn’t come up once. I like to think that we can just suck it up and make do with what we have. I rarely, if ever, think “if we had all the money we needed, what would be the most effective way to reach this campus?”

 

Bill Hybels in his book Courageous Leadership calls the lead pastor (and in my case Campus Director) the CRR (Chief Resource Raiser).

He recalls when he first realized the necessity of money to fund the mission: “my romance with the notion of building an Acts 2 church had blinded me to the harsh realities of funding one.”

He goes on to say:

Theologian RC Sproul once asked me how much ministry I thought I could do for a hundred bucks. I assumed he was hoping for some deep theological response, but before I could think of one he answered the question himself, “You can do about a hundred dollars worth.” He was simply making the point that a fruitful ministry requires resources.

Be as theological as you want to be, but the church will never reach her full redemptive potential until a river of financial resources starts flowing in her direction. And like it or not, it is the leader’s job to create that river and to manage it wisely.

 

I just wonder what would change if our ministries and staff were abundantly funded. Imagine what God could do.

 

photo courtesy of Sprengben

 

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Foundational articles to read with your team as you start the year

August 15, 2011 — 2 Comments

I love reading articles together as a staff team. There are few better ways to align your team and learn to speak the same language.

They’re short and to the point (at least the good ones are!).

And the articles can be the bad guy- they can speak authoritatively on a topic and staff don’t hear “my director is trying to get us to _____ (share our faith more, do more work)” they hear “that author who is infinitely wise is saying that we should ______”.

Whether your senior staff are reading these ideas for the 10th time or it’s a new staff reading it for the first, foundational ideas need to be over-communicated repeatedly.

It doesn’t always have to be articles, I’ll often print up a bog post (even my own!) to read with our team.

Here are some of the staple articles that have shaped our team (and that we’ll likely be reading this fall):

  • The First Two Weeks– our team reads this every year in preparing for the fall. Really short and to the point. Sets your team’s expectations for the first weeks (16 hour work days!):
    • Gathering Christians, reaching non-Christians…or both?
    • What to do on appointments
    • What to do with returning students
  • Building Movements – this article has shaped our movement more than any other. Jim Sylvester shares his considerable wisdom in what it takes to build a thriving movement.
  • Going from 20 to 200 – a shorter and easier to read version of Jim’s principles. 5 principles to grow a small ministry into a thriving movement. This one might be better to read with your team or students than Jim’s.
  • Hearing the Music Of the Gospel – a longer article but so good. Are you carried along by the rhythm of God’s Spirit through his Word or doing the mechanical dance steps of behavioral change? This is a good one to have your team read over an hour of time with God and then come back and discuss as a team.
  • Empowering Staff thru Staff Jobs– great wisdom from Eric Swanson on empowering staff to lead as directors. This fall we just quoted from this article and used the ideas as we communicated to our team on staff jobs – but a great read for team leaders.
    • “Each job is “director level” in that the other staff are subordinate to him or her in this area.”
    • “Each job is “owned” by the staff in charge and is autonomous in its responsibility. If the staff does not carry it out or motivate others to do so, it simply doesn’t get done. No one bails him or her out.”
    • Each staff is expected to be an “expert” in his/her job. He needs to read books, articles, magazines, listen to talks, and interact with other staff from other campus to develop expertise. He or she becomes a resource for the other staff in their area of expertise. You and the other staff may be purposefully ignorant: “I don’t know, but Rabs is the expert in that area.”

What are some of your favorite articles?

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Planning for Year 2023 – Step by Step Plan

August 11, 2011 — 2 Comments

Part 3 of a series on Planning for Year 2023 – click to read parts 1 & 2

“Without specific team goals, team members become confused and revert only to what they like to do or want to do. Goals that motivate always contain a ‘stretch element’ to them. In other words, they go beyond what you did last year and cannot be accomplished by simply plugging in last year’s methods and strategies. Most staff would rather fail at attempting something great than to succeed at something mediocre that just feels like failure.”
Eric Swanson

As a new staff, I always found the setting of our team goals to be rather arbitrary:

Team Leader: “OK, we had 50 coming to Cru last year, what should our goal be this year team?”

Staff 1: “I think we’ll have 75 this year”

Staff 2: “Why?”

Staff 1: “I don’t know – because 75 is a little more than 50?”

Staff 2: “Where’s your faith? Let’s add a zero! We’re going to have 500 this year!”

