Know the Why

I’ve recently returned from a church conference and I was so happy that there wasn’t a lot of ‘what’ being demonstrated.

You’ve likely been to a ‘what’ conference. These conferences tell you this is ‘what’ worship is like, this is ‘what’ student ministries offers, this is ‘what’ your church website should look like.

‘What’ isn’t all bad since knowing the ‘what’ is important as it allows us to offer something that ministers to people. The world is full of people needing a ‘what’.

However, I loved hearing about the ‘how’. Successful churches and ministries that do ministry well understand that the ‘how’ is just as important as the ‘what’. ‘How’ helps the people and churches that are doing ministry replicate themselves. They can teach, demonstrate and use themselves as an example. The ‘how’ also allows for systems and processes to be developed to measure and make the ministry both efficient as well as effective. Knowing ‘how’ helps a church replicate ‘what’ they do to a larger and growing audience.

Ultimately, great leaders and great churches not only get the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ but they also understand the ‘why’. The ‘why’ is even more important. Answering the question ‘why’ gives context, permanence and visualization to that which is being accomplished.

If we know ‘why’ we also know the ultimate direction or vision of the ministry or activity. If we know ‘why’ we are using particular methods or using specific language, we have the opportunity to have a greater impact as when we teach, we are constantly casting vision rather than just giving instruction.

If knowing ‘what’ allows us to minister one-to-one; and knowing ‘how’ helps us replicate ourselves and our ministry through systems and processes, then knowing ‘why’ has the opportunity to build a movement.

Prepare for the Impossible

To prepare for the impossible may seem like an unlikely assignment. However, I believe that as church leaders it is exactly the assignment that Christ has given to us.

All too often, many of our churches resemble the church of Laodicea in the Book of Revelation. We may think, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing (Rev. 3:14).” While we may not ever say something like that out loud (knowing the context), we often wait until conditions are just right before breaking new ground, reaching into the community with the love and hope of Jesus, or hiring staff that would equip and empower others to do the work of ministry.

The needs around us are overwhelming. There are hundreds of thousands that are hurting. Our communities are full of people that need to know Jesus and our families, even within our churches are falling apart.

We have been called by God to make a difference. We are the sent ones—a people appointed by God to fulfill the Great Commission. We are the ones that are responsible to “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit … (Matt 28:19-20).”

We have neither the luxury nor the time to wait until we are fully resourced, have plenty of money in the bank and have all contingencies identified and planned. People are in desperate need and we are to be the salt and light to this generation.

In preparing for the impossible and allowing God to confirm the timing and provide the necessary resources I believe we need to follow three simple steps.

We need to embrace our need. As pastors and teachers we need both human and financial capital. We need people to come alongside us and help us in ministry. We may need other churches and ministries that we can partner with to be more effective in mobilizing resources. Preparing for the impossible would involve identifying and praying for the capital needed and selecting and training up those that will be equipped and even employed in ministry to meet the needs.

We need to recognize our calling. We are the ones that are to take this message of hope, peace and salvation to the world.

We need to affirm our anointing. The Apostle John tells us that we have an anointing from God (1 John 2:20). We know the need, we know the truth, and we also know the source. Later, in the same letter, John says, “As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you.”

Preparing for the impossible is necessary if we are going to move out of our comfort zone within our churches and get back into the communities. Out of our need, God provides. I have found he is never late but will also never get ahead of us.

Ken Behr

Reprint from ChurchExecutive March 2011

Charlie Sheen's Religion

Hedonism (hēd'n-ĭz'əm) n.

The Religion that identifies one's self as "God" and has sacraments that honor the pursuit of or devotion to pleasure, especially to the pleasures of the senses. The pure or ultimate religious expression would be full exaltation of self, believing that societal rules, norms, virtues, or values are not applicable to one's self.

Hedonism may also be described as:

The Philosophy that believes that only what is pleasant or has pleasant consequences is intrinsically good. The ultimate objective would be to experience pure intoxicating pleasure.

The Psychology that holds that behavior is motivated by the desire for pleasure and the avoidance of accountability to anyone or anything else.

[from the Greek hēdonē, pleasure + -ISM.]

Synonyms: carnality, debauchery, sensuality

Rich Enough?

There is an interesting story of the rich, young ruler that came to Jesus.

You likely know the story: A rich man comes to Jesus looking for affirmation of his faith. We all like affirmation and this certain man had much for which he would be proud for he said that he kept the commandments, he didn't murder or commit adultery. He said he wasn't a liar or defrauded anyone and he honored his father and mother (Mark 10:19-20).

Jesus had the opportunity at that time to remind him that adultery included lust and that murder including being angry with others which would have popped his balloon. Instead the Bible says that Jesus looked at him and loved him. Jesus did offer him something that was quite rare, he offered him the opportunity to become one of his disciples. "One thing you lack, He said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

There were very few that Jesus offered this opportunity. We know them all as Apostles.

The man went away however sad because of his unwillingness to part with his riches.

Perhaps he thought he wasn't rich enough.

That's the problem with earthly as opposed to heavenly riches. With the former, you can never be rich enough. The latter gives us the assurance and the affirmation that the rich man was looking for from Jesus. Jesus tells us that His assurance will come with these words, "Well done, good and faithful servant". (Matt 25:23)

Measure twice, cut once

I was never a very good carpenter. I didn’t have enough practice to be able to successfully cut a piece of wood to size. I was pretty good at following a pattern or a template, but typically the piece of wood was either too short or too long. Too-long slows you down, too-short wastes wood.

