Surprise!

By Eddie Lowen

On my 30th birthday, a sweet woman from the church I served interrupted the close of the worship service. She walked up the center aisle holding a large birthday cake decorated with my name in icing. Everyone sang “Happy Birthday.” It was a very kind gesture and, looking back, it was a harmless moment, perhaps even helpful.

At the time, however, I didn”t like it. Why? I don”t like surprises””especially during the worship service!

Since that birthday surprise, I”ve learned that minimizing surprises is feasible, but eliminating surprises is impossible. When you throw hundreds (or thousands) of personalities and the Holy Spirit into the mix, surprises are inevitable. Besides, surprises often carry valuable lessons.

At a recent training event for another church, I shared the “Ten Biggest Surprises” I”ve encountered as a church leader. As I walked through them, heads nodded. These statements might offer some helpful language for addressing the dynamics in your ministry context.

SURPRISE 1: Maintaining a healthy team requires more energy than anything else. 

If your church has two staff members or more, someone must think about and work toward healthy team dynamics. In a medium-size church with three to six staff members, team health and camaraderie must be a recurring, frequent consideration. On a church staff with seven or more members, someone should have the ongoing responsibility of creating a healthy team. It”s a must.

There are talented, sincere people who cannot serve well on a team. And there are some talented, sincere preachers who shouldn”t be asked to lead a team. Why? Because the economics and ethics of teamwork are foreign to some people. Some people have adopted personal values that conflict with healthy team values.

If you lead a church staff or department, but aren”t reading leadership books and articles, or you”re skipping the leadership conferences that occur in nearby cities, you”re captaining your ship toward the rocks and reefs. Your choice: invest energy in team dynamics now on your own terms, or spend even more energy on team health later on someone else”s terms.

A final statement on healthy teams: if you have someone who is constantly damaging your team with suspicious or unflattering words, give one opportunity for full repentance. Set the bar high and make sure the warning is clear. If you get anything less than repentant actions, move the person out.

Even sincere and legitimate concerns can become land mines, if mishandled. We have a rule for our staff that has helped us manage staff concerns: As a staff member, you can express any concern you have””if you say it to the right person, at the right time, in the right way. I just saw a cousin of that principle on Twitter that was attributed to Dave Ramsey: “GOSSIP is talking to anyone in the organization about a problem he/she can”t fix.”

SURPRISE 2: The larger the church, the smaller the number of people who can lead in it. 

People look at a larger church and think, “A church like yours should have 150 people who could serve as elders.” They do the math and assume our leadership pool is relative in size to theirs.

My response to that statement is, “Yes, we have 150 people who could serve as elders in your church. But the number of elders who are equipped to lead our church is smaller.” The more multifaceted and complicated a ministry gets, the fewer the number of leaders with the combination of talent and temperament needed to lead it.

The same is true with church staffing. Many staff members in smaller churches would hate working for the church I lead because the planning and reporting requirements are greater, because more things are systematized, because there might be two supervisors between them and the lead minister, and because the freedom to work how and when they wish isn”t as great as they might receive in a smaller church setting. This is why churches outgrow staff members, and why some staff must move to larger or smaller churches to maximize their specific gift mix.

When your church grows larger, it won”t necessarily be “better” than the church it is today. But it will be more complex and tougher to lead. As a result, the pool of people from which you draw leaders will shrink. Sure, there are some principles and practices that apply regardless of statistics””but there are many others that simply do not. The refusal to acknowledge this reality has kept many churches from further growth.

SURPRISE 3: Evaluation precedes excellence.

When I started as a church leader, I thought excellence was mostly a result of ability and effort. Gifted people who give an honest effort do well, I believed. Over time, I realized that consistently lifting the quality level requires constant evaluation of everyone and everything.

Start building an evaluative culture by training staff and volunteers to perform self-evaluations. Some will tell you they don”t want to do it, but self-evaluation leads to self-awareness. At first, evaluations are awkward and painful because many people choose to feel hurt by blunt critique. But if you simultaneously encourage and evaluate, your team will learn that they aren”t being attacked””they”re actually being helped to grow personally and equipped to better succeed in their work. So, evaluate everything.

After someone on our staff hosted a simulcast event a few months ago, I asked if he would like some feedback. I didn”t have to ask permission, but my approach allowed him to open the door, rather than getting unanticipated input from me. I first conveyed how powerful the simulcast was and how deeply affected I was, which was the main thing. So, I gave him an A+ on hosting the event and giving his energy to it. But I also pointed out that the simulcast was much longer than people expected, and that no one watched over the thermostat. As a result of the unannounced length of the film, people grew restless. As a result of not having a host in our room, an attendee appointed himself to operate the thermostat and did it poorly. The environment swung from too cold to too hot in a matter of 20 minutes. It was a distraction.

