Every Need Is Not a Call

Focusing on the right community ministry

I frequently work with churches that are located in communities with multiple needs and issues. In urban neighborhoods, and more frequently now in suburbs and rural communities, you might find the following issues:

• high levels of unemployment, with families struggling to meet basic needs as a result
• an achievement gap between children who live in poverty and those who don't, resulting in lower graduation rates and college attendance for youth from poor families
• a lack of affordable housing that has driven some people into homelessness

Trying to meet all the needs that you see is counter-productive. It's likely your church won't be good at responding to them all, and if you try, your impact on the community will be minimal. So a critical step in developing effective community ministry programs is focus: making good choices about the one or two areas in which your congregation will work.

I've found that asking the following questions can help a congregation become more focused in developing community ministry:

What does the community say that it wants your church to do?
Don't overlook what the people in the neighborhood surrounding your church say about what they want and need. You may be able to use information from groups that have already surveyed community needs in your area—the United Way, for example, or a community council. Or better yet, your church members and staff can connect one-on-one or in small groups with community residents, asking them a few key questions:

• what do you think are the main challenges or concerns in this community?
• who is dealing with them best?
• what can our church do to best serve the community?

What other services are provided in your area to address these needs?
Another way to bring focus is to investigate what other services are being provided in your area. If an issue is already being well-addressed, perhaps your congregation doesn't need to respond with new programming. Send church members to identify and tour other programs, meeting with key staff and observing what's offered. It's a way to see from the ground level the services that are being provided, plus it's a way for your church to build needed relationships in the community. You may learn that your congregation's role is different than you thought—instead of starting your own ministry, you may decide to partner with an existing one, providing volunteers from your church and financial support, for example.

What are the people in your church passionate about?
The most successful community ministries I have seen are driven by the passion of the people in the congregation. What issues can the people in your church not stop talking about? When I have served as a church staff member, I knew God was up to something when different church members who didn't even know each other would approach me about the same ministry idea. Bringing them together to share their passion for this new "seed" of ministry was the most critical step in moving forward into greater service to the community.

What gifts and skills are particularly present in your congregation?
It's hard to develop a successful ministry if you don't have the expertise or gifting to pull it off. Often congregations have clusters of particular skills—lots of people in the arts, for example, or teachers, attorneys, or people in the skilled trades. These skill sets ought to inform the ministries you choose to undertake. One church I worked with was a natural fit with housing programs, because there were so many people in the congregation working in the industry—real estate, construction, property management, etc. There are often clusters of spiritual gifts within congregations as well. If there are a number of people with the spiritual gift of hospitality in your church, for example, you may naturally move toward sponsoring community meals or special events for children.

In the face of so many needs in the community, it's tempting to try to respond to them all. But working toward an early focus in your community ministry will help you be more effective in serving the community and in developing your church members to use their gifts and skills in service.

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Five Tips for Creating a Mentor Program

The key to cultivating exceptional leaders

Things change continually in ministry, for better and worse. One area that seems to have improved drastically over the past 15 years or so, though, is the emphasis placed on mentoring and its role in creating fully engaged employees.

Being good stewards of resources goes far beyond just dollars and cents. Mentoring allows us to be good stewards of one of the greatest resources we have in ministry—people.
Mentoring is the practice of connecting an individual with someone who has “been there and done that.” It can play a key role in the development of a staff member into an exceptional employee or leader. Many people spend more of their waking hours at work than anywhere else, and this can be especially true in ministry. If people only learn how to technically perform their job, they are missing out on a much more balanced, well-rounded approach to their role.

Here are five tips for a successful mentoring program:

1. If it’s just going to be a program, don’t even start it. Doing this right requires commitment and a true concern for staff. Any other motivation will quickly become apparent and may sabotage your efforts.

2. Make sure it’s a good fit for the employee. Arbitrarily assigning someone a mentor may hinder open dialogue. Instead, identify potential mentors and allow individuals to select who they would like to be paired with. Mentors need to be individuals who not only have experience, but are also committed to the organization. Mentors will impact the people they mentor and should care about them personally while also helping them understand their role and potential growth in the ministry.

3. Mentoring relationships should always be same-gender. Not everyone would agree with this position, but it is a distinguishing characteristic between coaching and mentoring. Coaching is focused on the job and its tasks and could result in a male/female pairing, since the focus is solely on workplace issues. Mentoring, however, is more role- and life-related. It would be inappropriate for a female employee to share with a male mentor that she is having difficulty managing the responsibilities of work and home life, and that this is causing a strain on her marriage. For a mentoring relationship to be fully effective, life issues need to be discussed. Mentors are entrusted with trying to help employees grow and develop personally and professionally, and you need to make sure no one is put into a position that could cause them to stumble and damage any of the relationships they are trying to nurture.

