Couple quick notes for those of you who are trying to watch your checking account while you wait for that government stimulus package to kick in…

• The early bird rates for the Story Chicago experience end in two weeks on June 30. I’ll be there with about 1,500 of my closest friends. Hope you’re one of them.
• The early bird rates for the Atlanta and Dallas stops for the “Killing Cockroaches Summer Tour” end this week. After tomorrow (for Atlanta) and this Thursday (for Dallas), the rates jump up an extra $10 per person. The early bird deadline is 2 weeks before each tour stop.

By the way, we booked our entire trip last night. The Morgan family is ready to cruise America in style…or whatever descriptive word you might use to describe driving over 3,000 miles in a minivan.

Hope to see you at one or both of these events.

I read Anne Jackson’s new book, Mad Church Disease, a few months ago. This quote from Wayne Cordeiro, the senior pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Oahu, Hawaii keeps reverberating through my brain. In describing some practices he changed as a result of dealing with ministry burnout, he offered this:

“I’ve learned that God has made me to be a leader, not a ‘manager.’ I was pulled in to ‘managing’ for a few years as my main course. That diminished my leadership immune system, and I became susceptible to contagious maladies such as discouragement, exasperation, and being demotivated by others.”

There is a distinction between leading and managing. They are two entirely different roles. Both are valuable to an organization, but rarely is a person gifted to both lead and manage. They are typically wired up to do one or the other.

In their book First, Break All the Rules, Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman defined both roles like this:

Managers – “Great managers look inward. They look inside the company, into each individual, into the differences in style, goals, needs, and motivation of each person. These differences are small, subtle, but great managers need to pay attention to them. These subtle differences guide them toward the right way to release each person’s unique talents into performance.”

Leaders – “Great leaders look outward. They look out at the competition, out at the future, out at alternative routes forward. They focus on broad patterns, finding connections, cracks, and then press home their advantage where the resistance is weakest. They must be visionaries, strategic thinkers, activators. When played well, this is, without doubt, a critical role. But it doesn’t have much to do with the challenge of turning one individual’s talents into performance.”

That’s how Buckingham and Coffman described the two roles in marketplace organizations, but the Bible also distinguishes these two rules. The spiritual gift of leadership found in Romans 12:8 is very different from the spiritual gift of management (or administration) found in I Corinthians 12:28. Few people have both of these gifts, but both are needed within a healthy church body.

The point here isn’t to value one of these gifts over the other. (That would be a fruitless exercise because both are needed for a church or any organization to function properly.) However, I think it’s essential to identify how we are gifted and to also consider those we are responsible for in our ministry roles. If we are trying to be a manager when we’re actually a leader, we will be unfulfilled and face ministry burnout like Wayne described. Likewise, if we’re forced into a leadership role when we’re actually a manager, we will face the same challenges.

So, here are some questions to consider, pray about and discuss with your team:

• Are you a leader or manager? (How do you know?)
• Are you in a role that allows you to lead or manage according to your gifts?
• Do you know whether or not the people working for you are leaders or managers?
• Are they serving in roles that fit their giftedness?
• Have you defined what roles in your organization need leaders and which ones need managers?
• When one of those roles are open, are you trying to find the person who is best gifted to lead or manage?

I consider this a big topic that churches, generally, have failed to address. I challenge you to prayerfully consider this in the coming days for yourselves and your teammates. The health of your ministry, both personal and corporate, is at stake. And, while you’re at it, invite your ministry team to press into this conversation as well. Take a staff meeting to discuss the differences and challenge your team to make sure they are in a position that best reflects the way God created them…whether they are leaders, managers or neither. God wants you serving where he designed you to be serving; to do otherwise is to disobey God.

Are you staring ministry burnout in the face? Is it because you’re not doing what God created you to do?

In case you missed them, here are the posts that generated the most traffic last month in order of popularity:

1. Pizza and Sex
2. The New Traditional Church: Web Strategy
3. Listening to the New Hillsong United Album
4. Killing Cockroaches Summer Tour 2009
5. My Theology of Leadership (part 1)
6. The New Traditional Church: Community
7. The New Traditional Church: Music
8. A Church that Embraces Hip Hop
9. Narcissistic Leaders
10. Update on my Next Adventure

This top ten list is brought to you with the help of Google Analytics. It’s the easy, free way to track stats for your website.

Yesterday while I was at Christ Fellowship in Miami, I did a leadership talk for their staff team. At the end of my talk, we took some time for Q&A. One of the questions that was asked was about leadership growth. Having worked in churches of various sizes between 1,400 and over 10,000, they wanted to know how leaders change to grow with organizations. Here’s what I summarized with a little bit more detail. Some of this reflects my own experiences in the churches I’ve served. Some of it reflects the conversations with leaders in other churches.

