How To Not Waste January (Part 3)
So far in this series, we’ve talked about how to clarify vision and build strong strategies.
But even when leaders feel really good about those pieces, there’s still a sticking point: getting the whole team aligned and moving together. This is where you might hit a wall.
There’s a gap between defining your vision and actually making that it happen. So it’s time to move.
In the final episode of our series “How to Not Waste January,” Sean and I talk about typical signs that a church is lacking alignment and the three critical steps to take to realign with your vision.
When ministry silos are pervasive, the people on those teams are likely doing good things, but they’re not necessarily doing the right things. [episode 432] #unstuckchurch Share on X Metrics are always telling a story, but if you never do the work to set goals, you’re going to miss out on a lot of that story. [episode 432] #unstuckchurch Share on X Strategic planning is not about the numbers and specific outcomes. It’s about helping every team member know the role they play and how it contributes to what we’re all doing together. [episode 432] #unstuckchurch Share on X Alignment is not a one-time thing; it’s something you have to build and have to maintain. [episode 432] #unstuckchurch Share on X
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Transcript
Sean:
Before we start today’s episode, I want to say thanks to our podcast sponsor for this week, the Filament Bible app. If you’d like to deepen your understanding of God’s word and really enrich your time in it, the Filament Bible app is a great resource for you. When you pair your Filament-enabled Bible with the free Filament app, you’ll unlock thousands of study notes, hundreds of videos, interactive maps, devotionals, audio bibles, and more. And you can discover more ways to interact with God’s word. And download the app for free today filamentbibles.com. That’s F-I-L-A-M-E-N-T-bibles.com.
Welcome to the Unstuck Church Podcast. I’m Sean Bublitz here with Amy Anderson, and today we’re wrapping up our series on how not to waste January. And we’re talking about something that comes up in conversation with pastors and leaders all the time, and that’s the gap between vision and actually making the vision happen. And Amy, you and I have spent years, for me, close to a decade, for you, more than a decade now, helping teams clarify vision and build strong strategies. But even when leaders feel really good about those pieces, there’s still a sticking point, and it’s getting the whole team aligned and moving together. A lot of leaders hit a wall right there. And why do you think that is?
Amy:
Yeah, I think there’s two primary reasons. I actually just had one, and then after my consulting the last two months, I think there’s two primary reasons that I see when churches struggle to get their team aligned in moving forward. And first, and this was the one that was such a common issue this year with many churches I worked with, is that they’re really missing the integrator role on their team. Churches often title this role, like as an executive pastor, executive director, or church administrator. And this is a position, when I talk about it, I say it usually comes into view when a church surpasses about a thousand people in in-person attendance.
Now many have the role in title, so maybe they do have an executive pastor, executive director. But it’s not really the work that that person is doing. You and I have talked about this sometimes that executive pastors really acting more as like an associate pastor. Right?
Sean:
Yeah.
Amy:
Or often these people are very beloved, loyal, trusted teammates, all great qualities, but they tip more towards that pastoral gifting than executive leadership. And that leaves the onus on execution, the gap we’re talking about, back to the lead pastor who really doesn’t have the time to be the lead pastor and the integrator. Other churches, they just haven’t made room for the role yet on their team. I’ve seen this a lot. You’ve got a really strong lead pastor who’s got a little bit of that integrator or executive pastor chip in them, and they just aren’t ready to put that layer between them and the staff team. But either way, without this role and the right person who is gifted for this type of role, it’s hard to lead an aligned team that’s taking action and moving forward. So that’s the first primary reason.
The second reason I see teams struggle is because most churches are missing what I call the action level of the alignment pyramid. So they’ve done the hard work at that foundational level where we talk about, you know, core beliefs, what our mission is, who we want people to be becoming, and they tackle the directional level where they’re setting vision, they are confirming their ministry strategies, they’re setting their organizational goals, they’re looking at structure, but the top of the pyramid is where the gap is. They haven’t built out the top layer that really connects vision to what the people on their team actually do every day. And without that, you end up with, I don’t know, probably a lot of activity. I mean, I don’t know any people in ministry who don’t say they’re busy, but not action that’s moving the team towards the goals that the church needs.