Staff 1: “You’re an idiot”

Staff 2: “No, I have faith”

Team Leader: “Ok, 60 it is.”

Staff 3 (me) texts to staff 4: “SMH” (that is, if we’d had cell phones back then)

 

So how in the world do you set goals that are full of faith AND realistic?

We’ve found the steps Jim Sylvester lays out to be very helpful. We rely VERY heavily on this model for our yearly goals. And it’s uncanny how accurate it has been for us, year after year.

At the end of his (119 page!) article Principles God Honors, Jim lays out a Step By Step Growth of a Movement.

Jim’s proven timeline has helped us set incredibly faith-stretching goals that are based in reality.

 

I’ll list out the years (with his descriptions of each year) below. A couple questions to ask yourself/your team:

  • What year are we currently in?
  • What should be our goals for this year be?
  • What will it take to make those goals a reality?

 

I would love to know – how does your team determine numerical goals?

 

Jim Sylvester’s Step by Step Growth of a Movement

His caveat: “This is merely a model from our campus at Ohio State. This is to he adapted to each unique campus. On a campus where Greeks are the most dominant social group, one would target Freshman Greeks very heavily. On our campus we found the dorms and RAs as the dominant social group, so we started there.”

 

Year One

  • Staff Team – Make sure staff team is on board in areas of ministry philosophy and commitment level.
  • Commitment – make sure staff are using their time wisely (i.e. 35 “hot hours”)
  • Reality is my friend. Time is my friend.
  • Working with students is messy. Since we are committed to working with students, we are willing to live with messy.

 

Year Two

  • Create a socially sharp atmosphere. Seek to bring leaders and other socially sharp individuals into the movement. Socially sharp individuals visible at meetings; make the atmosphere attractive and comfortable with quality activities. There has to be an atmosphere where men feel comfortable – AIA emphasis etc.

 

Year Three – Foundational Freshmen Class

  • These will be the leaders of the movement in 2-3 years. The entire movement is focused on the Freshman class.
  • Freshmen class of 80
  • This takes 120 Freshmen entering Freshmen studies in September
  • The gospel shared individually with about 1,500 Freshmen.
  • In the first 4 weeks, staff share Christ with 50 new students.
  • A student planned and student run movement

 

Year Four – Movement Maker Class

  • 80 freshmen who will return 40 strong as sophomores
  • 120 or more students attending weekly meeting.
  • Send 25 students on summer projects. (High percent from foundational class.)

 

Year Five – The Over-the-Hill class

  • 100 freshmen in discovery groups by the end of the year.
  • Cru meeting over 200.
  • Presence in all the dorms.
  • Movements starting in the Geek system, athletes, band, international students, and ethnic minorities.
  • 40 Students going on summer projects.
  • 40 + Students leading successful small groups.
  • Expansion campuses a major focus; they feel absolutely a part of the whole.
  • Hearts that pray – a prayer movement in place.
  • Ownership and love for the partnership country.
  • Students want and value training. 60-80 students come to training.
  • Student ownership runs deep.

 

Year Six

  • Win a Freshman class of 160
  • 300 people at Cru meeting.
  • 300 students involved in small group Bible studies.
  • Daily Prayer drawing 25 students; as large as 50 for Praise God Its Friday.
  • 50 students going on summer projects.
  • Students involved from every segment of campus.
  • Expansion campuses now flourishing, we’re now on 1 campus for every two of our staff.
  • A rich love for Jesus permeates movement.
  • Students are sacrificial for the cause.
  • Movement has a heart for laborers.
  • Praying for awakening and God’s hand in our movement.
  • Burdened for the lost and the needs of the world.
  • Model student leaders and spokesmen.
  • Students are captured by the campus vision & our potential for impacting the world.

 

Year Seven

  • 400 + at Cru.
  • 400 students in small groups.
  • Win a freshmen class that will return 100 involved sophomores (i.e. 200 freshmen in groups in April)
  • 60+ students going on summer projects stateside and worldwide.
  • Our expansion campuses have movements of over 50 and feel a part of the whole.
  • 10 seniors graduate and come on our staff or go on stint, 5 other students go into full-time ministry or seminary.
  • Continue previously mentioned health characteristics.
  • Major presence in the Greek system, with athletes, African Americans, Internationals.

