1. Marking 20 years of marriage with a trip to Hawaii with Emily.
2. Celebrating the life of Grandpa Connavino who passed away in July.
3. Serving as the interim campus pastor at the West Ridge Church Cartersville location.
4. Releasing five free eBooks for church leaders.
5. Helping dozens of churches across the country get unstuck.

My guess is you are doing lots of events at your church, but you’re concerned those events may not be helping people take their next steps toward Christ. Why do I guess that? Because this post resonated with you. You made this the #1 most popular article in 2011. For the record, I don’t care how many people show up to your event, but I do want you to have more and more people becoming fully-devoted followers of Christ.

Are events killing the Church?

Tim shared a great post last week about “The New Normal Project” at Granger Community Church. It was a post written about what used to be known as stewardship campaigns. You should check out the full article.

This is the quote that grabbed my attention:

“We had very few extra events (i.e. banquets, home meetings) and focused everything we could around the weekend services. People are very busy with very good things–and most of them can only give us one shot a week. That doesn’t mean they are unspiritual or don’t love Jesus or the church. It just means they are living their lives, investing in their families, and contributing to society.”

Tim was writing about their specific project, but I think we as church leaders need to be challenged by Granger’s learning. Generally, churches are very event-driven. We are a one-trick pony. If we want people to take a next step, we try to gather them at a specific time at a specific location and we teach them. Then, when people don’t show up to our events, we assume they are either unspiritual or uncommitted.

Do you know why we do events? Let me give you a few reasons…

• We do events because churches have always done events. It doesn’t matter if the event actually helps people or not, we do the event because we’re supposed to do the event.
• We do events because they’re easy to measure. If more people show up, we assume the event was successful and helpful.
• We do events because we’re lazy. It’s a lot easier to just throw events on the calendar than it is to think about how we might effectively help people take their next steps…especially if that involves engaging people in relationships.

When this incident occurred back in May, it grabbed my attention. I was outraged. Apparently you shared my disgust for this situation, because this became the #2 most popular article in 2011. By the way, I keep in contact with the pastor that was involved. He’s happily employed now in business consulting and volunteering in a church in the Atlanta area.

This White Church Doesn’t Want Black Members

Those who know me, know that I’m a fairly steady person. I rarely get emotional about anything. This story, though, absolutely ticks me off. I can’t believe as we sit here in 2011…in the United States…in the Church that stuff like this still happens.

A friend of a friend contacted me this weekend. Here’s an excerpt of what he shared:

“I spent the last four months as lead pastor of [a church in the Southeast] and was let go last week for baptizing six black teens into an all-white church. Even though the church leadership assured me that racial integration wouldn’t be a problem during the interview process, a handful of the high-dollar folks revolted and had me removed without the church’s knowledge…”

I rarely get angry, but these actions are so outside God’s design for the church that I’m left repulsed.

[Read the entire article.]

In the last few months of the year, I wrote a series of posts on building senior leadership teams. One of the posts focused on how to identify people who should be on that team. Those seven questions that I offered led to a lot of conversation on Twitter. With that, this become the #3 most popular article in 2011.

Senior Leadership Teams: 7 Questions to Identify Who Should be on the Team

When considering who should be on the senior leadership team, many times we try to answer the wrong questions. Sometimes we ask, “What positions should be represented on the team?” In church world, we may think the “Pastor” or “Director” title or people with certain positions automatically qualify. That’s not always the case.

Sometimes we ask, “Who has been around for the longest?” Tenure does not necessarily equate with the profile of the person you want serving on this team. In fact, I’d argue that if you’re stuck and fresh perspective is one of your needs, sometimes the newest person may be who should be on the team.

It’s not about positional leadership or length of ministry. It’s not necessarily the people at the very top of your current organizational structure. However, once you identify the right people for your situation, you should build your structure around your senior leadership team. In other words, every person and every ministry needs to be connected to one person on your senior leadership team.

With that preface, here are seven questions to help you identify who should be on your senior leadership team. This assumes, of course, people have already met the qualifications of leadership defined by Scripture.

1. Do they have the leadership gift? This is the key question that shapes everything else. If they aren’t a leader, they shouldn’t be on this team. You also need to consider leadership capacity. We know from Scripture that there are leaders of tens, fifties, hundreds and thousands. For this team, you ultimately need leaders of hundreds and thousands.
2. Are they a big-picture thinker? In other words, this person always prioritizes the church’s health over what’s happening in their specific ministry area. They are more concerned with alignment to the overall goals rather than defending their turf. They won’t let their passion for a specific ministry get in the way of making decisions that help the entire church take a step forward.
3. Is this person a strategic thinker? You need people who can think beyond the daily details. There are places for managers on your team. You need people who can take the game plan and make it happen. Your senior team, though, isn’t the place for managers. Find people who think about the future and then can strategically propose how to get from here to there.
4. Can they build teams? In ministry, this is primarily about building and equipping teams of volunteers. As the church grows, you also need people who can develop staff teams. These are the folks who have demonstrated they can identify and empower other leaders. If their instinct is, “I need to do this myself,” you have the wrong person.

One of the free eBooks I released in 2011 focused specifically on the reasons churches get stuck. Shortly after I released this eBook, I highlighted the eight barriers to health that I routinely see in dead and declining ministries. The post must have caught your attention, because it became the #4 most popular article in 2011.

