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Turn Workers into Messengers
How church vision gets caught.
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She added, "You're right, this is my small group. We are going to meet every Saturday to pray for one another." It's vital for pastors to help people see how their service accomplishes the church vision. When that happens, pastors commission every member of the congregation to be a messenger of the vision. That motivates people to make a difference. After a Sunday morning service, Jim expressed concern about our teacher rotation schedule in the children's church: "Every week the children have a new teacher. That's like having a new pastor every week." My immediate reaction was to get defensive, but instead I said, "It sounds to me like you have a burden for our children. That kind of passion makes a great teacher. Would you like to work with the children's church on a consistent basis?" "I'd love to," Jim said, "but I've never worked with kids before." That was two years ago. Today Jim is a gifted children's minister.
Gary J. Blanchard
LEADING STAFF What Your Team Needs from You 6 questions for better staff development. In Fatal Flaws Managers Make, management expert W. Steven Brown writes, "The successful manager grasps the essential difference in personalities of those on his staff and, aware of their strengths and weaknesses, manages them as individuals." Our youth pastor, who connects with high school students in their environment, likes and needs to work unconventional hours. But our children's ministry director is a highly structured individual. She prefers to work on a schedule. The temptation is to manage different people the same way, but each will perform better if given the chance to work according to their strengths. In Masterplanning, Bobb Biehl suggests asking six questions in supervisory meetings to guide staff for better results. These help me focus on the individual needs of each person rather than assuming I know what his or her needs are:
Kurt Bjorklund
UPGRADE THEIR MINDS Performance-enhancing substance I used to try to improve my staff's ministry by directing their behavior. But that's not the most effective way, long-term. People respond best when their thinking is changed, not when they are coerced into a different course of action. The role of a leader is to influence thinking, though that takes more time and energy than trying to control a behavior. That means I must spend time understanding the assumptions and thought processes of my staff. |             |
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