Beginning to Administrate

This is a little off track, but not too far out there. I have been thinking about what happens when I "administrate" something. What happens, practically? Whether you are in a position that requires overall responsibility or just responsible for a small part, I think there are a couple of key things we need to do.

We need to think! Seems obvious. Not so. We need to take some time and think through all of the things that need to happen for a successful "event." Let's use a Sunday service as an example. You are the pastor (theoretically) so you have the overall responsibility for the service. You may delegate parts of it but they still have a strings attached to you. If you have been at this for awhile some of this may seem unimportant or unnecessary. OK for you, but perhaps, not for some one else.

There is no way I am suggesting that the pastor do all of this or even have his fingers in it other than as an overall leader (administrator).

Who does the bulletins? It's in good hands and I've given all of my announcements to the person.
Who handles worship? Ah, yes, the worship leader. Is he aware of any special things (music, drama) that I want to use because of my message that day? Do I communicate enough with the worship leader?

Do the ushers/greeters know their job? Do they have the handouts that they need? Are the baskets in the right place - if there is an offering? Is my message ready or being worked on faithfully? Did I get my PowerPoint to the sound people? And the list could go on.

Understand, again, most of these things are in other peoples hands as delegated responsibilities. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be aware of them. If we are unaware of these things we cannot appreciate the work that others are doing and good communication breaks down. Nothing will disgruntle your workers more than lack of acknowledgement and encouragement and training.

So as you sit in your chair or stand at your desk (recommended these days) on the day you work on this - THINK. Think of what could go wrong or right. Pray and ask God to make you aware of needs for the Sunday service.

As you journey through your service, notice what is going on. Look at the congregation, workers and see  what is working and what is not. I think a big part of administration is having eyes that see.

As always, throw in your comments. That's how we all learn.

We will try again

I just looked at this blog and realize the last post was in 2012! Wow, so much has happened since then. I hope to begin again to more faithfully post here. Sometimes I think of blogging as keeping a public diary and it sounds a little dangerous. Other times, I think blogging is just putting your wild thoughts "out there." Finally, I think of blogging as someone who knows something and is trying to share it with those who are interested. Probably, I will touch on all three ideas.

This is Sunday. Sunday will, 99% of the time find me attending a service. Today I will be at Harvest Christian Church in Elyria, OH. Is that unusual you may ask. Sometimes it is because of the work God has me doing at this time of my life.

This is a beginning.

There is too much to do!!!

In either a Twitter post or a Facebook post someone commented with "Wow" after my last entry. Having just re-read that post I concur, WOW! That is a lot of stuff. Fortunately we don't usually think of all the things that need to be done at the same time. There are a few that get our attention and we focus on those, many times forgetting - or letting them "fall through the cracks" as the saying goes - the rest of the things we need to do. That makes it easier for us to deal with everything BUT, it also will get us in trouble when we forget to call ????? who has been waiting to hear from us. This explains the need for a CALENDAR and a LIST.

Your calendar should always be handy and you should NEVER make and appointment or a promise without looking at it first - from personal experience. (It is not good to double book appointments.) When you make appointments don't forget to factor in travel time. You can't finish and appointment at 1:00pm on one side of town and start the next at 1:00pm. on the other side. You need travel time. As long as you have your calendar out you ought to schedule two things right now. Schedule your teaching prep time (if you have these responsibilities) and your date night (if you are married).

Your LIST should be with you also. Anything that comes to mind that you need to do (hence the term TO DO LIST) should go on the list. Many of you may think your memory is sufficient - "I won't forget" you say. I have had many people schedule appointments with me only to find they aren't there for the appointment because, "I forgot." Get in the habit of writing it down. It will only serve you in the long run. Oh yeah, don't forget you have to look at both your calendar and your list.

Now you have a CALENDAR, a LIST, and if you did the suggested "assignment" from the last post, a list of what you have to do in your ministry. This is a great start. We will continue with the next post.

Don't forget to add your insights, thoughts, suggestions, and questions in the COMMENTS.

Confused?

The last post may have left you in some confusion. We are talking about ADMINISTRATION and yet I shared a method of establishing priorities in your life. Does that affect you skills in ADMINISTRATION? For sure.

If you can't administer you own life how can we begin to do it on a community level. We need to understand the need to begin with small things (our lives) before we can move on the bigger things (the church). As pastors/leaders we need to have our lives in order; not only have our lives in order but to know how to help others move into a life of order.