Lead by example. This is the type of leadership that is required when a new ministry launches. During this season, the leader has to do most of the work themselves. That happens out of necessity because no one else is around. It also happens to establish a foundation for the future. “Leading by doing” gives the leader the opportunity to shape the mission, vision, values and strategy of the church. These folks may not necessarily be gifted as leaders but they are in a positional leadership role. They are the “leaders of tens.” Ministries with this style of leadership can grow to about 100 people.

Lead other people. During this season, the leader recruits other people to join the ministry team. Rather than doing all the work on their own, the leader begins to delegate tasks and responsibilities to other people. The leader still owns the responsibility for making things happen, they’re just including other people in the effort. These are the “leaders of fifties.” Ministries can grow to several hundred people with this style of leadership.

Lead other leaders. This is when a transition happens where leaders begin to empower other leaders. Instead of a hands-on role where they’re on top of all the tasks, they shift to a role where they’re really more concerned about leading, caring for and raising up other leaders. They don’t give up responsibility for the outcome, but they begin to release team building and decisions of execution to other people. These are the “leaders of hundreds.” Ministries can grow to several thousand people with this style of leadership.

Lead by vision. At some point, there are leaders who may continue to embrace functional leadership of specific areas of ministry, but their focus is really on the overall health of the church. Rather than a ministry-specific focus, they have a global perspective that encompasses every aspect of the organization. These folks are leading other leaders, but they also have influence that reaches beyond their direct reports. They are coming alongside the senior leader to champion the vision that God has given the church. These are the “leaders of thousands.” Ministries can grow to tens of thousands of people with this style of leadership.

First of all, do you agree with my summary of these different stages of leadership growth? What would you add or delete from my descriptions?

Secondly, where are you? Would would you need to do today to prepare for a step into a new leadership role tomorrow?

On my flight down to Miami, I wrapped up the book Church Unique by Will Mancini. Will is a new friend of mine. We share a similar passion to help churches embrace their unique potential.

Among other things the book outlines a process for helping churches identify their unique mission, values, strategy and measures that contribute to a unique vision. Here are some of Will’s thoughts that grabbed my attention:

• Congregations have been “gravitating toward adopting programs and mind-sets that work elsewhere. Leaders today have not clearly discerned the uniqueness of their church.”
• The “ministry treadmill” is “set in motion when the busyness of ministry creates a progressively irreversible hurriedness in the leader’s life.”
• “It is not uncommon that the most accomplished people in the room are the least receptive to new learning”
• “When I walk into a church, it usually takes five minutes to identify the last conference the staff attended.”
• “The assumption is that more information will produce clearer direction, but just the opposite is true.”
• “Too many goals threaten to make any one goal unclear.”
• Larry Osborne of North Coach Church: “People like it small, but leaders like it big.”
• On Max Lucado and Chuck Swindoll, “Both of these men have not only worked hard to keep vision central; they have sacrificed easy attendance by removing their face from the church brand.”
• “If people are emotionally attached to the method, they will resist change. If they are emotionally connected to the core value, however, they will not only embrace change but might insist on it.”
• “In the battle of souls, the intellect will go only so far; the heart must be captivated by a love beyond reason.”
• Jesus “leaves us with a picture that egotism and arrogance are blemishes on the face of a kingdom leader.”
• “The greater the mission, the more simply it can be stated.”
• “Unfortunately, many churches think that being more effective is simply a matter of trying harder, being more obedient, or praying more.”
• “Programs don’t attract people; people attract people.”
• “If your church is more than four hundred people, I would caution against hiring a person without the demonstrated spiritual gift of leadership.”
• “If we propose to advance the gospel in and through the culture, we can’t afford to see the cultural use of communication as an enemy but as an ally.”
• “The church gathered is actually a time of preparation for ‘being the church’ outside of its walls.”

Will is a former pastor and the founder of Auxano, a consulting group that works with churches and ministries.

I’ve come to the conclusion in recent weeks that part of my mission in life is to spread great stories. That’s why I’m really excited about participating in Ben’s new adventure.

I just confirmed last week that I’ll be experiencing Story Chicago at the Paramount Theater in October. I’ll be joining about 1,500 of my closest friends to hear some of the top communicators of the Gospel share how they spread the greatest story.

Among others, I’m really looking forward to meeting Michael Hyatt, the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishing, in person. Michael and I know each other through blogging and Twitter, but we’ve never met face-to-face. He was just confirmed last week as a new workshop speaker at the event.

This is one of those events I believe in. I’m so committed to the importance of this gathering that I’m giving Ben the promotional space on my website and I’m paying my own way to get there.

Are you in? And, if so, who are you most looking forward to seeing and meeting?

In case you haven’t heard, my family is hitting the road for three weeks for the Killing Cockroaches Summery Tour 2009. I’m going to be offering half-day seminars in six cities across the South and Midwest. The event will feature stories and learnings from my recent book, Killing Cockroaches: and Other Scattered Musings on Leadership.

This event is designed and priced for both staff and volunteer church leaders. Early bird pricing ends two weeks prior to each event date and then increases to $39 per person. That means there’s only one week left to register for the cheap rate if you plan to attend in Atlanta.

