How Healthy Churches Grow (Part 3)
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Constant crises, lack of training, inadequate systems for project managementā€”there’s a long list of reasons why the process of “assess, plan, and execute” may be simple but not easy.
Ministry never stops. Sundays are always coming, and that’s always the highest priority focus. But alsoā€”senior pastors are great at vision-casting. That’s a high-priority focus for that role. And because of that, they can tend to lose sight of the longer term initiatives and trying to make sure that follow-through actually happens. So, how can churches actually close the gap between vision and execution?
CLOSING THE GAP OF MINISTRY EXECUTION
In the final episode of our series on “How Healthy Churches Grow,” Amy and I share some practical, proven ways to carve out time to follow through on the priority initiatives you’ve identified to grow the church in health and numbers.
- Why churches struggle with execution
- How to implement systems and strategies
- Practical ways to overcome the challenge of execution
- Next steps to take to grow in the area of execution
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Transcript
Sean
Welcome to the Unstuck Church Podcast, where each week we are exploring what it means to be an unstuck church. There’s a formula for seeing results in your ministry, and it’s this vision plus systems and strategies plus execution lead to results. But most churches would quickly admit that the part they struggle with most is the execution. On this week’s podcast, Tony and Amy finish our series on how healthy churches grow with a conversation on how to close the gap of ministry plan execution. Before we go there, though, if you’re new to the podcast, head to theunstuckgroup.com/podcast and subscribe to get the episode show notes. When you do each week, you’ll get resources to support that week’s episode, including our leader conversation guide, bonus resources, and access to our podcast resource archive. Again, that’s theunstuckgroup.com/podcast to subscribe. Now, before this week’s conversation, here’s Tony.
Tony
Is your staff spending too much time pulling reports and creating dashboards to gain clarity, define reality, and understand how engaged your people are? It’s time to stop chasing reports and start focusing on people with PATH. Transform the data you already have into discipleship with PATH’s clear actionable reports to learn more. And to get your free resource today, visit pathengagement.com/unstuck.
Amy
Well, Tony, today we’re wrapping up our series on how healthy churches grow. And listeners, if you’ve been following along the last couple of weeks, you know this series is all about going back to the basics. How exactly do healthy churches grow? What do their leaders do differently? And in our first episode, we talked about the importance of effectively assessing the health of your ministries. And then we discuss the second step towards healthy growth, which is planning.
Tony
That’s right, Amy. So today we will jump into what is probably the most important step, but in our experience, the hardest for churches especially, and it’s all about execution and follow through. But before we jump into that, I think it’s important to point out that this three step idea to assess, to plan to execute isn’t anything fancy or complicated, but just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s necessarily easy. If it was easy, every church would be doing it and likely finding healthy growth because of it. That’s not the case. And we did this back to the basics series because although you probably know what you should be doing, these things aren’t always the top priorities on your to-do list, and they just, they’re not fitting into your calendar and your schedule and in an intentional way. That being said, hopefully these conversations have been helpful and practical in guiding our listeners back to some of the basic principles of healthy church growth.
Amy
Absolutely. And you alluded to it a bit already, but after over 15 years of being on the ground with over 600 churches, our team at Unstuck has found that historically churches have had challenges with follow through. I read all of our customer satisfaction surveys as they come back in, and it’s not as much as it used to be, by the way, because I think how we set up implementation with churches. But five years ago it was the old, it’s not you, it’s me kind of thing. Like, we have great plans, we just haven’t been executing. And I have my own thoughts on why that happens, but Tony, why do you think churches struggle with execution?
Tony
Well, and we talked a little bit about this last week, but again, because ministry never stops, Sundays are always coming, that’s always the highest priority focus. We just, we don’t take time not only to plan, but that also we respond to what’s most urgent. And because that’s what’s most urgent, the execution and the follow through also takes a back seat. And then I think senior pastors, you’re great at vision casting and you’re always keeping the vision in front of us, but that’s obviously where your focus is. And because of that, you tend to lose sight of the longer term initiatives, trying to make sure that the follow through actually happens. And again, it’s because you’re focused on what am I gonna be teaching? What am I preaching this next Sunday? So again, you really do need an executive pastor or some other leader that’s responsible for making sure we’re driving the strategy forward, that we’re accomplishing our priority initiatives that we’re actually executing and following through with the things that we said are most important. And Amy, here’s what I’ve seen, and I wish actually that staff leaders would start talking to each other about this, but what tends to end up happening is the senior pastor begins to blame the other staff leaders on the team for not actually moving the vision, the mission forward. And then the rest of the staff starts blaming the senior pastor for not actually taking responsibility and continuing to vision cast and continuing to keep the church focused and the staff focused on moving forward. And they won’t say it, but they’re kind of blaming each other for this, when in reality, I think a lot of this just boils down to we don’t have good systems and strategies for execution and follow through.