 

Year Eight – The Saturation Freshmen Class

  • Win the Freshmen Class of 300 that will return 150 sophomores
  • Unless you are on a campus of greater than 40,000 students, this class will see the campus reach saturation before they graduate.

 

Year Nine

  • Win a freshman class of 400 (200 return as sophomores)
  • In every segment of the university
  • Totally visible throughout the university community.
  • Present in the areas of influence of this university.
  • 75 Seniors – 20% graduate into full-time Christian work, 100 jrs, 150 soph, 400 fish
  • Touching the world; laborers going to every culture.

 

Year Ten

  • A freshmen class that returns 250 sophomores
  • 80 seniors, 150 juniors, 200 sophomores, 500 freshmen
  • 200 students seeing multiplication
  • Impacting the entire State
  • Each of our classes is growing because evangelism is extensive throughout University
  • 100 students meeting daily for prayer

 

Year Eleven

  • 150 Seniors
  • 240 Juniors
  • 275 Sophomores
  • 600 freshmen (1265 in small groups)
  • Saturating Greek system, dorms, athletes, internationals, African Americans

 

Year Twelve – The Dream Come True

  • Cru: 1,000
  • 200 seniors, 250 juniors, 300 sophomores, 600 freshmen
  • 40 students going into full-time Christian work, 20 of those joining staff/going on stint
  • 80 graduating satellite campus students, 20 of whom go into full-time Christian work.

 

photo courtesy of Untitled blue 

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Take Responsibility for your Leadership Development and Read More

August 5, 2011 — Leave a comment

I’ve posted thoughts on this before, but this is really good:

(via Matt Perman)

Quotes from it:

  • I read one or two leadership books a month out of sheer discipline
  • I don’t ask myself if I feel like reading another book
  • I NEED to read
  • I have to take responsibility
  • I have some people that I have been given charge to lead well
  • I have to read to get better as a leader
  • I’m asking you: Take responsibility for your leadership development and read more
  • I’m asking you to get around other leaders who are better than you
  • Every 30 days, ask “who can I get lunch or dinner with?”
  • “Who can I get around who’s been where I haven’t been. And how can I ask them the right questions to stretch myself and get better?”

A few takeaways:

  • I need to figure out how to do this better – I think maybe cutting out internet before bed. For some reason the Kindle app on the iPad has helped me do this more (read instead of surf).
  • I plan on having my team watch this – to continue to reinforce a culture of self-development. I talked to a Cru staff member this summer who read 20 books on building movements last fall (in one semester!)! He takes this seriously.
  • I try to seize opportunities to meet with leaders during the summer (especially at Staff Conference) but I wonder what this looks like during the busyness of the year?

What do you think? What are your takeaways?

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Every Christian on Twitter Should Read This

August 2, 2011 — 2 Comments

These two posts should be required reading for any Christian on Twitter:

  • John Mayer cautions us to be careful in seeking out “joy in little, tiny statements – little, tiny applause hits.”
  • And John Piper responds to John Mayer with some wise words on using Twitter for the glory of God.

Though I don’t personally care for John Mayer’s music (yes, I understand he’s a gifted musician – just not my style), I have tremendous respect for his thoughtful approach to social media. It takes tremendous conviction to delete a Twitter account with 4 million followers.

John Mayer shares, “I realized about a year ago that I couldn’t have a complete thought anymore. I was a tweetaholic. I had four million twitter followers, and I was always writing on it.”

So, to avoid the temptation of publishing himself and to increase his mental capacity for creativity, Mayer deleted his twitter and stopped blogging.

His discipline and insight are remarkable. There’s a lot we can learn from him as we pursue a greater cause than music.

So should we all stop Tweeting? I’d say no.

 

John Piper has a very wise response:

Mayer said, “I couldn’t have a complete thought anymore.” To me this is almost the opposite of what happens. But that may depend on what we aim to do with Twitter.

Tweets do not diminish my ability to have a complete thought, they demand it. That’s what a Tweet is—a thought that is complete enough to press some God-focused truth into someone’s consciousness.

This kind of tweeting does not distract from thinking. It demands thinking. A peculiar kind of thinking—thinking that is capacious, concise, and compelling. [yes he defines capacious in his post!]

If I did not know a great God and a great Savior and a great Life and a great Plan, I would not bother writing Tweets—or books. But if God can be spoken of meaningfully in a 300 page book, he can also be spoken of in a 30-minute sermon, and a three line Tweet. All efforts to speak of the Infinite make our little differences between long and short irrelevant.

