Blog Archives
10 Practical Ways to Lead Better
This is specifically written for pastors. However, everyone can use these principles for leading any organization.
- Write 5-10 hand written notes of encouragement every week. Pick a random group of people that either stand out with serving, are in need of prayer, new to the church, or been faithful since beginning. Pick kids, teens, and adults. When you send a note to a kid, you send a powerful message to their parents as well. Write 4-5 sentences that personally connect you to them.
- Invite someone to lunch or coffee every week. Find someone in the church that you know has potential. Reach out and get to know them over a quick lunch or coffee time.
- Preach better. Spend time in prayer and study. Do not only study the Bible, but also study other speakers. Watch videos of yourself. Ask for people’s feedback on your speaking. Be strategic about what you want people to know, feel, and do after your message.
- Make sure the morale is strong with volunteers. Spend time before service going around different areas of ministry and personally connect with people. This doesn’t mean that you talk for a long time. This means that you talk to them about their role and ask something personal. Remember details about them and ask about them the next time you see them. Find out if there is anything that can be done to make their job easier.
- Work hand in hand with the Worship and Tech teams. Make sure those teams know every transition detail. Over communicate cues and changes that need to be made.
- Analyze each service on Monday. What went wrong? How can we remedy it? What went right? How can we repeat it? Ask team members for their feedback on how their area went. Listen to what people are saying and respond.
- Promote clearly. Make sure the congregation knows when you are doing things. Don’t overwhelm them with too many announcements, but give them clear and accurate details for all events coming up.
- Study Rick Warren’s 5 Church purposes. Pastor Rick teaches a powerful lesson on worship, evangelism, ministry, fellowship, discipleship. Are you balanced with events, sermons, wording, website, small groups, etc that are reaching the community, crowd, congregation, committed, and core?
- Invest in things that build momentum. When we build the kingdom of God, we will spend money. The options on what to spend money on are limitless. Have a good budgeting system of people/committees. Find things that produce for your local culture. Social events? Guest Speakers? Gifts? Outreach projects? Staff? Don’t be afraid to spend money on the right things.
- Invest quality time into 10-12 people that are your core leaders. Go above and beyond for your “disciples”. It would be ideal for everyone in your church to also have 10-12 disciples in their life. Model this like Jesus did for us. Spend quality time with them. Invite them into your life. Challenge them when necessary.
“What We Have Learned” sessions are set!
We are hosting a one day event and there are only a few spots left. What We’ve Learned, on Monday, August 5th – 9am-3pm.
This is a great opportunity see our new facility, hear our story, ask questions, hang out with new and old friends. We will have a lot of fun, and hopefully you will walk away with some new ideas.
This is free and only offered to a limited amount of folks. Please register if you know that you are able to attend!
The folks that signed up early have voted and we have selected the sessions that will be offered. Check them out below. You will get an inside look at everything we do (and the mistakes we have made). You will get our actual documents including: budgets, tracking spreadsheets, web tools, access to google docs, etc.
SESSION ONE
Setting Goals and Taking Risks – Our path of challenge, risk, failure and reward. How we make a decision on change. (adding or subtracting: weekend services, facilities, staff, ministries, tech, etc).
SESSION TWO
Spirit Led vs Well Planned – Our journey as a “Spirit filled” church with solid goals and thought-out plan. How it has been challenging and how it works
BREAKOUT SESSIONS 4 Options (you will pick one the day of the event)
Small Groups – Our history of Small Groups over the last 10 years. Where we are now and where we want to go.
Marketing – Our philosophy and method behind getting our message out those inside and outside of our congregation
Beyond the Budget – How, Why, and When we make financial decisions about staff, facilities, outreach, ministries.
Weekend Worship – Our philosophy and process on designing the weekend worship service on a week by week basis and yearly basis. How we schedule, planning center, 5 star, try outs, etc.
PLUS:
Special Lunch Session Eat a free, delicious lunch with us! Plus, We will be joined by an Israel expert, Munir Sayegh. Munir is a wonderful Christian from Nazareth and can offer up to date information about the Middle East.
Opportunity for Pastors and Church leaders
We are hosting a one day event: What We’ve Learned, on Monday, August 5th – 9am-3pm.
This is a great opportunity see our new facility, hear our story, ask questions, hang out with new and old friends. We are offering some topics and want you to pick the ones we cover. (see options below) We will have a lot of fun, and hopefully you will walk away with some new ideas.
This is free and only offered to a limited amount of folks. Please register if you know that you are able to attend and pick 3 of the topics offered. We will present the 3 most voted on topics at this event.
TOPICS
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Beyond the Budget – How, Why, and When we make financial decisions about staff, facilities, outreach, ministries.
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Weekend Worship – Our philosophy and process on designing the weekend worship service on a week by week basis and yearly basis.
-
Spirit Led vs Well Planned – Our journey as a “Spirit filled” church with solid goals and thought-out plan. How it has been challenging and how it works.
-
Theological Journey – What constitutes a non-negotiable doctrine? Our journey through changes.
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Marketing – Our philosophy and method behind getting our message out those inside and outside of our congregation.
-
Small Groups – Our history of Small Groups over the last 10 years. Where we are now and where we want to go.
-
Setting Goals and Taking Risks – Our path of challenge, risk, failure and reward. How we make a decision on change. (adding or subtracting: weekend services, facilities, staff, ministries, tech, etc).
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PSM Culture – What makes us unique and how we rest in our differences. (preaching style, music, skin color, attitude, leadership model, etc)
Special Lunch Session Eat a free, delicious lunch with us! Plus, We will be joined by an Israel expert, Munir Sayegh. Munir is a wonderful Christian from Nazareth and can offer up to date information about the Middle East.
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
Hotels in the area:
Embassy Suites
Hampton Inn
Church Location: 1650 Lime Kiln Road, San Marcos, TX 78666
Church Phone: 512-392-4357
Church Website: http://www.psmchurch.com
The Pastoring Parade
I just reviewed the list of people from the New Members meeting in April of 2012. (almost a year ago)
Here is what I determined from that list:
- 12 families making up 19 people are still active
- 5 families making up 13 people are no longer here (unknown reason)
- 3 families making up 6 people have moved out of the area
Rick Warren says that pastoring a church is like pastoring a parade. There is a constant moving of people and you are saying, “hello, how are you, goodbye, hello, how are you, goodbye, hello, how are you, goodbye”.
Andy Stanley said, “Everyone leaves your church..at one point or another.” They either move, quit, or die.
Knowing how to pastor people in the flow of life is often challenging. We get personally attached to those who make big time investment. We wish that others would connect more. There are times when it seems like everyone is joining the church and then times when it all seems stale. Thankfully, we have never had a mass exodus or ‘split’. I say ‘thankfully’ because of the emotional pain and logistical nightmare that incurs on us as humans. I am not sure the real damage of this ‘church failure’ to the kingdom. It is quite possible that some mega churches do just as much harm to the message of the gospel. But, I digress…
To keep on loving people, preaching the gospel, correcting, encouraging and fulfilling the commission is exhaustive when looking through the fleshly eyes. We are tempted to believe that our next technique will solve the parade. It won’t. Jesus preached to a parade just as we do. We do our best and learn all we can, however, at the end of the day we need to be focused on Jesus Christ. (period)
When pastoring with a real, personal relationship with God and always centering on the gospel, we are able to:
- Remember what is important
- Reassess priorities
- Not be as concerned with comparisons to other churches or leaders.
- Celebrate everyday victories. (1 baptism, 1 new volunteer, 1 etc)
+robin
Robin Steele 