Some might say, “So what?” There are bigger fish to fry. I agree””we evaluate those things, too. But why wouldn”t we highlight minor mistakes, too, so that we can avoid repeating them? Search the phrase “do your best” in the New Testament and you”ll see that ministry isn”t just supposed to be done. It”s supposed to be done well.

One way to move toward your church”s “best” is to evaluate everything: the music, the spoken welcome, the announcements, the printed program (bulletin), the small group leaders and curriculum, the preaching, the lighting, the parking, the children”s check-in process, the worship schedule, the sign-up forms, the website, the landscaping, the behavior of volunteers, the way offerings are collected and protected, the impact of children in worship . . . everything!

SURPRISE 4: Every needed leadership move will be uncomfortable for someone.

Almost every improvement made in a church will change part of the landscape that someone else finds beautiful. So, build consensus, but don”t wait for unanimity. Anticipate those who will be most affected by a change and do what you can to bring them aboard. Just don”t expect people to always cheer you, even when the step you”re taking is promising.

By the way, any elder team that doesn”t recognize this truth will likely spend too much time fearing or regretting needed leadership moves. Someone joked, “Leadership is disappointing people at a rate they can stand.” It”s funny because it”s true.

SURPRISE 5: Your weaknesses don”t matter, if you have the right strengths.

OK, that”s hyperbole. Weaknesses do matter and sometimes must be addressed aggressively. But many weaknesses don”t need to matter, if you develop a ministry strategy that circumvents them. Weaknesses connected to biblical essentials or the heart of your vision must be confronted. However, weaknesses that can be worked around while you effectively evangelize and disciple with other methods are best ignored.

SURPRISE 6: Leadership vacuums breed problems.

If an essential activity or existing ministry isn”t being led by someone who is devoted to your church”s vision and leaders, trouble is coming. It”s just a matter of time.

SURPRISE 7: It takes more than strong sermons to grow a church.

Nothing is more important to a church than biblical preaching, but preaching alone does not a great church make. There are many churches with more than adequate preaching that are stagnant or declining, despite being in highly populated communities. Churches with strong preaching and weak or divided leadership can”t sustain growth; often, such churches can”t even maintain their size and reach. People want a church where they are both led and fed””and it”s right for them to want both because God wants the church to have both.

SURPRISE 8: Some good and sincere people are poor teammates in church leadership.

The behaviors that make for healthy teams are contrary to the instincts of some people. Some people desire to participate on a ministry team, yet they adopt personal values that prevent them from being healthy team members. Incomplete, oversimplified, confused, and misapplied principles are common among these folks. These often are wonderful, down-to-earth people and personalities, but they can”t follow and function on a high-level team where the expectations are specific and stringent.

People who can”t respond to critics, who have trouble honoring a human leader, who can”t adapt to change, who can”t be told no without souring, who can”t receive feedback without being hurt or angry, who can”t control their insecurities””the list goes on””should not be asked to participate on the leadership team of a growing church.

Some good news: if we are teachable, we can learn to participate on a team””I certainly have. I did some dopey things as a young minister that my supervisors were right to dislike. I”ve learned a lot about teamwork and continue to grow as a teammate and leader.

SURPRISE 9: If God has already given you permission to do something, don”t ask a person for permission. 

Like any principle, this one can be taken too far. I”m not encouraging poor communication or lack of accountability. However, I”d like to see more church leaders act on what the Bible instructs them to do without worrying that someone might object.

The New Testament and the Holy Spirit call and empower pastors and ministers to do a lot of things. Titus 2:15 says to ministers (and it was written to a young minister), “Encourage and rebuke with all authority.” Paul encouraged his young protégés to be bold, not cautious. The default position of a church leader should be “go.” If you”re an aggressive personality, note that those Pastoral Epistle passages also instruct leaders to employ virtues like care, patience, and wisdom.

SURPRISE 10: Leaders who lack passion drain the passion of others.

I dislike artificial enthusiasm, but I love real spiritual passion. I believe most people admire and emulate authentic passion in their church leaders. I also believe people want and need their church leaders to be passionate.

People can sense whether or not they are witnessing passion or performance. When it”s genuine, it inspires perceptive people. When it”s fake, it repels perceptive people. When passion is absent, it drains perceptive people.

The good news is that passion can be developed. Even a totally empty emotional or spiritual tank can be refilled””even yours. With all the available resources church leaders have today, there is no excuse for being uninspired or uninspiring. In addition to the Bible and the Holy Spirit (our greatest assets), we have access to books, conferences, blogs, and ministry networks that can pump life into any church leader who is willing to pursue passion.

The more startled you are by my top 10 surprises, the more dramatically you can improve your church by paying attention to them.

 

Eddie Lowen is lead minister with West Side Christian Church in Springfield, Illinois. He also serves as a member of Standard Publishing”s Publishing Committee.