 

John Piper’s original post on why he started Tweeting in the first place is well-worth reading:

He responds to those who negatively/accurately say:

“These media tend to shorten attention spans, weaken discursive reasoning, lure people away from Scripture and prayer, disembody relationships, feed the fires of narcissism, cater to the craving for attention, fill the world with drivel, shrink the soul’s capacity for greatness, and make us second-handers who comment on life when we ought to be living it. So boycott them and write books (not blogs) about the problem.”

With,

“Yes, there is truth in all of that, but instead of boycotting, try to fill these media with as much provocative, reasonable, Bible-saturated, prayerful, relational, Christ-exalting, truth-driven, serious, creative pointers to true greatness as you can.”

 

Piper’s final thoughts on Twitter are profound:

“All things were created through Christ and for Christ” (Colossians 1:16). The world does not know it, but that is why Twitter exists and that’s why I Tweet.”

 

How have you fought against seeking “joy in tiny applause from tiny statements”?
What is your goal for using Twitter or other social media?

 

images courtesy of P Keigan and Micah_68

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How to Start Well with your Staff

August 1, 2011 — 18 Comments

“What you do with your staff during the days preceding the school year will largely determine the quality of your staff relations and the preparation of your staff team for the task ahead.”

 

As we look to the fall, what are the primary things your staff need to start the year off?

Today is my first day to be back 100% focused on our campus (after being on assignment at CSU all summer).

First matter of business: planning our Staff Planning week. We meet as a team and plan for 5 days from 9-noon (everyone works on ministry to-do’s in the afternoon).

 

My tendency in staff planning is to jump right into business and assume that everyone is as motivated, comfortable (in team relationships, with the campus/students), and aligned as I am. That’s why every year I re-read this article: Orienting Your Team (all quotes are from that article).

What do staff need?

“You can pretty much assume that most staff return willing and able but not very motivated and with little or no vision. A summer on location can drain the life out of a person as much as a difficult overseas project.

 Their felt needs have to do with a sense of belonging to a family. Am I really an important and an integral part of the team? Is my contribution and input valued? Does anyone really care about me?

Do I really like these people? Do I really know them? Staff need to know that they are working with loyal friends and no matter how difficult the task, you can do anything with your friends.”

 

According to the article, a new staff/intern needs three things:

  1. Orientation to a new town/campus (campus tour, set up utilities/bank/etc, unpack, get settled)
    • Try to accomplish this before staff planning week!
  2. Orientation to how your team and ministry operates
    • A typical staff weekly schedule
    • Philosophy of ministry (we have a one page sheet called “How we do Ministry – One Page” which, as you would expect, tells our entire philosophy of ministry on one page!)
    • Team norms (how we operate as a team)
  3. Orientation to their specific job
    • What specific things they will be doing this year - What is expected of them (staff jobs, position focus, setting personal ministry goals)
    • What they can expect from you

Team Leaders- what do you do with your team before the school year begins?

Staff – what are your primary needs going into the year?

 

 photo courtesy of amirjina

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Seek Time with Great Leaders

July 8, 2011 — 3 Comments

Whenever you have access to great leaders, take advantage of it by getting time with them and taking copious notes.

Is it OK that I quoted myself from a previous blog post? : )

 

Yesterday I interviewed a long-time Cru Campus Director and furiously took 9 pages of notes (which I’ll be sharing on a future post).

I cannot think of a better way to have spent an hour. His insight will change how I lead our team (and staff meetings!) and our ministry. I learned more in that hour than I could have from reading every Andy Stanley leadership book. He may not be a better leader than Andy Stanley but I guarantee he is a better College Campus Director than Andy Stanley.

 

My boss, Tim Norman, was aware that our movement would like to grow in the area of evangelism. He emailed me yesterday to let me know that one of the preeminent evangelism experts in the world is living right around the corner in our apartment complex (up here at CSU). John Nyquist, who is a living legend in Crusade, was recruited to staff by Bill Bright, helped launch Campus Crusade in Western Europe and now serves as the head of the Evangelism Department at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (replacing Robert Coleman).

So next week, a few members of our team are going to buy John Nyquist some coffee and try to absorb his wisdom on building movements of evangelism (something he’s been doing and thinking about since the 1950’s!).