4. Make sure both individuals are committed to the process. Mentoring requires a time commitment, and each person needs to be willing to invest in it. If mentors don’t make time to meet consistently, it will be apparent to the individual being mentored that this is not a priority. Likewise, if the mentor doesn’t feel that the individual cares about the process, it can seem like a waste of time. If both parties are committed to the process, the likelihood of success is high. This commitment should be reevaluated annually and any necessary changes, such as new mentor, made at that time.

5. Not everyone is a mentor. Keep in mind that not all individuals—including those in leadership—are designed to be mentors. If mentoring seems like a chore to someone, they probably shouldn’t be involved, and that needs to be acceptable. We don’t all preach. We don’t all handle finance decisions. We don’t all work with youth. We won’t all make good mentors.

The actual specifics of a mentoring program can, and should, vary. Some people find it helpful to have a specific agenda, and may choose to work through a book or study. Others may prefer to just have time set aside to reflect and engage in a genuine conversation. Mentors need the flexibility to determine what is best in their particular circumstances.

Finally, those in leadership positions often find it difficult to identify a mentor. This is especially true for women in ministry leadership, who may be blazing a trail with no one really ahead of them in their organization. If you find yourself in this position, you can identify someone in another organization or through your church who has experience and characteristics you can learn from. Most people will be honored to help someone in this way.

As we serve alongside each other, we can use the gifts and experiences God has given us to help some and accept encouragement from others. How could mentoring work as a way for your ministry team to be more engaged in developing new leaders?

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Trouble with Authority

You're bound to be tested

It didn’t take long to face opposition once I started a career in ministry. Of course, I had a lot of strikes against me from the start. First of all, I was young, fresh out of college, and in my first-ever paid ministry role. On top of that, I was a woman, the only woman serving with the pastoral staff. And, probably most significant, I was hired to launch a brand new ministry—church-wide adult small groups, a ministry most in the church knew nothing about and had no interest in.

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5 Things you need in Ministry

Rookie year reflections

Next month marks my one year anniversary of working in paid ministry. It's been a year full of joy, surprises, and challenges of all kinds. Here are five things I've learned in my rookie year:

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Amped Up from the Blackout

The hurricane may have knocked us off the grid, but we were far from powerless.

Hurricane Irene blustered her way up the East Coast, downing trees, toppling cars, and leaving seven million people (including our family) in the dark. We were without power for four days. I missed it desperately—my laptop, smartphone, televisions, refrigerator, hair straightener, and garbage disposal. (Yes, I missed my garbage disposal.) But now that I’m back on the grid, I also miss our blackout. Because what I saw happen without power that first post-storm Sunday morning was powerful without one amp of electricity.

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The Cure for Influence-itis

Doing for one what I wish I could do for all

The first time I asked this question, I was a volunteer women’s director with three children under six. Now, I’m on a church staff, but the demands of the role and my family continue to make it impossible to reach everyone. I struggled then (and still do) with understanding how to care for so many needs with such limited time.“I understand how to tell people that I can’t meet with them soon,” I said to my pastor over coffee several years ago, “but how can I possibly tell them I can’t meet with them ever?” I was experiencing my first round of influence-itis, the toxic, nagging feeling of being needed by too many people.

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Embracing Weakness

It pays to be honest about our shortcomings

Don’t get me wrong, most of us are happy to preach about weakness, write about weakness, and even encourage others to be open about their weakness. But something about the public nature of our leadership roles, or perhaps our own pride, makes it harder for us to be honest about our own shortcomings. After all, what would people think if they learned that you and I are light years away from having it all figured out? Christian leaders love to talk about strengths. Want proof? Just ask your pastor to list her spiritual gifts, talk about his areas of passion, or tell you her Myers-Briggs profile (any other ENTJ’s out there?). You’re sure to get an enthusiastic response. But ask that same leader to tell you about her areas of weakness, and she might be slightly less excited to engage with you.

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Leadership, the AA Way Getting real and leading authentically

Getting real and leading authentically

I used to think Alcoholics Anonymous was all stale prayers and smoky church basements. I considered myself a distant admirer of the program, but even as a counselor, I didn’t want to get too close. AA was a good idea for some people, but surely it wasn’t relevant to my busy life of “making a difference” in women’s ministry.

Last summer my stereotypes were shattered through a course called “Substance Abuse and Society,” which gave me a firsthand glimpse into the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Like the church, AA encourages people to seek healing and growth. But sometimes unlike church, AA prizes authenticity—in a Jesus kind of way. I was surprised at how much I gleaned about leadership in those church basements. Take a journey through a few of the Twelve Steps to examine your authenticity as a leader:

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Everybody’s Friend, Nobody’s Leader

Sharon and Tracy had worked extremely well together for many years. Both were surprised when Sharon was promoted, effectively leaving Tracy under her supervision. Sharon didn’t notice the initial subtle changes to the relationship, she was just so pleased about the promotion and the opportunity to try out her ideas. So it took her a while to recognise the signs of aloofness and the slightly cutting comments Tracy made to any of Sharon’s suggestions. These days it felt as if Tracy was actively avoiding her, spending as little time as possible in her company. In addition, Tracy always seemed to be in conversation with others when she should be working. It was beginning to affect the entire team who were also becoming increasingly uncooperative. Sharon knew she would have to do something soon or risk an all-out revolt, but Tracy was her friend, they had been through a lot together and she felt awkward about pulling rank at a time when Tracy probably needed her friendship more than ever . . .

