Enough fluff, Let's Talk!

Introducing the Vanderbloemen Search Group

No Comments

Vanderbloemen Search GroupIn case you missed the news, yesterday William Vanderbloemen announced the launch of the Vanderbloemen Search Group. The group has the sole focus of helping connect the right ministries with the right key staff people.

I’ve been partnering with William in the last year to help with church leadership search. We’re working together to help churches find leaders including their next senior pastor, executive pastor, campus pastor or lead pastor. The creation of this new group provides a new focus, but what doesn’t change is our continued partnership to assist churches with their ministry leadership search needs.

Check out our new website to read about our team, our process and the churches we’ve worked with in the past. Feel free to contact us with questions about how we might help you.

Hiring an Executive and Children’s Pastor

1 Comment

I’m really excited to announce two leadership openings at a church here in the Atlanta region. Mountain Lake Church in Cumming, Georgia is hiring both an executive pastor and a children’s pastor. Mountain Lake was planted by its lead pastor, Shawn Lovejoy. The church is about ten years old. It meets in a brand new facility and currently runs about 2,500 people in attendance.

If you are interested in either role, please email William Vanderbloemen, my teammate at FaithSearch Partners, with questions or to submit your resume. All correspondence is kept in strict confidence. If you want to chat with me about either role and see Mountain Lake Church, then attend the ChurchPlanters.com conference, Velocity, in two weeks.

On another note, we have been able to secure ten free tickets to the Velocity Conference. We have decided to give those away to the first ten children’s pastors who contact us. Just send William your email address and a contact phone number. He and I will announce the winners in a couple of days. See you at Velocity!

Lean Staffing

No Comments

I’ve had some interesting dialogue with Warren Bird, research director for the Leadership Network, in recent months. He shares my passion to pursue new models of ministry that raise the level of lay leadership and volunteer empowerment in ministry with the hopes of, among other things, reducing staffing expenses.

Warren has designed an online “lean staffing survey” to learn about healthy ways churches are keeping staff costs down. We’d like for you to participate. Here’s how:

  • Take the “lean staffing survey” online.
  • Only take the survey once.
  • Complete it before midnight on January 25.

If you complete the survey, you’ll also get a free copy of the results. Contact Warren directly if you have questions.

In the mean time, will you commit to the “Ephesians 4:12 Challenge” and use your leadership influence to empower more volunteers in ministry? Personally, I think it’s a simply strategic idea.

My Next Steps Update

3 Comments

It’s been a while since I last updated you on what’s happening in my life. Though my family and I are still at NewSpring Church, I left the staff team about 10 weeks ago. Since then, Emily and I have been praying and talking a lot about our next steps. Here’s where we think we’re heading in this next season:

Connected to a Local Church – I can’t imagine not being connected to a local church. We need a place for our family to call home. I’m considering opportunities where I can serve on a ministry team in a part-time leadership capacity. At this point in my life, it would be difficult to write, teach and coach about leadership and ministry strategy in the Church without actually being engaged in ministry.

Coaching & Consulting – At the same time, I have a calling to encourage, equip and challenge church leaders. With that, I’ve taken steps in recent months to get more focused about coaching and consulting opportunities. It’s been a lot of fun. I’ve had a chance to connect with churches of all shapes and sizes throughout the country. Let me know if you’re interested in future coaching networks or consulting engagements.

Strategic Partnerships – As I’m connecting with growing churches, I’m also noticing some opportunities where I can help identify strategic next steps but I either don’t have the expertise or the time to fulfill specific needs. Because of that, I’ve developed partnerships with some great organizations to assist churches with areas like creative design, brand strategy, technology, executive recruiting, stewardship and facility design and construction.

Specifically, one of the areas that I frequently get requests for assistance is with recruiting and selecting staff leaders. I love helping churches define strategy and structure for health and growth, but I don’t have the time and expertise to handle all aspects of executive recruiting. That’s why I’ve developed a strategic partnership with William Vanderbloemen and the team at FaithSearch Partners. They’ve worked with churches from a variety of denominations and many sizes of congregations, ranging from 1,000 to 15,000 in attendance.

I love helping churches define their strategy and structure and then make sure they have the right people on the right seat on the bus. If that’s your church, I’d welcome the opportunity to talk more. Feel free to email me and let’s talk about how we can bring a team together to help you take your next steps.

It Takes 12 Months

18 Comments

I just want to save you all the frustration right now. I’ve experienced it a few times in my life. I’ve watched others confirm it in their lives.

It takes 12 months in any new job to figure out the role.

I’m talking about leadership roles here. If you are a widget-fabricator, maybe it’s different for you. For those of us that transition into new leadership positions, though, it always takes a full year to find out what we were really hired to do.

In those 12 months, we get to figure out what the unspoken expectations are. We have the opportunity to determine how our uniqueness fits into the unique organization that now provides our paycheck. We have the chance to see how we relate and work beside the people on our team. It takes 12 months. Until then, we aren’t really adding true value. We’re just trying to survive.

This is why finding the right people before you offer the job is so important. This is why finding the right employer before accepting the job is so important. This is why keeping the right people in your organization is so important. Every time the position opens, we lose 12 months.