By the way, Atlanta is winning the registration race so far. Dallas and Chicago are running neck-and-neck for #2. St. Louis is in the basement (kind of like the St. Louis Rams).

Hope to see you at one of the six stops!

Schedule

9:00 am     Check-in

9:30 am     Session 1: Building Teams and Empowering Leaders (Volunteer/Staffing Strategy)

10:15 am   Q&A

10:45 am   Break

11:15 am   Session 2: Finding Your Focus (Outreach/Discipleship/Communications Strategy)

12:00 pm   Q&A

12:30 pm   Event Concludes

Host Churches

Atlanta – June 29 at West Ridge Church in Dallas, Georgia

Dallas – July 2 at Springcreek Church in Garland, Texas

St. Louis – July 6 at Harvester Christian Church in St. Charles, Missouri

Chicago – July 8 at The Orchard in Aurora, Illinois

Columbus – July 14 at Grace Church in Powell, Ohio

Nashville – July 17 at Cross Point Church in Nashville, Tennessee

I’m loving the change of pace these last several weeks. It’s opened up opportunities for me to connect with a variety of churches and leaders. Here are some highlights from recent days:

• Thomas Road Baptist Church (Lynchburg, VA) – I attended the InnovateChurch Conference which was my first visit Thomas Road. I really respect what Jonathan Falwell is doing in his new leadership role. Great leader. (He’s really smart too.)
• Canyon Ridge Christian Church (Las Vegas, NV) – I had a fun conversation with a couple of guys from their staff team about the intersection of ministry and social networking. In case you didn’t know, I have an opinion or two on that topic.
• Marathon Church (Greenville, SC) – Love what these guys are doing. They have a couple of contemporary services for one venue. Then they have a couple of very edgy services in another venue. On top of that, they’re meeting in two campuses. Senior Pastor Eddie Cox has built a sharp ministry team.
• Saddleback Church (Lake Forest, CA) – I wish you could have been in the room to hear the heart that the Saddleback team has for pastors and churches around the globe. You’re going to love some of what they have planned for the coming days. If you’re a pastor, you’ll want to stay tuned. (btw… The Refinery tour was worth the trip by itself.)

It’s really encouraging for me to see so many churches of different shapes and sizes making such a huge impact in their communities. I’m honored to have had these opportunities to see where God is moving in the local church.

Leaders empower the people around them.

• It’s less about the leader. It’s more about the God-ordained vision.
• It’s less about the leader. It’s more about those being led.
• It’s less about the leader. It’s more about synergy of the body.

I’m still a big proponent of clear vision in churches. Clear vision leads to unified effort which results in ministry impact. A clear vision also provides a lot of freedom for people to be empowered to be who God created them to be. I’ve heard it described as freedom within a framework. That’s essentially a picture of the Christian faith. There’s actually more freedom for us if we stay within God’s designed framework.

Paul described the responsibility of leaders in the church this way:

“Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12-13)

That’s what I mean about it being less about the leader and more about those being led. Our role as leaders is to “equip God’s people to do his work.” The leader doesn’t do the work – God’s people do his work. God’s people don’t do the leader’s work – they do God’s work.

We see this reflected in Paul’s writings on spiritual gifts in I Corinthians 12 as well. Each believer is given one or more gifts. Paul uses the human body as a metaphor to express how the various parts of the body of Christ are indispensable. In other words, we have failed as leaders in the church if we do not embrace the unique gift-mix that God designed. And, we won’t fully know the power and impact of the local church until people are empowered to be who God wired them up to be.

We aren’t telling them what to do to accomplish the vision. We are helping them discover their gifts and freeing them to use them to fulfill the vision. It’s not delegation. With delegation, I’m still responsible. It’s empowerment. Someone else is responsible, but, as a leader, I still hold them accountable.

In the Old Testament, we see this play out when Jethro tells his son-in-law, Moses, to:

“Select from all the people some capable, honest men who fear God and hate bribes. Appoint them as leaders over groups of one thousand, one hundred, fifty, and ten” (Exodus 18:21).

In the New Testament, we see this demonstrated when Paul instructs Timothy:

“You have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others” (2 Timothy 2:2).

We see this model of leadership throughout the Bible where people are entrusting responsibilities with other people to carry on the ministry. Leadership isn’t leadership if it isn’t released to others.

With that, here are some questions we may want to consider about our leadership:

• Is there a clear vision that offers freedom within a framework?
• Is my leadership more about getting people to do what I want them to do, or helping people be who God designed them to be?
• Am I entrusting leadership to other capable people, or am I just delegating tasks?
• If I wasn’t here, would the ministry continue to grow without me?

It’s so contradictory isn’t it? We’ve been so conditioned to equate leadership with a person. Yet, that’s not how God created it. In God’s design, the sum is greater than its parts. Leadership doesn’t rest with one individual, it’s entrusted to capable men and women.

Does your leadership empower people?

__________________

Other Posts in This Series:

• Part 1 – Overview
• Part 2 – Servant Leadership