And some of this actually gets to structural issues too, which we will hit here in a moment. But the reality is, again, none of us were actually trained in school and seminary on how to do planning. And the reality is none of us were trained or schooled on how to do execution and follow through either. So this is something new that we’re trying to figure out. And Amy, I had just mentioned this. I think some of this actually speaks to some staffing issues that churches don’t, they’re just not addressing or not thinking about as well.
Amy
Yeah. So we’re talking about churches struggle to execute on their plans. That’s a little bit what I had in my mind ’cause I see it with the churches I serve. You know, we talk about the leading from your strengths assessment. It’s a disc based assessment. And if you’re not familiar with disc, it’s basically four quadrants. The top half is full of people who get stuff done. The bottom half of the quadrant are people who really are on the people side of things. By the way, it doesn’t mean that the people people don’t get stuff done or that people who get stuff done don’t like people. It’s just where we lean, it’s our bent. And then there’s a pace to it left to right. So people on the right side of the wheel are work faster. People on the left side of the wheel are more wired to take a step back before they take a step forward.
So the goal is we don’t have to have balance in each of those four quadrants. But when I evaluate teams, this is actually a reason why execution is lagging. Because oftentimes in this church I was just with all 12 of them were actually on the people side of the wheel. They didn’t have anybody on that kind of task, get her done side of things. Now, it’s pretty normal for churches to be weighted on the people side because people people go into ministry, but execution lags when we don’t have some representation and leaders in place who are on that side of the wheel. And Tony, I could use you and me as an example, right? You’re on the task mission side of the wheel, get her done. And I’m on the people side. And if you were to think about it, if we had too many Amy’s, we’d probably be having a good time, but probably not getting enough of our mission accomplished because of my natural leanings and wiring.
Tony
And if we had too many Tonys, no one would be having any fun. So there you go.
Amy
Well, I wrote that down initially and I was like, I can’t say that to Tony. So that’s one reason why is just often churches don’t have enough representation on that side of the wheel. But another key factor for me is when I’m assessing these teams, is the leadership capacity of the leaders on the team. Many time churches that don’t execute or follow through, well probably have lower capacity leaders who are focusing just too much of their time on doing ministry ministry tasks rather than raising up volunteers, raising up volunteer leaders. And as you said, working last week you said this, working in the ministry instead of working on the ministry. And of course that concept comes from the book Four Disciplines of Execution. And they call that kind 80% the whirlwind, or maybe they just call it the whirlwind, meaning think about the weekend. Right? Though that’s a whirlwind in and of itself, it will take as much time and resource as you throw at it. So in the disciplines of execution, their words are to say, you need to reserve 20% of your time to work on the ministry. We would say it to work on those future initiatives and try to contain the whirlwind to 80%.
Tony
And Amy, let me just jump in here. It’s called the disciplines of execution. And one of the reasons why is it, it takes discipline to do that. If you just think you’re gonna drift into this prioritization of your time where 80% can be about the whirlwind of ministry, and then you have 20% of your time freed up to work on these future initiatives, you’re not gonna drift towards that. You’re gonna have to be disciplined about that. The good news is in ministry a lot of times, creating that additional 20% in our schedules is about empowering other people and not just staff. In church ministry, we have the luxury of actually raising up other volunteer leaders and building volunteer teams to also help us carve out 20% of our time to focus on these future initiatives.
Amy
I like that word discipline, Tony. I’m glad you called it out again, because when I work with large churches, most senior pastors have a handle on that concept as it relates to preaching, right? They are disciplined, most large church pastors, around the time it takes to create and deliver a transformational message each week. And of course, a huge driver of that is the deadline or what I call the final exam each Sunday. But they are very good at guarding their time and their energy in order to get that accomplished. But what I often see beyond that is most ministry leaders don’t have that same rigor when it comes to setting that 20% aside to work on the ministry. They get caught up in the whirlwind and they don’t know how to get out. And I’ll admit, I think 20% is a lot in the ministry world just because of the weekly rhythm of a church. But even I would challenge our listeners set aside 10%, that would be four hours a week, block your calendar off so that you can begin developing that discipline of working on your ministry instead of being consumed by the whirlwind of it. And Tony, it might seem obvious, but I think it’s important for us just to take this one step forward and play the movie forward. So, say we’re a church who’s taken the time to assess our current health, and we’ve made some really strong plans for the future. And now we’re ready to try to implement our new plans within our current systems, which by the way, haven’t gotten us very far in the past. If we do that, what happens next?