Sean:
That’s right.
Amy:
So, and again, without the integrator role being in place, this work is gonna be difficult to wrangle, honestly. So I would just say in addition to using some open space in January to reflect, to refocus, today, I want to talk about some solutions to equip your team with what the organization needs to move on the right priorities.
Sean:
That’s good. Yeah. So let’s talk about what it looks like when it’s broken. And I actually wonder if more, or maybe most pastors, they have a gut sense that they’re lacking unity, or their staff aren’t working on the right things. But let’s try and maybe make it more obvious than just the gut sense. What are some of the typical signs that a church lacks this kind of alignment?
Amy:
Yeah, that’s a great question. Here’s what I see first, staff members can’t clearly articulate how their work connects to the church’s vision. If you ask them, like, how does what you do every day help us accomplish our mission? You get blank stares or vague answers. Like, that’s a really good question. Tied with that, they don’t have clarity a lot. It surprises me, but they don’t have clarity on what the win for their role is. I say this all the time, all ministry is good ministry. Like there’s no bad ministry, but bringing clarity to what the win for their role, it actually provides some boundaries, like river banks, rivers run strong because the river banks are there. And without them, we’d just have this still body of water, a pond. Or picture a sports team without boundary lines or no end zone, you know, boundaries bring players into a joint space with clarity on how the goals are scored and what the score is.
Sean, I was just talking to a church leader I’ve worked with in the past, and five years ago, they engaged with us, and this is where they find themselves. They weren’t ready five years ago to move from kind of a program-based ministry strategy, my recommendations, our recommendations were to take things like women’s ministry, men’s ministry, senior ministry, young adult ministry, and move that more into a group-based ministry that isn’t so age or gender defined.
Sean:
Sure.
Amy:
They weren’t ready to do that, but now they find themselves stuck because instead of one team working on a united plan, they kind of have several churches within their church. And if I continue my sports analogy, each church is kind of playing on their own fields without any boundary markers.
So second, and it’s related, ministry silos are just present when churches don’t have this work of alignment done. When ministry silos are pervasive, like the example I just gave, the people on those teams are likely doing good things, but they’re not necessarily doing the right things. The things that actually move the needle on the stated strategic goals, those organizational goals, they’re often gathering lots of people over the course of the year. There’s lots of events on the calendar, but they aren’t usually designing these events aligned to the goals that the church is trying to accomplish.
Sean:
Right.
Amy:
So we have a lot of gatherings, but I don’t think we have a lot of movement. I could say it that way. And the last headline issue I see is when the team’s not aligned, is that the leaders end up frustrated. They are frustrated that the vision has been defined, it’s been cascaded to the team, but it’s not sticking. So they aren’t, again, they aren’t seeing the movement and the action throughout the organization to accomplish the vision. And they’re like, I’ve cast the vision so many times, but I’m not seeing any change. So in a sense, it keeps bouncing back onto their plate, the senior pastor’s plate, instead of being cascaded throughout the organization. And I was just talking with a lead pastor, and this was his headline frustration. He’s done the work of vision, he’s been trying to help his leaders understand what needs to happen next, like literally telling them what to do. But there is very little follow through on their strategic initiatives. And by the way, this is a team that is lacking an integrator. So again, by default it’s bouncing back up to the lead pastor.
Sean:
That makes sense. That it’s not an uncommon thing for us to hear from senior pastors. And there is kind of common storyline that stands out where the senior pastor will say, I just preached a vision sermon last month. I just casted our vision to our team. And I’m still hearing, I don’t know what the vision is. I don’t know what the vision is. Right?
Amy:
Yes.
Sean:
And this is usually, it’s the symptom of that gap between, well no, we heard the vision, we just don’t know how to accomplish it. Right now.
Amy:
And we’re part of it. I own and I’m contributing to?
Sean:
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. So I think a lot of leaders are listening right now and nodding their heads, Amy, you’ve just put words to those gut feelings they’re having. So what’s the solution to it? How do you actually build this alignment?
