Month: June 2016

6 Tips for Delegating Like a Boss…literally

I bet you’re busy. I know I’m busy. If you’re in church leadership, you’re a busy person. There’s so much to accomplish and seemingly not enough time to do it.

Here’s something else: I bet you are surrounded by talented people. If you’re a good church leader, you’ve recruited great people.

One more thing. I bet you wish you could delegate some of your tasks and responsibilities to the talented people around you. You’d have more time to focus on your strengths or new opportunities and the talented people around you could grow in experience and expertise.

It’s so obviously a win. In fact, in the words of Michael Scott, it might just be a “win, win, win.”

michael_scott_win_win_win

But of course, there’s a problem.  Very few of us effectively delegate.

It just doesn’t seem to work.

In theory it should speed things up, but in real life it seems to slow things down. That was exactly my experience, until I started to follow some of the principles here. Now, I’m more free than ever to focus on my strengths and my team is growing in expertise, experience and fulfillment.

My hope for this post is that you could learn from my years of trial and error in the art of delegation. I’ve learned 6 important lessons over the years that I think are critical for church leaders. Here they are…

You can read the rest of this post here.

How to Run A Great Staff Meeting

Recently I wrote an article for the Breeze blog on how to run a great staff meeting.  Here’s a snippet:

Let’s be honest.

Most of us don’t love staff meetings.

They are often boring, too long and sometimes even irrelevant. And yet, we all know that staff meetings are a must if our teams are going to have any chance of staying on the same page.

Here’s the good news: staff meetings don’t have to be terrible. In fact, they can be constructive, compelling, and even fun.

The key is building your staff meetings around 5 energizing elements. Here they are…

Click here to read the rest of the post.

How to Keep Boundaries in Ministry

This week I have the privilege of writing for the Orange Leaders blog, which is one of my favorite blogs in the world.  The post is about maintaining boundaries in ministry.  Here’s a snippet:

Real questions I’ve been asked by students and parents…

  • So, what’s your real job?
  • Umm . . . what do you actually do all day?
  • So, you just take the summer off then?
  • How was your vacation to Mexico? (It was a mission trip, you Jerky McJerkyson.)

For whatever reason, some people think that family ministries staff don’t work very hard or very often. This of course, is utter nonsense. In fact, it can be incredibly difficult to maintain appropriate boundaries in ministry. The events, problems, conversations, camps, crises, retreats and everything else happen day and night, on the weekends and always on holidays. I mean, always on holidays.

So, how do we keep ourselves from burning out? How do we maintain healthy boundaries so that our families aren’t negatively affected by our ministry? And, how in the world do we keep ourselves healthy?

You can check out the rest of the post here.

3 Essentials for Training Volunteers

Hey Friends,

Today I’m writing about a new approach for training volunteers.  Check it out:

Raise your hand if you are pumped about your volunteer training strategy.

I’m guessing you didn’t.

Most of us don’t feel terribly confident about our training methods. I think this is because most of us have been following a system of volunteer training that, well, doesn’t really work.

Here’s a snapshot:

  1. Recruit volunteers
  2. Provide some sort of orientation for volunteers
  3. Once a month or a couple times a year, hold a volunteer training meeting
  4. Wonder if what we are doing is effective
  5. Repeat

Based on what I’ve seen and experienced, there is a much more effective way to train volunteers. But, it really doesn’t have that much to do with training. It has a lot more to do with what volunteers actually need. Let me explain…

Click here to read the rest of the post.