Tony
Well, it’s possible, Amy, for everyone to know the plan and still not have any clue what they’re supposed to do to help make the plan become reality. And the problem is that church leaders haven’t have failed to mine the gap, hat tip to my friends in London with the London tube, where you find on the platform of the subway stations, this reminder mind the gap between the platform and the train. For churches, we have failed to mine the gap as well. Our gap exists between vision and execution that generates results, and the gap includes specific strategies and systems. Systems is the key word here, there are established to accomplish the vision. So you can think about this formula, vision plus strategies and systems plus execution gets you the results that you’re looking for. And the challenge is for a lot of churches, we have a vision caster. We have a pastor who’s casting vision for where the church is going in the future. And then we have a lot of people executing. But we don’t have people focused on creating strategies and particularly systems to make sure that we’re actually moving the vision forward and we’re seeing results.
Amy
Thatā€™s right.
Tony
So when there’s a strategies and systems gap, churches end up just doing church. They do what they’ve always done, and they may have a unique vision statement from the church down the street, but they end up employing the same myth methods as the church down the street. They do that because no one took the time to figure out what are the strategies we need to move our mission forward, and then what are the systems that will be required to make sure we accomplish that vision? And that’s how churches end up doing the same things that churches have always done, but hoping and praying for different results.
Amy
We could probably talk for a while longer about all the issues with follow through and execution that are a struggle for churches, but hopefully we’ve painted a clear picture of what happens if this issue is ignored. Right? The good news is this is a solvable problem. This is a problem that can be solved. So Tony, what are some practical ways you’ve seen churches start to overcome this challenge of execution?
Tony
So I do think it begins where you were a moment ago talking about staffing and structure. We need the right leaders with that right wiring to help us create the strategies and the systems to actually see the follow-through happening. And it does include carving out the time to work on the ministry, not just in the ministry. Looking at that 80 20 split that you mentioned, but let me just get really practical here. You actually do need a system that everyone on your team is using to manage projects and to manage tasks. So the good news is there are all kinds of great solutions that are out there now to do this. That will combine project management and communications tools within your team to make sure everyone’s on the same page. Everybody knows what they’re responsible for. We’re working through the timelines that have been established. Our team uses Asana to manage projects and tasks, but I mean, Basecamp, Trello, mondays.com. And we hear teams using all kinds of tools that are out there, all kinds of great tools. But you have to select one tool that your entire team is using, which is another challenge that we find commonly in churches is every ministry area is using a different set of tools to do this. And because of that, we end up with ministry silos because the teams aren’t working together, especially on the biggest priority projects. So you have to figure out what are we gonna do? And then you have to define and follow up on those priority initiatives. And you need to do this regularly. So what that means is you do have to define what’s our objective? What are we trying to accomplish? Who’s going to be the point person to make sure that that objective actually gets accomplished? Who’s going to be the point person who’s gonna build the team to get this done? And then what are all of the action items that are going to be required? Who’s going to be responsible for when by when to make sure we accomplish what we’re setting out to do? I mean, this is just basic management of people and priorities. But again, Amy, I think in church world we’ve had so much conversation about what church leadership needs to look like. We’ve neglected church management.
Amy
Yes.
Tony
And manage, we have to manage people and we have to manage towards priorities with clear expectations for follow through. We need to get better at this as church leaders. And then specifically for senior pastors, you can’t neglect one of your core responsibilities. You have to keep casting vision, not just to the church, but to your staff team as well. You need to make sure everybody is being reminded. What we’re doing today is to help us accomplish this future vision that God has for our ministry.
Amy
I would guess, Tony, as you’re talking, for our listeners, Tony’s a driver. He’s on the top half of the wheel and it’s what a lot of lead pastors wish they had on their team because that they know that’s what needs to get done. But let me just say this. If you’re leading a ministry and you resonated with, we have a lot of people people on our team, if you bring in someone like Tony on your staff team, just know they’re not gonna fit right away.
Tony
Oh, come on, Amy.
Amy
Meaning there’s a different passion that naturally comes out that’s gonna feel really foreign to your organization right now. Especially when I mentioned the church where all 12 were on their people side, they need a driver because guess who’s living in that space right now? The lead pastor is ’cause they don’t have one. But a natural driver is gonna bring something new to your culture and you need to work really hard not to work them out, but to embrace those strengths and those gifts that they bring. Because you might be surprised how much more work is suddenly gonna be able to get done because of the way that God’s gifted them.