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Adapting Strategies To Keep Profitable Customers

Amid the impersonal busyness of the airport, I feel drawn to his warm oasis. But my shoes don’t really need shining, I think as I take a seat at Nacho’s shoeshine stand in Terminal 1 at

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Leading Absent

How your team does without you says a lot about you

"The test of your leadership is not what happens when you're there, but what happens when you're NOT there." Ken Blanchard

Just reading that quote makes me a bit anxious. How about you? Have you ever found yourself creating exhaustive notes for your team or maybe even your family in preparation to be away for a few days? Have you ever feared what's waiting for you after an unexpected day out of the office?

As a leader, it's sometimes difficult to let go. There's a part of our psyches that feels a need to control—even when we're absent. But eventually our inability to let go will hold us back from continuing to grow as leaders. And not only will our growth be limited but the growth of our team will suffer as well. Leading others to succeed, especially when you are gone, is the mark of a growing leader.

So what do we need to do to pass this test of leadership that Blanchard talks about? 

1. Communicate expectations. Too many times we as leaders have expectations that we think are understood when in reality they are not. Before you reprimand someone for something that has gone awry in your absence, be sure you have been clear about your expectations.
2. Praise what's working. Don’t withhold a compliment…ever! If someone did something well, tell them. Don't assume they know. They might, but it always feels great to be told and you'll be reinforcing the behavior you want from them even when you're not around.
3. Create a system for feedback. Invite your team to tell you the good and the bad. Whether it's a weekly report, regular meeting, or another method that's effective for you, develop a way for your team to communicate with you.
4. Spend intentional time with your key leaders. Make sure they feel like you are available and listening. Know them. Know their families.
5. Pray for your organization and your team daily. It's all still God's. Give it back to him.

What else do you do to lead your team well, especially when you're absent?

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6 Critical Tools Visionary Leaders Use to Cultivate Innovation

Leaders understand that the best way to go through toughtimes is to grow through them. And fundamental to the recipe of organic growth is knowing how to use six critical tools that cultivate innovation.

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Fours Keys to Finding Meaning In Work

Ron was a successful senior executive with an insurance firm. I say successful because he had all the appearances of success. He had money, prestige, friends, family, and three homes. But he wasn’t happy at work. At age 60, he retired in order to take care of his ailing mother. He recently told me that he has never experienced such fulfillment as he does now caring for his aging Mom. Ron had found much more meaning in his new “career” as a caregiver. How about you and your team? How much meaning is in your work?

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7 Tips for Building Trustworthy Leadership

Terry delivered results. He knew how to get things done, and the senior leadership rewarded him. He rose quickly in the sales organization; from district manager to regional sales manager to senior vice president. As the senior VP, Terry was not afraid to shake things up in the complacent, bureaucratic company known for quality, but sorely lacking in innovation.

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The Four Most Powerful Motivational Tips from 300 Leading Companies

Leadership came early in my career. My first job after graduate school was leading a research group at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD). I had the privilege of working with an extraordinary team led by luminary leader, Dr. Victor Froelicher. In the four years that the nucleus of our small, productive, and highly motivated team was together, we

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How Leading Companies Inspire Creativity

A company in Connecticut recently hired an outside consulting firm to help them increase efficiency. Employees at all levels of the organization submitted more than 1,000 ideas. When one of the IT leaders finished expressing her enthusiasm for the initiative, I asked her two questions:

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Struggling to Succeed? read this!!!

I talk with team leaders every week where the team is struggling and trying to figure out how to succeed again. I understand. I’ve been the leader of teams in situations like that many times. Every team experiences times of decline. What you do next almost always determines how long it lasts and how well you recover.

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7 Benefits of Being a "Zombie" Leader!

Oh, the joy of Zombie leadership. It’s highly under appreciated.

Oh, I know, this appears to be a change of tune for me. This blog has been critical of Zombie leadership as a very poor leadership style. I apologize. I should have recognized the benefits in Zombie leadership before now. Thankfully, there’s still time in my leadership career. Hopefully I caught you in time too.

Zombie leadership, if done well, offers some powerful contributions to the organization.

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Hear other people speak!

One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen leaders make is:

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7 things to consider before you make that decision

As a pastor and leader, I am continually dealing with change. Everyday. Change is a part of life. For all of us.

Some change occurs without us doing anything. Some change is so routine it requires little thought or preparation by the leader. But, when making major change…change that impacts everyone…change the may be controversial…there are some steps to take before you begin implementation. Failing to do most or all of these, in my experience, could derail the effectiveness of the change. Keep in mind, these are steps I take. You may have a better system in place. If so, please help me learn from you

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