Amy:
Yeah. Well, it’s easy and it’s not easy. It just comes down to three steps. And we’re gonna walk through each one today. Overview here, first you have to clearly define your organizational goals that flow from the vision. So what does success look like for our organization? Second, you need to help each ministry area understand how they contribute to those goals. And third, you have to cascade that clarity all the way down so every single staff member knows exactly what they own and how their work matters.
And let me just add before we delve into each one, if you have the integrator role in your team, meaning you have a strategically gifted executive pastor in place, you have that role. This is one of their primary responsibilities. The lead pastor owns vision with input from the team, but the executive pastor owns strategic action. If you don’t have this role or you have the role but not the right person in the role, then the lead pastor will need to champion this work through their senior leadership team. So that’s just the backdrop.
Sean:
Yeah, that’s good. That makes sense. So let’s just really practically define organizational goals. That’s a term that’s tossed around a lot, but in my conversations, there’s a decent amount of confusion about what those goals should be. What do we actually mean by organizational goals?
Amy:
Yeah. So this is where you’re taking your vision, that big inspiring picture of where you’re going over the next three to five years. And then you’re translating that into measurable outcomes, both on the reach side of your ministry, where we help people come to know Jesus, and then the spiritual formation side of your ministry where we’re helping people take next steps to become more like Jesus. And these are what I call lag measures. So they’re things like, how many people do we want to see baptized this year? What is our attendance growth goal for the year? And these are 12 month goals. Okay. So it’s year you set these every year. How many people do we want to see connected in small groups? What financial goals do we need to hit to fund the mission?
The key is these goals need to be specific, measurable, and directly tied to your vision. And if your vision is about reaching your community with a gospel, your goal should reflect that. And here’s the critical part. Your senior leadership team needs to own these goals collectively. They’re not just the senior pastor’s goal. They belong to the whole team. And they are usually eight to 10 goals that the senior leadership sets and monitors. Now, you know, lead pastor, executive pastor may have final decision rights on it, but this is a team-based activity to set these organizational goals. And again, they’re split between reach and spiritual formation because a healthy church, as Andy Stanley would say, is both deep and wide. It’s not one or the other. But those are organizational goals. We set a vision for three to five years; we set organizational goals annually.
Sean:
Yeah. And then step two is about pushing those goals down into the ministry areas. Right? Walk us through how that works.
Amy:
Yeah, exactly. So let’s say your church has a goal of 175 baptisms over the next 12 months. The next step is to break that down by ministry area. So how many adults will be baptized, how many kids, how many students? And then who owns that? Right? So maybe in your organization, that adult baptism goal is really owned by the weekend services team because that’s where we cast the net for people to make a decision to follow Christ. And then be baptized your kids’ area that’s gonna be owned by your kids’ ministry leader students that’s gonna be owned by your student ministry leader. And I should just mention, if you’re a multi-site church, let’s say you’ve got a goal of 500 baptisms this next year, you have to start out by breaking it out by campus first and then by ministry area. And the math should equate. So if you have 175 between adult kids and students, you should be able to name that and have it equal out. The goal here is that every ministry leader can answer three questions. What specific outcomes are we responsible for? How do these outcomes support the church’s vision? And what metrics will tell us if we’re succeeding? When you have that clarity, Sean, everything changes. Everything changes.
Sean:
That’s good. Okay. So we’ve got organizational goals, we’ve got ministry priorities now. Now how do you get to that clarity down to the individual staff member level?
Amy:
Yeah. Well, this is where the magic really happens. ’cause every staff member needs to understand how their ministry goals connect to the vision, how their work connects to their ministry goals, and then what specific responsibilities that they own.
Sean:
Yeah. And we borrow this concept from the four disciplines of execution, right, Amy? But this is where those lead measures come in. You talked about lag measures already. Lead measures are different than lag measures. Those lag measures tell you, did we hit our goal? They’re outcomes. Lead measures tell you if you’re likely to hit your goal; they’re the activities you can control that drive the outcome, drive the lag measure. So think about lead as kind of before the goal, lag as after the goal. So if baptisms are the lag measure, some of the lead measures for baptisms might be how many first time guests did we connect with this month? How many people took our first engagement step to become known at our church? Maybe how many follow-up conversations did our team have with people? Those would be the types of lead measures we’d be looking for.