Tony
And teams will start winning too. I mean, when you start winning with the mission God’s called you to, that’s just gonna attract more people, more high-capacity leaders to want to be a part of that team.
Amy
Thatā€™s right.
Tony
And Amy, I just wanna let you know, drivers can be lovable as well.
Amy
Yes, they can.
Tony
So let’s jump ahead here. I wanna turn this final part of our conversation over to you, Amy, because I do think that the way churches are staffed and structured plays a huge role in whether or not they’re able to successfully execute and follow through on their strategic plan. So what practical next steps would you give to churches who want to grow in this area?
Amy
Really similar to the planning process, Tony, is you kind of have to assess and plan and execute in the staffing area too. Meaning when I’m on the ground with the church, we put them through an assessment. Most of the time it’s leading from your strengths. Sometimes it’s working genius, but you have to stand back and reflect a little bit and look at the giftings on your team. Again, our process would do that, but you can choose your assessment. But I think it’s important to understand who is on the team now and what is their mix of strengths and gifting that will help you identify the right person to help drive and coordinate some of these priority initiatives. We say it all the time, if everyone owns it, nobody owns it. And so we need to be very specific and name the owner of this. A lot of times it’s the executive pastor at large churches, but it doesn’t have to be, but they often have Tony, your wiring, on the team.
Also, when I mentioned working genius, where I’m seeing churches get traction with this one is if that leader’s in place and the work’s been invented and it’s been discerned and it’s been galvanized, you need to build the right team of people around each initiative now so that it actually gets done. And of course, those are the geniuses of enablement and tenacity. So again, assessing in the beginning helps you know, not only who the leader is, but who needs to be on the teams that work that out. And then have that person, like you said, find a tool or a platform to get everybody trained on how to project manage this thing and to get it done. It brings visibility to the work that you’re planning and it brings visibility to the work that’s getting accomplished.
And lastly, people just need clarity on what the win looks like. You know, we work with churches, most churches have a dashboard. Most churches are understanding. We need to track attendance. We need to track people taking next steps. We need to track finances. And that big dashboard is an important one, but the best churches, the ones that are really healthy and growing and doing this the right way, every leader has a dashboard that details this is what success looks like for my ministry. And detailed personal priorities to get it done. And again, this comes out of four disciplines of execution. So it is a discipline again, but when I’m on a church team and let’s say I am the kids’ ministry pastor, I need to know what success looks like for my ministry. Those are the lag goals. This is what we wanna accomplish, which informs my personal priorities with this is how I need to spend my time. So again, that’s the working on the ministry, how plan in advance, how do I need to spend my time? So whether it’s your ministry or this initiative you’re on, you have to have clarity around what success looks like so that you can determine how you’re going to be spending your time. If we don’t bring that discipline into it, Tony, people just keep doing what they’ve always done and they get distracted by the whirlwind, and then things don’t change. So that would be my 2 cents on the staffing side.
Tony
Thatā€™s good, Amy. I love it.
Amy
I’m gonna leave it there for now because we’re actually going to do a full series on staffing topics and just a couple of weeks. And pastors, if you can relate to some of the follow through issues that we’ve addressed in today’s content, be sure to join us for that series. After all, your staff team is the biggest asset you have for accomplishing your vision. So Tony, any final thoughts before we wrap up? Not only today’s conversation, but this series as well?
Tony
Well, this has been fun. And as we wrap up our series on how healthy churches grow, I just wanna mention that this is one of the ways that the Unstuck process provides a unique service to churches. We help you plan quickly. You’ll assess ministry health, create a strategic plan for ministry, and build a plan to restructure your staff team, so that you’re able to engage your mission more effectively and actually move the mission of your church forward. And we do all of this in 90 days. And then we walk with you through implementation of your plan through systems and execution. And this is key. It’s consistent execution over time. You need to assess, plan, execute, and repeat over and over again. It’s simple, but it’s not easy. Finally, if you haven’t yet, it’s not too late to register And join us for tomorrow’s free webinar on what’s working in large churches. Now I’m sitting down with pastors JD Grear, Eric Geiger, and Adam Starling to discuss what’s actually working in their large churches now to reach new people and to engage people in the life of the church. So if you’re interested in learning more about how healthy churches are growing in this season, I encourage you to join us for that by registering through the link in your show notes.
Sean
Well, thanks for joining us on this week’s podcast. As Tony mentioned, we’d love to have you join us for the upcoming webinar on what’s working in large churches now. To register and learn more, make sure to check out the information in your show notes. And if you don’t yet have the show notes, just go to theunstuckgroup.com/podcast. Next week we’re back with another brand new episode. Until then, have a great week.