My father always had good advice for me. The advice was in carpentry, “Measure twice, cut once.

In the church, we need to follow the same advice. Actually, we need to just measure more. Developing some simple metrics for a church and watching some key indicators can tell you a lot. Church metrics are like business metrics. They provide key data for leaders for analysis and to monitor the organizations performance. All too often, church leaders are called to try to make a decision without some information that would really help them make better judgment calls.

What kinds of metrics are needed? Often churches keep track of attendance, giving, baptisms and perhaps even guests. If the church has a number of employees, some performance metrics are often used, perhaps an annual performance appraisal.

Metrics are never to be considered in the absolute, but always with regard to trends. For example, one weekend’s attendance doesn’t tell us anything, however, knowing that weekend attendance has been growing by 10 percent the past few years and has recently flattened out gives us much more information.

One of the questions I get from our church leaders is about the accuracy of the metrics. They are usually surprised when I tell them that absolute accuracy is not as important as consistency and timeliness. The key is constantly monitoring trends.

Attendance for example can vary from church to church. Some churches count just adults in a worship service, others count adults and children. I recommend that churches count everyone including volunteers, those parking cars and everyone on the stage. All of these methods can be fine metrics. As long as the count is being made the same way each week (and each service), church leadership has a tool to use that allows them to have information quicker, make adjustments when necessary and celebrate as appropriate.

Reprint from ChurchExecutive January 2011

Things the Church could learn from Disney

My wife and I just returned from Disney World. It was a great trip as we have three in our family with birthday's the beginning of February. Celebrating a child's birthday at Disney is magical.

As we drove home, we had the time to think about how well Disney handles crowds, how welcomed we felt when we arrived and how pleasant the experience was, regardless of the crowd, weather or line.

The church could learn a lot from Disney. Here is the brief list we compiled:

1) As people enter the church lot and find a place to park, why not have an area and an entrance dedicated to parents with children that will need to be checked in? Parents with children have some unique needs and special consideration. If we tailor the experience to them, it will be better than if we had to have them find their way through the crowds.

2) Speaking of parking, while many churches have gotten larger and parking more expansive, only a few churches with large parking lots have shuttles and golf carts to transport people in from the outer regions. I'm not going to recommend we name the lots "Goofy" and "Mickey" but "Matthew, Mark Luke and John" could be interesting location names.

3) Rarely is the church as crowded any Sunday as Disney is on an off-day. However, we could learn a lot about crowd management from Disney for our Easter and Christmas services. Moving people from the lobby to the auditorium in a queue or at least with smiling people pointing the direction may be a little too "Disneyesque" but likely would work. Also, filling the seats from the front to the back and blocking off areas that are not needed only makes sense, which is likely why we resist it so much in the church.

4) Disney didn't build a park or a ride to be able to accomodate 100% of the people that may want to experience it. They expect that the park or ride will be utilized over and over, and that people would be somewhat indifferent if they got a chance to ride it now or 30 minutes from now.

While many churches have decided to offer multiple services so that they better utilize (i.e. be better stewards of) the resources they have, many churches continue to have expensive and over-sized auditoriums. Many churches unfortunately have entire buildings that are utilized no more than a few hours on Sunday and perhaps a Wednesday evening.

5) Disney ensures that every greeter, every attendant, every security officer, every retail employee wear name tags. I found out that 'Monique' was from my home town because her home town was also printed on her name tag. Disney calls all of their employees "cast members" and all are trained to be knowledgable, courteous and helpful. If people don't know the names of the cast members that work at Disney, it has little downside. However Disney believes names are important in creating community.

Conversely, how many people attend church on a weekly basis with virtual strangers? They see many of the same people weekly and may smile politely but have no name to go with the face. The opportunity to use name tags is an important start with those that we call ushers, greeters and volunteers. Wearing name tags can apply as well however to literally everyone that attends on a regular basis. If we want to be a community, it likely starts with a name.

Leading Others to Lead

One of the greatest responsibilities of leadership is in developing other leaders.

Developing leaders is actually part of the discipleship process. In the church, we are called to make disciples, not members. To be a disciple of Jesus is actually to be a “life-long learner.” As leaders we need to present very clearly the Gospel of the kingdom and the teachings of Jesus, and we show by example how to become more like him by including how to lead others as well.

If we think of our new believers, congregants and volunteers as believers (or merely students) of Christianity rather than disciples, we may miss the larger opportunity and fail in our responsibility in leading them to lead. After all, a disciple is one that not only learns and believes, but also does.

Developing leaders is critical in leadership as it is critical in the growth of the church. Many studies have shown that once churches start to become “fully-staffed” they no longer passionately solicit their members and volunteers to assume key leadership positions. New believers and members either fail to grow further as leaders, or find other churches or ministries where their desires and passions are released and appreciated.

Many church growth advocates encourage healthy volunteer-leader to staffing levels. This encourages churches to maintain strong ‘high-capacity volunteer leaders to staff’ ratios or paid staff to adult attendees ratios. As with most ratios, the absolute ratio is not the determining factor of “health,” but the trend is key.

Leaders encourage new believers to grow in their faith by volunteering their time and efforts, and also by learning to lead the various ministry activities. We coach, mentor, encourage and celebrate these efforts as a key component in an individual’s personal discipleship journey. This journey is key in the numerical and spiritual growth of the local church.


by Ken Behr
Reprint from ChurchExecutive October 2010