I talk to pastors and leaders my age and older who want to see a new generation of leaders, but either don’t know how or can’t seem to find them. Frankly, some pastors I talk with are frustrated with what they see as a lack of leadership among the newer generations.

I’m frequently asked how we have managed to find so many talented young leaders at Grace Community Church. Much of the work God has done among us has been done through the leadership efforts of people 10, 15, and 20 years younger than me. I’m not the oldest guy on staff anymore, but I’m definitely outside the mode, mean, or median average.

Here are 7 ways to raise up young leaders:

Give them opportunities – That sounds simple, but it’s not. Many leaders are afraid to hand off real responsibility to leaders half their age. I understand, because I made some huge mistakes as a young leader, but at the same time, that’s how I learned. Younger leaders want authority and a seat at the table now, not when they reach an expected age. Is it risky? Of course, but it awesome has the potential for awesomeness to occur.

Share experiences – Young leaders are open to learning from a mature leader’s successes and failures. They enjoy hearing stories of what worked and what didn’t. That’s actually one of the beauties of the newer generations. The young leaders on my team actually seek out my personal experience. They will still want the chance to learn on their own, but they are ready to glean from the wisdom of those who have gone before them, especially in the context of relationships.

Allow for failure – People of all ages will make mistakes in leadership, regardless of their years of experience. For some reason that seems magnified for the younger leaders, which is one reason older leaders sometimes shy away from them. An atmosphere which embraces failure as a part of the growth process, invites younger leaders to take chances, risking failure and exploring possible genius discoveries.

Be open to change – More than likely, younger leaders will do things differently than the older leaders did things. They want more flexible hours, different work environments, and opportunities to work as a team. It may seem unnatural at first, but let their process take shape and you’ll have a better chance of leadership development occurring.

Set high expectations – Having different working methods shouldn’t lower standards or quality expectations. The good thing is the younger leaders, from my experience, aren’t looking for a free ride, just a seat on the bus. Hold them accountable to clearly identified goals and objectives. Applaud them for good work and challenge them to continually improve. It’s part of their growth process.

Provide encouragement - Younger leaders need feedback. They seem to want to know how they are doing far more often than the annual review system of the past afforded. They are looking to meet the approval of senior leadership and the organization. Keep them encouraged and they’ll keep aiming higher.

Give constructive feedback - Again, younger leaders appear more interested in knowing they are meeting the expectations of senior leadership, so acknowledge that fact by helping them learn as they grow. Don’t simply share “good” or “bad” feedback. Rather, with the goal of helping them grow as leaders, give them concrete and constructive reviews of their performance. Help them understand not only what they did right or wrong, but practical ways they can get better in their work and leadership abilities.

Raising up younger leaders is crucial to a growing and maintaining healthy organizations and churches. We must be intentional and diligent about investing in the next generation, understanding their differences, and working within their culture to grow new leaders.

Young leaders, what did I miss?

Mature leaders, what else are you doing?

What do the following people have in common?

• Perry Noble
• Bishop Walter S. Thomas, Sr.
• Casey Graham
• Clayton King
• Joseph Sangl
• Mike Madding

ALL are tremendous church leaders who have seen their vision become FULLY FUNDED!

AND, the great news is that ALL of these great men will be speaking LIVE at the Funded And Free Church Leader Conference in Charlotte, NC on Thursday, April 19, 2012!

Bishop Thomas will be able to share how New Psalmist Baptist Church completed a major building project in the middle of The Great Recession – and continued to see tremendous ministry growth!

Perry Noble will share how NewSpring Church built a youth facility, children’s facility, and launched multiple campuses during 2008 – and continued to pour tremendous amounts of money and resources into missions and outreach!

Mike Madding will be talking about how The Cove Church has been able to equip their people to win financially even in the face of a tremendous economic downturn in their area – and their church has grown by leaps and bounds.

Casey Graham will be sharing how to increase your operational giving through the implementation of proven biblical systems.
You don’t want to miss this one-time only event!

Want even better news? Injoy Stewardship Solutions has partnered with some other great organizations to provide this conference absolutely FREE for church leaders.

Here are the details:

DATE: April 19, 2012
LOCATION: The Cove Church – Mooresville, NC (North Charlotte Area)
TIME: ONE DAY (9AM – 4PM)
COST: $0 (thanks to the kindness of our sponsors!!!!)
FOOD: Provided (and it is free too!)

Space is limited – so register immediately to secure your spot for this amazing day! Click HERE to register now.

Pride comes before the fall from Gcomchurch Sermons on Vimeo.

I was working with a church recently that has a leadership issue, which is causing harm to the church. One of the staff members is extremely popular with the people in the church, but he is considered a lousy team player by the rest of the staff. He’s lazy, divisive, and disrespectful to the senior pastor.

The pastor and key leadership realize a change needs to occur. He’s been counseled and threatened with his job, but he knows he is popular and therefore refuses to change. The pastor, who has been at the church less time than the other staff member, knows he could never recover from letting him go.

