Archives for January 2013

Last week I had some writing to do and found myself for a variety of reasons, sitting for hours in a coffee shop that has free wifi and that I don’t frequent that often: Panera Bread.  I used to have this rule that I can’t go there without my wife, but I ventured out and decided to sit there in a cubicle, plug in my computer and go to work with free coffee refills.

Since I had never really spent hours in this place, I learned something that I had somehow missed in my previous visits.  Several times each day, like about once every 2 hours or so, someone on the staff would yell, “HOT Bread!”  This would then be echoed by the rest of their team who would then start successively shouting “HOT Bread!”It got me thinking of the “hot donuts” sign at Krispy Kreme and how somethings, you simply have to “get ’em while they’re hot”.

In youth ministry, this is both a truth and a lie.

TRUE- GET IT WHILE IT’S HOT:  There are seasons and moments where as a leader, you have to read the times and seize the opportunity for change.  Here are some:

• SEASONS:  The fall when school restarts and the new year after Christmas break are moments when it’s easiest to launch new programs.  Both are “hot bread” moments when people are ready for change and if you want to change your service times, your ministry structure, or your programs, these are time when change is hot and people are more apt to expect them.  Good leadership leverages these moments.
• WHAT YOUR AUDIENCE IS SAYING:  Reading an audience is not an idea, it is a necessary skill of all up front leaders.  You cannot run a game, give a talk, or lead a group in musical worship well without the ability to read your audience. This is more art than science, but one will quickly discover that if you don’t seize critical moments, they will pass and an inability to read a an audience that has left you can bomb an experience instantly.  If a game is a miss, smart leaders either adjust it on the fly to fix it or cut it short and call it a failure before it kills momentum.  Worship leaders figure out when people are engaged and when they are not and make changes to tempo and engage the audience with instruction accordingly to keep them with you.  Teachers change tone, volume, pace, interaction level, ditch or add a story… all for the same purpose.  
• WHAT GOD IS DOING:  God-honoring leadership also follows God’s unique move when it’s out of season or not on the plan.  Especially if a student shows up with 10 new friends, if an audience has been moved to tears, if the response to a service project was overwhelming, then you go with it and follow the Spirit’s lead.  Don’t wait to respond, do it now while the bread is hot and the people are hungry.  

FALSE- LET IT COOL DOWN FIRST:  There are also mythical “hot bread” moments where someone irresponsibly flips the switch and says, “we gotta do it now or we’re gonna be in trouble.”  Sometimes that’s a lie.  Here’s some I tend to doubt are as “HOT bread” as they seam:

• CRISIS:  Every crisis has a “hot bread” feel to it.  This relationship, this conflict, this concern must be addressed NOW.  This fire will burn down the building for sure.  However, not every time someone pulls the fire alarm in youth ministry, should the building be evacuated.  Smart leaders learn to discern through the panic and look for other signs.  They don’t jump just because others are in crisis.  Like a healthy first responder in an emergency 911 call, they stop, think, pray, and respond with wisdom that many in the middle of the crisis simply cannot.  
• GOSSIP:  Youth ministry is the land of “so-and-so said” and “such-and-such happened”.  If you try and become the gossip police and shut down every irresponsible thing said in a small group, typed on Facebook, or put into the air, you’ll do nothing else for your entire career.  But if you learn that some gossip is more deadly than others and let some simply die of it’s own stupidity- stepping in only on the one’s that are lethal- then you’ll discover that not all moments are as “hot” as they seemed.
• CRITICISM:  Want a great way to ruin your reputation and your ministry?  Just respond to every criticism while it’s hot and let nothing cool down to evaluate what’s inside.   Wise leaders learn that some things are better dealt with when they’re cool.  Giving an angry critic enough response to calm them down before diving into their concerns is wise.  Taking time to think and pray and sleep on it for a day before responding to a critical email is healthy.  Some things are simply better enjoyed when they have had time to cool down.

Here’s the final part 3 of 3 posts on some brutally practical tips on managing your ministry life.

WHAT’S YOUR STRATEGY TO KEEP UP WITH EMAIL?

I hate a cluttered inbox.  I try and keep mine to 200 or less. Maybe that’s cluttered for you. Maybe that’s a dream.  But if I get it to 50 it’s a miracle.  Around 100 is just kinda normal for me.  If it hits 200 or more and I have to go sit down and deal with it. If an e-mail is in my “inbox”, it is because I either haven’t read it, haven’t finished the project it is relating to, or it is there as a to-do list reminder of sorts.

But, here’s what I do to keep most of it out of there.

Don’t give it your best time:  Be careful that you don’t let e-mail become our job.  I limit my access to it, refuse to respond to long e-mails on my phone, turn off the “chime” saying I have new mail, and stuff like that.  Sending e-mail can be done for me just about anytime.  Message prep, meeting with leaders, and stuff like that cannot.  So I can’t use my most productive hours to respond to e-mail.

Unsubscribe like crazy:  If you don’t need it, hit the unsubscribe button on all your flyers and mailers and junk.

Set up accounts for certain things: 
I have a private e-mail I give virtually no one and use often to send myself stuff and reminders. I also use it for social media.

I have another one I use for purchasing and website registrations.

I have a work one.

I have a home or “family” one.