The chart I gave you last time is not difficult. You may have to adjust it depending on your life situation. If you are bi-vocational, the separation of WORK AND CHURCH makes some sense. If you are full-time in ministry your work and church columns may become one. Then there is A,B, and C, the Priority Rows. Row A would be those things that have to be done. They are critical to that column topic. They are not optional. Row B are those things that should be done. We need to schedule them in our calendar and soon. Row C are the things we would like to do and if there is any extra time we want to do them. In my experience Row A is easier than Rows B and C.

In doing this exercise you will have to move some things from the Priority A row to some other row. This can be difficult because we are placing a less important label on some things we have always done. Have fun working through this. Remember you can only have a limited number of items in Row A.

Once you have filled-in all 15 or so blocks take some time to review and be sure each item is placed in the block it belongs.

Why is this important? One of the lessons we need to learn is the one word answer, "No." If we understand our priorities we give ourselves one more tool to allow us to say "No." to the many requests that come our way.

If you are married, be sure to go over you priority list with your spouse - they have valuable insight into our lives. If you are single, be sure to go over the sheet with that person who would serve as your pastor, overseer, or accountability partner - they may be able to add some thoughts to yours.

Using this form with others can be very helpful in helping them to understand what they should be doing. You could also modify the column list and use it with your church. One option would be using one column - CHURCH - and then filling in the Priorities Rows. Another would be to make each column one of the major ministries of your church and having their respective leaders fill-in the priority rows. This would create a good place for discussions among your team.

Please add your comments and suggestions. One of the keys to leadership is to never stop learning.

Administration - Gift, Skill or Stupid

I've been asked to develop a training module on ADMINISTRATION - for pastors. The comment was that many pastors have no idea how to do administration in their churches or in some cases their life. So, I thought I would develop it here so that I can add your feed back to my learning module.

By using the term "learning module," I'm saying, it is part of the training a pastor needs- probably only a part of the training in administration.

But you say, "I'm not the administrator, I have an administrator." Nice. But, you, the pastor need to have some ability in the area of administration. Why? Your own life, your families life and your church need you to be involved. No, you don't need to be THE administrator of your church but, you do need to be able,to some degree, to administrate, manage, order, and organize - with the help of the Holy Spirit - those things you have been given responsibility for by the Lord.

This is an area in which I have some gifting - it comes without much effort - and I have spent the last 40 years trying to improve. Perhaps you are one of the gifted or, perhaps, that is a gift that you never received. Let's see if we can help you develop the gift, or if you are the latter, give you some help developing some of the skills that will serve you, your family and your church family.

In the past week I have been trying to think about this question of administration. But first, let's get one thing clear, I may not always refer to God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit directly, but everything I write has their involvement implied.

There are two thoughts - so far - that seem important.

1. the system you use is not as important as being consistent in your use of the system
2. you need to manage three things: time, stuff, and relationships.

So what do we mean by administration? My definition would run something like, administration is that set of skills/gifts that allow my life to operate in a way that brings me a sense of peace at the end of the day.

I'm going to stop there for now. I will be interested in receiving your comments and thoughts.

Strengths and Weaknesses

One of the primary issues we deal with has to do with our strengths and weakness. The “Peter Principle” states that “every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” (The Peter Principle, Lawrence Peters, 1969) Phrasing it in my own words, we will continue to be promoted until we are unable to fulfill the needs of the last promotion. When this happens, we become frustrated, discouraged, angry, sometimes fired, and unproductive. What does this have to do with leadership in the church? Often times the same thing happens in the church. We see someone who is doing a marvelous job in a particular ministry, move them to another, perhaps more prestigious, ministry and they don’t experience the same success they had previously. Perhaps a common example is an associate pastor, youth leader or small group leader that has been very successful in their ministry and is tapped to be the Sr. Pastor. When the change takes place they do a poor job and constantly struggle with just maintaining the status quo. What happened? They stepped out of their area of giftedness and skill.

As leaders we are expected to be competent in three basic areas: dealing with people, proclamation, and production (The ability to get things done and make things happen whether numerical growth, greater financial contributions or a successful building program, for example.) Few of us, if any, are actually competent in all three areas. This lack of competency causes us to find various ways of coping with our lack: blame others, blame circumstances, avoid issues and people, keep things focused on another area so our weakness is not seen, or demonstrating a humility about our inability and doing nothing to change. This is a quick rode to major trouble in your life and in the life of those who follow you. How do we deal with this?