I was asked to help the church find a solution to the dilemma. If I were simply encouraging them to do the right thing…that would be easy, in my opinion. He needs to go, because of the flippancy he’s shown towards leadership. Unfortunately, what is easy isn’t always best.

It was a reminder:

The answer to problems is often easy, but the solution can often be hard.

Want an easy answer to the above scenario?

There can even be three options on the table. The senior pastor can either fire the associate pastor, quit as the pastor, or live with the problem. That’s easy isn’t it. Choose the one that seems best to you. You could even draw numbers out of a hat for that one if you can’t decide. (One for fire, two for quit, and three for live with…in case you weren’t following.)

Finding the solution to a problem is much more difficult.

I have my particular easy answer, but finding a solution is a more delicate process. It involves making hard decisions and dealing with hard consequences. It could be either of the three easy answers, but a solution is bigger than making a decision. To be a solution it would involve the follow through…clean-up…and the working of the situation for the ultimate good of the organization. That’s hard, messy, difficult work.

Making decisions…Easy

Finding solutions….More difficult.

By the way, great leaders don’t just make decisions…they find solutions.

Honestly, would you rather make decisions or find solutions?

(Please know I changed some details of this story to protect identities.)

I command you…be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Joshua 1:9

As I read the Scripture, I see little room for the follower of Christ to be afraid (except for the fear of God).

Perplexed; yes. Confused; sometimes. Overwhelmed; often. Angry; when necessary. Distressed; possibly.

Yes, I fully agree, just the fact that the command is there does not mean we will always follow it. Quite the contrary; I have been afraid many times. I fight the worry battle like all the rest. Wasn’t it David, the man after God’s own heart, who said that “when I am afraid, I will trust in you”? Sounds like he may have struggled with fear also.

Still, the Bible is consistent, and it consistently reminds us not to allow fear to captivate our lives. Obviously, when God first gave this command to Joshua, being an all knowing God, He knew that Joshua was about to encounter some pretty scary days. No doubt the enemies of Joshua had ample opportunity to attempt to make him squirm.

Today God knows there will be times that cause fear to be our primary emotion. He sees the trouble before it comes. It was He who MADE the disciples get into the boat and face the raging sea. It is He who allows the storms in our lives to come.

God knows there is plenty in life to make us afraid. Still, the challenge remains, and the command remains to not be afraid! And, in those moments, God know we will need to rely on His strength being perfect when our strength is none.

How are you doing these days obeying the command of God to not be afraid?

Call on the Lord today and ask Him to help you overcome your fears!

I met with a young man in our church recently. I love his heart. I baptized him a few months ago and have taken a personal interest in him. I see such kindness in him, that I asked him to serve in our children’s ministry. He was delighted.

After we talked about the opportunity, he said he filled out a card asking to serve in our preschool ministry a year ago and never heard anything. He assumed we weren’t interested in him. I was devastated. Hopefully, he simply fell through the cracks of our system, but this type of thing frustrates me more than just about anything.

Responsiveness is paramount in ministry and leadership. Whether it’s an email, a phone call, or Facebook message, most people expect some sort of response. I realize busyness makes this difficult, but it’s an important enough issue to address. I encourage leaders to figure out a process that allows for diligent responsiveness.

Here are 3 problems with unresponsiveness:

It makes a person feel unappreciated – When someone doesn’t get a response back, the person feels they aren’t important enough. They wonder what they’ve done wrong or why they aren’t good enough.

It makes a person feel unloved – Like it or not, unresponsiveness is translated, especially in the church setting, as an indicator of love. If you don’t respond, you must not love them very much.

It makes a person mistrust you or the organization – People will only tolerate unresponsiveness a few times. Want to wreck an organization’s credibility? Become known as unresponsiveness.

So what do you do about it?

• Make responsiveness an extremely high value in the organization.
• Leaders should lead by example.
• Answer all emails and return calls promptly, even if you don’t have an answer yet.
• Have a system is in place to respond to all queries.
• Never ignore a request.

Even in the best environments, situations like the example above will happen. People will feel they’ve not been listened to, that no one cares, or that they are unloved. They’ll take it personal enough to leave the organization.

The more you can do to avoid it the better you will build an atmosphere of genuine trust.

How does it make you feel when someone doesn’t respond to an inquiry?

I deal with dozens of pastors and ministers each month through my blog and consulting ministry. It seems to me that many are drowning in their ministry, are in unhealthy church cultures, and many are wondering if God will ever use them again.

I know from my recent blog reader survey that nearly 60% of my readership is in some form of professional ministry, so I thought I’d do a survey on the health of pastors and ministers who read my blog (and others I can get to take the survey).

Would you help me?

If you are in vocational ministry, either full-time or part-time, please take this quick, 22 question survey by clicking:

HERE

You can help even more if you can encourage others in your network, through Facebook, Twitter, or blog to take the survey. Again, I am really asking this to be filled out by those in vocational ministry. I appreciate you honoring that request.

I’ll post results in the weeks to come.

Thanks!

I’m 48 years old. I’m just old enough to have wisdom about a few things I should and shouldn’t do, but not yet old enough to always follow my own wisdom. Recently I observed a characteristic in me that I hope is not permanent.