8 Reasons Your Church is Stuck

A couple of weeks ago, I released my newest eBook, The Leisure Suit Trap: 8 Reasons Your Church is Stuck. As I’ve had the opportunity to interact and work with churches over the last several years, there are some common themes. These are the challenges that churches typically face when ministry starts to plateau or decline.

1. You lack a leadership empowerment plan. 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 the people God wired them up to be.
2. You are unclear about your vision and mission. There are lots of churches with vision statements, but I don’t think there are very many churches that really have a vision statement that clarifies who they are as an organization. A clear vision that is properly communicated will both rally and repel people.
3. You blame outsiders and external factors. Victim-thinking will only lead to bitterness and competition. Leaders who blame outsiders and external factors actually are confessing their own failure to think creatively and inspire their team.
4. Your structure inhibits growth. One of the attributes of a church in decline is a complex structure. The natural tendency of organizations is to add complexity to their structure and systems. The longer an organization exists, the more complex it typically gets.

Back in March, it appears that I struck a chord with this post. Not only did it receive a lot of Tweets and comments, I’ve probably not had any post that has generated as many confidential email messages confirming this is as issue in churches across the country. Because of that, this became the #5 most popular article in 2011.

The “Culture of Honor” is Hurting Churches

At the risk of not showing honor to peers in ministry, I want to tackle the topic of honor today. I’m concerned. I see a trend in churches that I think is unhealthy. Honestly, I believe it’s also unbiblical.

There are a number of churches today that are trying to teach a culture of honor. The concept of honor is biblical. In fact, Romans 12:10 tells us to:

“Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.” (ESV)

We should show honor to our leaders, but God designed it to go both directions. If it’s one-way, it’s unhealthy and unbiblical.

Let me explain further how God designed honor to work in church leadership. First of all, we are supposed to submit to our leaders. Hebrews 13:17 says:

“Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.”

One of the ways we show honor to our leaders is by submitting to their authority. At the same time, though, leaders are instructed to show honor by serving those they lead:

“But Jesus called them to him and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’”

That’s the servant leadership that seems to be missing when the “culture of honor” is carried out to the extreme. Servant leadership only goes one direction. When that happens, honor only goes one direction.

[Read the entire article.]

Filmmaker Frank Lozano went to Burkina Faso to help capture the story of our ministry through Engage Burkina. This six-minute video could be used in your churches to help provide living water to a country that desperately needs to know the forgiveness, love and hope of Jesus Christ. Check out the video.

If you or your church would like to contribute financially, you may make a donation through the Engage Burkina website.

I get questions daily from folks who are part of my network. Primarily, they come through this site and Twitter. Here’s a question that I received that ended up generating the #6 most popular article in 2011.

11 Questions Church Leaders Should be Asking

A friend in ministry recently asked me what questions church leaders should be asking. I thought about the types of questions I try to help answer when I’m working with them in the church consulting or coaching relationships. Here are the first questions and some bonus thoughts that came to mind:

1. When was the last time I heard from God? Am I doing what he called me to do? This is the “Acts 6″ question. Acts 6 is a great reminder that it’s possible to be doing the ministry of God without doing the ministry God has called us to do.
2. What should our church be known for in this community? For a moment, ignore anyone who attends your church. What does the rest of the community know about your church?  That’s a better reflection of whether or not you’re really accomplishing your vision.
3. Are we really focusing our time, money, leadership, prayer behind the things that will produce life change and community impact? If not, there’s a good chance that “fairness” is driving these decisions. Fairness never produces revolution.
4. Is our church growing both spiritually and in numbers? Churches that are stuck and not bearing fruit hate this question. As I’ve shared before, I don’t believe healthy churches are necessarily big churches, but healthy churches aregrowing churches.
5. Is there a clear path to help people take steps in their faith with the ultimate goal of them becoming fully-devoted followers of Christ? Having a vibrant Sunday worship experience is only one component of that. I’m amazed at how many churches haven’t really established a discipleship strategy beyond Sunday morning.

In 2011, I took a non-traditional approach to publishing. Through my partnership with Church Community Builder and Engage Burkina, I launched “The Leisure Suit Series” with a focus on helping churches get unstuck. Apparently that was a strong felt need for church leaders, because this post introducing the second eBook in the series was the #7 most popular article in 2011:

New FREE eBook Available Today: How to Get Unstuck

Big news today! We’re launching the second eBook in the Leisure Suit series. This one is called Hanging Up the Leisure Suit: How to Get Unstuck. Among other things, this resource includes strategies and practical steps for:

• making the necessary changes to get different results
• bridging the gap between vision and execution
• following God’s blueprint for fulfilling his purposes
• avoiding over-reliance on teaching to produce change, and
• creating healthy systems in your church

Like my previous eBooks, this one is FREE. (You can share it with your teammates.) It’s short. (You won’t have to invest much time reading it.) It includes exercises and discussion questions. (My goal is for you to have healthy conversations that lead to positive change.) And, you’ll get to start those conversations immediately–no need to visit the bookstore or wait for the Amazon box to show up on your doorstep. (Do people still read hardback books?)

[Read the entire article.]