This may seem crazy to you, but it really helps me keep life straight and access to e-mail uncluttered.   Since I can check them all in one location (I use apple mail), it’s way easier for me to not just send everything to one e-mail.

Create personal inboxes and rules for all my direct reports and staff: 
So that no one that is really important in my world get’s lost in the shuffle, I have created folders for most of my ministry team.  Then I create a “rule” under my mail preferences and anytime I get an e-mail from them, it goes directly to their personal box.   Some people use “flags” and “colors”, but I use “personal inboxes”.

This does two things:

(1) it makes it easy to find mail from individuals

(2) it shows me at a glance who has sent me mail.  I’ll have bold face number next to any of their boxes telling me how many e-mails I have from them that I haven’t read just yet.  So if I have 50 unread e-mails, I can tell you immediately how many are from my direct reports and how many are from our lead or executive pastor or etc.

This is super helpful to make sure that the most important stuff gets dealt with first.  Here’s a screen shot of how it looks for me:

Next up:

HOW DO YOU BUDGET YOUR TIME, OR WHAT DOES THE AVERAGE WEEK LOOK LIKE FOR YOU.

1. Let’s not talk about my average week.  Depending on the season, it’s stupid.  ha ha.  pray for me.  Some days I should be asking you this question, not writing about it.  Ok fine, most days.

2. Here’s kinda how it works for an average week for me (i.e. not christmas, spring break, summer, or soccer coaching in the fall).  Hence the word “kinda”…

• Monday: off work. I take Becky, Billy, and Jake all to one-on-one meetings with me.
• Tuesday: Direct report meetings, meetings with exec team, prayer meetings as a staff.  Meetings, meetings, and more meetings. 
• Wednesday: Breakfast with my son TJ, High School Pastor stuff.  Small groups that night. 
• Thursday:  Breakfast with my son Tyler, message writing, doing stuff I need to do to get ahead of my team and that I can’t get done in meetings, and seminary that night.
• Friday: Final message prep, meetings with volunteers, dinner out with family, church that night.
• Saturday: off.  At night, I look over and review my prep for high school the next morning. 
• Sunday: High School Ministry in the morning, volunteer and student meetings in the afternoon, play indoor soccer at night. 

Recently, I got this e-mail:

Brian, 

I saw that your role seems similar to the one I am serving in.  I’m wondering if I could ask you three questions: 

1.  What are you doing to develop your direct reports?
2.  How do you budget your time, or what does the average week look like for you?
3.  Whats your strategy to keep up with email?

So, incase you and I both share similar worlds or maybe you’re just morbidly curious what I said, here’s my answers to his questions.  I initially had this all in one post, but it was getting to long so I decided to go ahead and break it into three, but I posted them all today.

By no means do I have this all figured out, but here’s what I do.  Hopefully one of them is somewhat helpful to you.  Feel free to share what you do in the comments.

First up:

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO DEVELOP YOUR DIRECT REPORTS? 

Meet directly:  On a personal level, I do my best to encourage them, ask how they are doing, be available, and speak into them as the need arises. Specifically, I meet with my high school paid staff weekly, my direct report team leaders twice a month, and the rest on a monthly level since they are “direct reports” to someone else on my team primarily.  Then in addition to that, about 2x a year we get together for a 1/2 day of team building and dreaming as a “Generation Team”.

Local ministry training:  In terms of specific training and development, from time to time I take my team to local ministry training events.  We don’t have the budget or funds to send our team across the country to tons of conferences, but we do try and seize the local opportunities that come our way.  Whenever we can get together as a team and go to a training that fits our budget, schedule, and aligns with our ministry, I try and make it happen.

As a church, we send all our paid staff and many from our congregation to the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit annually in August since we host that as well.

It’s inevitable that in life, and especially in ministry, things will get funky between you and someone else.  It will happen in your family, your marriage, your work, your team… pretty much your everything.  Where there are relationships, there will be funk. I promise.

So….

Expect it.  Anticipate it.

And please…. for the love of all things holy… go directly to the funk and get through it.

Don’t go around your boss.  Don’t go down the chain of command.  Don’t go to friends.  Just go to the person you’re in a funk with and deal with it.

Matthew 18:15-17 reads as follows: “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

So if we just follow the textual prompts with this teaching of Jesus, then we will follow a very specific order of events when we confront people when there’s a funk or sin or whatever it gets labeled:

1. Go directly to the one you have a conflict with, and try to work it out personally
2. Bring in two or three people who you respect and who are in godly leadership roles to help mediate
3. Bring it to a larger group of Christ-followers to work it out.  Maybe the elder board or something. 
4. Then the ugly gets dealt with kinda ugly and people get removed all together to eradicate the funk. 

While I pray that you never have to get to step 3 or 4, my experience is that we would avoid about 90% of all of it if we just always started with step 1.

Don’t go to the person’s friends to get clarification first. Don’t text your small group or ask 12 people for advice.  If you’re in youth ministry, don’t ask another teen what they think.   Just go directly to that person and ask a good question.

Look for clarity.  Strive to understand. Apologize if necessary.  Undo misunderstandings.  Assume the best.  You know… just be sane and stop the gossip train.

If you do that, you might actually be on the road toward God-honoring restoration, too.  You definitely will be on an less traveled road to a God-honoring response for sure.  And the peace you’ll have that you acted according to the voice of the Holy Spirit will be from God.