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Organizations in all walks of life openly plan for leadership transition. The Church is unique in the veil of secrecy that we draw around pastoral transition. We don’t want to watch people grow anxious, so we withhold known information about departure. In doing so, we postpone the hard adaptive work of leadership transition into the […]
Read MoreThe large church is known for the quality and depth of its programming, and for the exhaustion of its staff team. It’s true, every one of my client congregations is functioning with a burned out staff team, and pastors on the brink of exhaustion. We assume that a growing and thriving church is always adding […]
Read MoreBoard leaders long for meaningful meetings. Instead, many participate in mind-numbing meetings that repetitively chase topics, with little forward momentum. Agendas are rigidly structured around the receipt of reports, with little work that actually impacts the future of the congregation. What would it take to foster more fruitful board conversations? Recently, I observed a board […]
Read MoreThe problem with most planning is that people simply don’t do what they have declared they want to do. There is a goal setting technique that claims a 300% increase in the likelihood of goal attainment. It is called the if-then plan. Heidi Grant Halvorson, the associate director of Columbia Business School’s Motivation Science Center, […]
Read More(On the need to separate assimilation and membership) Once upon a time, people understood that the way to assimilate into the life of a congregation was to join that congregation. The typical indoctrination process began when newcomers attended the Sunday morning worship service and registered their presence on a pew pad. The act of registration […]
Read MoreWarning: This blog post makes blatant use of leadership gender stereotypes. Read at your own risk! I have led several recent conferences, involving clusters of congregations coming together to explore leadership in large congregations. In these settings there are typically ten to fifteen congregations represented. Each congregation brings a table full of staff leaders. I […]
Read MorePart of my Lenten discipline this year is a study of the Rule of Benedict. I am seeking to integrate the teachings of this 6th century communal rule book with my understanding of leadership in present day congregational life. Sr. Joan Chittister at Monastery of the Heart is my guide on this Lenten journey. Here […]
Read MoreHow does your congregation prepare new board members for their role? Many congregations offer board member orientation, but often the training has more to do with denominational polity and congregational policy, and less to do with the interpersonal demands of the role. And yet, the thing that most frequently trips up the new board leader […]
Read More“When we become utterly obsessed with outcomes and results, we keep taking on smaller and smaller tasks, because they are the only ones we can get [measurable] results with.”-Parker Palmer (on Effectiveness vs. Faithfulness) I worked this week with a group of 75 United Methodist leaders in Kansas. At one point our conversation turned towards […]
Read More“People are not going to be happy about this,” is the most frequent utterance I hear from congregational leaders preparing to introduce change. What I detect beneath their expressed concern is a deeper worry that people won’t “like me”, if I’m seen as the one imposing this change. Our worries about being “liked” point to […]
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