By the way, the corollary to this principle is that you can also hide for 12 months. That’s why I never really trust anyone that hops from job to job…even if it appears they’re moving up the career ladder. If they haven’t proven themselves in one organization for a period of time, I assume they never really made an impact.

That groan you just heard was from the guys on my team that just realized they still have several months to go.

Funny Staff Handbook Excerpts

No Comments

As promised before I left for my Thanksgiving trip, I’ve compiled a list of funny staff handbook guidelines. Here they are in no particular order:

  • “We actually have a policy about policies… The handbook is finally being revised right now, so much of the knuckleheadedness will be going away.” – Kirt
  • Male employees must wear a tie… Silk is the preferred fabric and the pattern should be conservative (no flying toasters, etc. nothing George Bush wouldn’t wear.)  Learn to tie an appropriate knot (avoid the “puggies”) and avoid loosening your top button—it usually shows that you didn’t buy the proper sized shirt. – Don
  • “About two years ago, we were calling a new Organist/Director of Music. We don’t have a personnel handbook, per se…..so the Music Committee took it upon themselves to draft a letter of agreement with the new hire. Among other things, he was directed to wear ‘dark slacks and socks’ on Sundays so as to ‘compliment his choir robe.’” – Rob
  • “My church copied their staff handbook from someone’s business. Only problem was that it gave all the employees Christmas Eve and Easter off.” – Jon

There you go. Feel free to share more. I particularly like the one on having Easter off.

Funny Staff Handbook Guidelines

No Comments

Everyone pull out your staff handbook. (You certainly know where it is don’t you?) I’m betting there are some guidelines in your staff handbook that at one time made a lot of sense but now seem a little ridiculous. They’re kind of like blue laws. In fact, some portions of your staff handbook probably sound down right funny.

I want to see those sections. Email me. Leave a comment here. I’ll compile the best of the worst in a post that will be published sometime after Thanksgiving.

I can’t wait to see what you have to share. This should be fun.

Hire Using the “I Like You” Test

No Comments

Last week one of the folks on my team was chatting with my wife, Emily. During the conversation, that staffer shared:

“I can tell Tony hired everyone on our team because we all get along so well.”

That’s encouraging for me to hear. Not to be too boastful, but it’s true. I get to work each day with a world-class team that has huge capacity. It’s a dream team. Here’s the best part — I actually enjoy hanging out with them as well. They’re fun!

You can have that kind of team as well, but you’ll have to work at it.

  • You’ll have to have tough conversations when you find that someone is in the wrong role or doesn’t have the right personality fit.
  • You’ll have to hire people using the “I Like You” test instead of just using the “Can You Perform the Job?” test.
  • You’ll have to be patient (it took me about 18 months) before you can bring the right people together.
  • You’ll have to dream big to attract big talent.
  • You’ll have to be intentional about scheduling “fun time” to complement the “work like maniacs” time.
  • You’ll have to give people the freedom to do their thing instead of just telling them where they can go.
  • You’ll have to be interested in things like their family, their health, their spiritual journey and not just their job performance.

You could have a dream team as well, but something tells me you’re too lazy, too afraid or not disciplined enough to make that happen.

Hope you feel challenged by that statement. You should be. Our mission is a big one, and you deserve a dream team to accomplish it.

It also makes ministry and life a lot more fun.

Perry Noble on “Resign Today” and More

No Comments

Earlier this afternoon, I interviewed Perry Noble. We discussed the recent “Resign Today” post on my blog. Then we hit other fun topics like the election results, hiring and NewSpring’s future. Here’s the interview in two parts.

What should I do with my life?

No Comments

We had a fun conversation this morning at our “check-in” meeting regarding yesterday’s “Resign Today” post. I don’t take credit for any of these thoughts. They come directly from the folks that work on my team.

  • Several of my staff explained that Perry’s challenge is certainly not how corporate America operates. In fact, one of my staff people said, “At one time there were 15 people working in my area and all 15 people didn’t like their job.” That’s just accepted in the marketplace.
  • 6 out of 8 people on my team were offered more money to stay in a corporate job they didn’t like…and their superiors knew they didn’t want to be in their job.
  • A couple of guys acknowledged poor job fit pollutes relationships with other people especially with co-workers and spouses. (I can speak from experience on this one. It’s part of my “killing cockroaches” story. When I’ve been discouraged by my job situation, it has impacted my marriage.)
  • One of the folks on my team said, “If this is how people in ministry are reacting, imagine how people working in the marketplace are wrestling with this issue.”
  • One of the guys said, generally speaking, people tend to “drop anchor and not move.” That’s true. Change, whether it’s healthy or not, is difficult. Another guy shared, “Finding God’s will usually involves us doing something rather than waiting for him to do something.”

While we’re on the topic of what we should all be doing with our lives, this morning I worked out a fun opportunity with the folks at Thomas Nelson. Five readers of my blog are going to receive a free copy of Marcus Buckingham’s new resource called The Truth About You. You have to earn it though.

I want to read the truth about you. Submit a comment to this post sharing one truth about your past. The more colorful the truth you share without lying, the more likely you are to win. I’ll select the top five truth-tellers who will receive a free copy of The Truth About You.

Can’t wait to hear your stories. And, don’t forget, you have to tell the truth.

Next Page »