We recently moved to a downtown condo. I wrote about why we did that HERE. The condo sits on a hill, overlooking the river district of our community. We love the view, but it presents a problem on windy days. We have to weatherize our front porch every time we suspect a storm, turning over the furniture and making sure everything is secure.

On one recent night, Cheryl heard the wind picking up and asked if we should prepare the porch. That really meant I should get up and prepare the porch, but I love the gentle way she “suggests” such things. Getting up at 1:30 AM to step onto my front porch in my boxers has never been my idea of fun, but I do like a happy wife, so I headed out to do my job. When I got back into bed she thanked me to which I replied:

“Better safe than sorry.”

Instantly the thought occurred to me. I would have never used that phrase a few years ago. “Better safe than sorry” has never appealed to me before. Sounds like something my mother would have said to me. I like risk-taking. I embrace change. I run to things others say can’t be done or aren’t willing to try. I’ve made a commitment to walk by faith.

I’m scared of “better safe than sorry”. What happened to me? Am I that old?

Here’s my plan to counter my recent tendency to lean to the comfortable side of life:

I own a couple Groupons for skydiving. My oldest son and I have wanted to do this for several years. It’s a risk worth taking I think, especially in light of my recent playing it safe tendency.

I think very soon I’ll go jump out of a “perfectly good plane”.

I must. I can’t stand the thought of resting on the safe side.

What’s the purpose of this post? Well, if God is calling you to something bigger than your ability to understand…

Don’t play it safe! Play it by faith!

Be honest: Are you more likely to prefer a risk or the safe side?

One of the most frequent criticisms I receive from young leaders about their organizations is that they aren’t given adequate responsibly or authority. They are handed a set of tasks to complete, but they don’t feel they have a part in creating the big picture for the organization. Since most of the young leaders I talk to are in ministry, this means it’s happening in the church too.

Do you want to lead a successful organization (church) that attracts leaders? Here’s my best advice:

Hand out visions more than you assign tasks.

In order for the organization to be successful, you’ll need to attract leaders. You know that, right? You need to know something about leaders and potential leaders.

Leaders want to work towards a vision, more than they want complete a set of tasks.

Leaders don’t get excited about checklists and assignments.

Leaders want to join a great vision, then help develop the tasks to accomplish it.

Leaders get excited about faith-stretching, bigger-than-life, jaw-dropping acts of courage. That’s the kind of vision they want to believe in and follow. “To do” list often gets in the way of that kind of fun. Visions excite them, details to complete them don’t.

So, if you want to create a successful organization, recruit leaders, hand them a big vision, with lots of room on the implementation side, then allow them to choose how they will accomplish that vision.

Hand them the vision, then get out of their way and let them do their work.

That doesn’t mean your work is over. They’ll need your help along the way. They’ll still need your help to develop structure, discipline and follow through. But that’s way different than handing them a set of tasks. That’s practicing good leadership and delegation skills. (You can read 4 Critical Aspects of Healthy Delegation HERE.)

I realize this is especially hard for perfectionist leaders who want to control every outcome. (Leaders like me; just being honest.) You’ll have to take a risk on the people you’ve recruited to lead and discipline yourself to let them work in their own way. You’ll get burned a few times, but overall, you’ll find more success when you:

Paint big visions…not specific tasks…

When you do this you’ll attract and develop more leaders and a more successful organization will be built and sustained.

How are you at releasing your vision to others?

Would you rather be handed a vision or a set of tasks to be completed?

I’ve heard many well-meaning, potentially great leaders who never achieve all they could, because their fears and doubts keep them from making hard decisions.

Let me tell you from experience:

You’ll never be 100% certain about a leadership decision.

Okay, maybe “never” is too far a stretch, but it’s at least 99% certain you’ll never be 100% certain.

The best leadership decisions are the hardest to make. You won’t have all the answers yet. You’ll still have some doubts. You may likely have a few (sometimes many) naysayers around saying it can’t be done, it won’t work, or they don’t want to change.

That’s what leadership does. It leads people where they need to go, but may not want to go. That’s hard. All of us like approval. Sometimes leadership doesn’t receive immediate approval. You often have to make decisions before you have complete certainty, even when you believe you’re following God’s will. Doubt and fears affect us all. We can question our own ability to hear from God. Others cloud our ability to discern. At some point, leaders lead in the direction they feel God is leading them to go, regardless of the other voices around them.

I have a friend who says, “If life takes you to a fork in the road, choose the hardest route. It’s often the one where God most wants to shape you.” The point of his saying is that faith is built by resistance to our doubts and fears. If it doesn’t stretch you, it’s probably not much of a worthy goal. The path of least resistance usually produces the least desirable results.

Leader, don’t be afraid to make the hard decisions. Seek wise counsel, follow God’s heart as closely as you can, answer all the questions you can, even try to kill your own ideas (Read about that HERE). At some point, leaders pull the trigger to do the best they know how to do for the people they lead.

Don’t be gun shy! Pull!

Be honest, do you struggle making decisions when you’re not 100% certain?

Have you ever followed a leader who couldn’t make the difficult decisions?