 

Cru staff – you will be in Colorado for 10 days with some of the best leaders in the world at what you do. Take advantage of it!

How have you benefited from seeking time with Great Leaders?

 

photo courtesy of Steve Rhodes

 

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Blogging, Ministry Growth & Ambition

July 7, 2011 — 7 Comments

Part 1 of a series on Godly Ambition

“God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”

I Peter 5:5

 

I came across that verse in my quiet time last week and somehow for the first time I deeply considered that God might actually be actively opposed to the things I’m doing for Him.

Because the things I’m doing for His name devolve quickly toward what I’m doing for my name.

 

Specifically I’ve really wrestled with making a name for myself in 2 areas:

Blogging and Directing a college ministry.

I haven’t seen too many Christian bloggers write about pride, but I guarantee every blogger struggles with it. Because one thing blogging (and Twitter/Facebook) will do to you is make you incredibly narcissistic and concerned about “Brand You”. How many people are following me? How many are reading my blog? How do I extend my “reach”?

The pure motive of why I care about my blog and extending its reach is seeking to share resources/ideas and get invaluable feedback on ministry/leadership. It’s poor stewardship of my time (taking the time to write) if only 3 people read every post. And the more voices that can weigh in on any topic, the better off all of us are.

But is it inherently prideful to care about extending your influence?

 

In leading a college ministry, our goal is to build a big enough movement so that every student on campus hears about Christ from a friend. That’s no small ambition. We’re striving to have 1000 college students involved and aligned to reach the campus for Christ.

How do you seek to build something of that size without slipping into building a Cru-kingdom or Tim-kingdom?

 

So what does it look like for you?

How do you strive for excellence, success, and growth in ministry while remaining humble and God-honoring?

 

photo courtesy of www.dafyd.me.uk 

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The Chief Idol of our Age: Information

June 30, 2011 — 2 Comments

“1/3 of Smartphone Users Check Facebook and Twitter Before Getting Out Of Bed” – source

 

I believe Tim Challies may have diagnosed the chief idol of our age (or at least one of my chief idols):

We have begun to believe that the accumulation of information somehow leads to wisdom, that more information will solve society’s ills and improve our lives. We place our faith in information.

We find joy and life in that information – not in using that information or turning that information into useful action, but simply in its constant flow.

 

Quentin Schultze, professor of communication arts and sciences at Calvin College, observes the godlike importance we attach to information and coins the word informationism to describe it. According to Schultze, informationism is

“a non-discerning vacuous faith in the collecting and dissemination of information as a route to social progress and personal happiness.”

 

What we are finding is that more information does not necessarily lead to more wisdom. In fact, the very opposite may be true.

More information may lead to less wisdom.

- from Chapter 7 of Tim Challies’ book The Next Story.

 

A few steps (from Challies) toward breaking free from information worship:

Measure and Reduce Input –

  • “Try to quantify the information that comes your way; seek to understand how much of it serves a tangible purpose and how much of it is really just noise.”
  • Unfollow some people.
  • Trim down your RSS feed.
  • Look beyond the surface to really ascertain what heart idols compel us to compulsively check Twitter, Facebook, Blogs.

 

Get Wisdom –

  • “Without the distraction of dealing with vast amounts of information and without overtaxing our brains with hundreds of sources of information, we will have the time to know more about less.”
  • “Though it cost all you have, get wisdom.” Proverbs 4:7

 

Success in life “is not in the accumulation of facts, but in living a life marked by wisdom, by the application of knowledge.” – Challies

 

What steps are you taking to deal with informationism?

 

photo courtesy of heathbrandon

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Learning from the Biggest Cru Movements

June 29, 2011 — 3 Comments

This Summer I’m going to interview some of the Directors of the largest Cru movements in the U.S.

- to pick their brains on how they operate as a large movement, what elements played into them growing, how they lead as directors, etc.

 

Size isn’t everything, but to quote my boss, Tim Norman: “There are good reasons why these movements are successful. Some of which others can principally embrace.”

 

I did this 3 summers ago with a few directors and it was extremely beneficial for my growth as a Director (and for our movement).

This time I plan on blogging on some of their insights (so we can all benefit).

 

I’d love your help: What questions should I ask them? What would you want to know?
Any Directors you’d recommend me interviewing?

 

photo courtesy of shrieking tree via flickr

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