Recognize your call and your gifting. Yes, “you can do all things in Christ Jesus!” but it doesn’t mean you should or are able do it all. We need to know what we can do well. Where our gifting lies and what skills we have. Then we need to work within those parameters. It all comes from God. (II Cor. 3:4-5 “And such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.”) Rightly discern you gifts and talents with the help of those you trust. Jack Miller states the following spiritual laws: Only God is God; you are not God. See the problem is we have these confused, many times. If we put these laws in the right order we will find we are much more fruitful.

Do a self-evaluation. Ask the hard questions. What can I do that nobody else can do? What are my strengths? What am I good at? Where have I seen results? What do I enjoy doing? After you have answered these questions let someone else answer them for you—being sure to have an open heart to what God might be saying. Face the weaknesses others might see in you. Some of these weaknesses you can improve on with study and work. Others are more a part of who you are and you will need to work with that limitation.

One of the keys to being a good leader is to find people who can fill-in your weaknesses and work together with them. My personal conviction is that we were never meant to work alone. Churches should be led by plural leadership where men can fill-in what others are missing. Then we build a team of real strength under the guidance of God.

Where you can find ways (study, reading, classes, etc.) to improve you skills and weakness, do so. Where you cannot, acknowledge you are in over your head, have the courage to back out and move on, becoming a better leader.

Would love to hear you comments on the following questions.

• How well do you know who you are? What have you done to find out the answer to the question?
• How would you define your strengths and weakness?
• What do you need to do to discover, more fully, who you are and what you are to do?
• Finally, what is one thing you will do this week to become more acquainted with you?

HOLY SPIRIT MOVES

I love the Holy Spirit! This is one of my favorite topics—and relationships. Over the years I have seen the Holy Spirit do amazing things. From salvation, to healing, to signs and wonders, I have come to appreciate my limited knowledge of how he works and makes himself known. Having seen him work on five different continents in very different ways, my heart is more open to what he wants to do—and how he chooses to do it then ever before.

When I was growing up some TV shows encouraged you to sing-a-long. They would put the words on the screen and then a bouncing ball would bounce from word to word to help you sing along. Some people today think that the Holy Spirit is like the bouncing ball, touching the earth every now and then to help us out.

One of the great mistakes we make is to believe that what we know about the early church is the "holy grail" of church life. For some reason it is thought that the Holy Spirit began everything at Pentecost, established the church by about 300 AD and then disappeared. Wrong. The Holy Spirit has been with us from the beginning. He has been working in the church since he came and he will continue to do so until Jesus returns.

So...we need to respect what the Holy Spirit has done in history. Not everything is his doing for sure, but he has been at work through the ages. In the midst of the worst of the church there has always been a light in the world. In the midst of the Dark Ages, for example, there was a move of God in Ireland. In our prejudice and pride we often do not see it. We forget that the church (one, holy, catholic and universal) has consistently challenged the world and brought great improvement throughout its history. There are periods of disgrace, the Crusades, for example. There are periods where it may be very difficult to see the Spirit working. Our faith and God’s word tell us that he was and is still alive and living on earth.

This work is not just in signs and wonders, though if we look through history we will see these in various places, but in the very foundations of our current world cultures. The church in all of its glory and sinfulness has been the primary cause of positive change in the human condition. It has even promoted tolerance in the midst of prejudicial intolerance. Tolerance is seen in the way Jesus loved people. He understood that they, Jews and non-Jews, were made in the image of God. We see this prejudicial intolerance in the church in the treatment of heretics during the Inquisition, the reformation and the way one reformer (movement) treated another, and today, in the treatment of homosexuals, drug addicts and myriad other "sinners." We are told to love our enemies and yet we find ourselves much closer to hate than love.

As you consider this topic it would be good to do some personal investigation into church history. It is not all pretty. But open your eyes to see beyond the prejudices you were raised with to see the work of God throughout the history of the church.

From the personal perspective we need to embrace the work of Holy Spirit since He came at Pentecost.

You might want to view Francis Schaeffer’s series “How Should We Then Live?” It is available on DVD from Amazon and other locations. A quick search at any of the online bookstores will provide you with a number of books on the subject of church history.

FOR YOUR JOURNAL

• Each of us in our own way have developed some negative attitudes towards the church. What are yours?
• Think of the churches you think of today when you hear "dead" or "cold." Explain how you think they got that way.
• Pick one historical period, as short or long as you like, and explain how the Holy Spirit was working during that time.