Amy:
Yeah. And I would maybe instead of like, how many follow-up conversations did our team have? Maybe it’s more how many follow-up conversations do I need to have each week? You know, or something like that. It’s like how you schedule your time, how you schedule your activities. That’s what lead measures should help you define.
Sean:
That’s good.
Amy:
And I think that’s good when you define both lag and lead measures at that personal level, people know exactly what success looks like for what they need to do and get done. Just for fun, Sean, let’s, since you went there, let’s give another example. Let’s talk about serving or volunteering. This has been an ongoing challenge for many of the churches we work with. It’s a challenge for the church I attend and my husband leads. What does this look like? If a church has a strategic goal to increase, say the number of people stepping up to serve.
Sean:
Well start by defining what success looks like for the organization, right? Where you started here for your entire team. So let’s say you currently have 35% of your church engaged in serving, and you want to raise that to 40% over the next 12 months. So that might be going from 700 people serving right now who are volunteering at least once a month to 880 people serving at least once a month in the next 12 months. So you’ve determined those numbers. Now, after you, after that, you need to determine how that big goal breaks down by ministry areas. So students, kids, groups, first impressions, weekend, all of your ministry areas, and divide that number, those numbers out by each ministry leader. And if you do this, every leader on your team will know how many volunteers they currently have serving. They should know that number.
Amy:
Right.
Sena:
And then what does success look like for their ministry? By the end of the 12 months, how many people would be engaged in volunteering in their ministry by the end of that 12 months?
Amy:
Yeah. So if I’m the student person and I currently have 40 people engaged in my ministry, and my target is 55 for next year. It’s just obvious now I have 15 volunteers to engage in my ministry. Right?
Sean:
That’s right. Yep. And like you just mentioned before, Amy, now each ministry leader can sit down and write out how they need to spend their time in order to accomplish those goals. So it could be, I need to create a new org chart for my ministry so that I know what volunteer roles I need to make room for. Maybe I need to set a weekly or monthly target for how many new people I’m gonna invite into the ministry. So, you know, maybe I have two coffees a week with some potential new volunteers. Or maybe I have five unique conversations any given weekend with a potential volunteer.
You know, what this does is it establishes in advance how people will spend their time that will best set them up to accomplish those goals. And again, these are the lead activities. These are the things that people can do that they have control over to help them hit their goals.
Let me give a quick example of how this plays out in real life. I was talking with a pastor not too long ago who had started using this kind of goal setting approach with his team. And as they were working through the goals by each ministry area, they just realized something pretty eye-opening. They were really making some big assumptions about what their ministry areas were actually doing. So this is where the alignment piece comes in.
Amy:
Do tell.
Sean:
So for example, they set a goal around how many people they wanted to help cross the line of faith in adults and students and kids ministries. And that sounds great, right? That’s a good goal.
Amy:
That’s a good goal.
Sean:
But when they got to their kids’ ministry, the team said, well, we actually haven’t been inviting kids to cross the line of faith. And that raised a red flag for them. Right? So the pastor of course had no idea. He’d assumed the opposite was true. And because they were now looking at real goals, he could step in, coach the team, and then make sure that kids’ ministry and the kids involved had clear opportunities to make decisions to follow Jesus. This is why we say your metrics are always telling you a story, but if you never do the work to set these goals, you’re gonna miss out on a lot of that story. Those gaps and assumptions, they’re never gonna come to the surface. And that is where churches start to get stuck.
Amy:
Exactly. Exactly. In essence, when this is done well, again, every ministry leader has their own called a dashboard or a scorecard on what the wins are for their ministry this year. It will then inform how they spend their time. Realtime data will be there on how they’re doing related to those goals. And it will inform really what they say yes to and what they say no to. I loved your example about volunteers, like five unique conversations. If I’m a ministry leader and I go into the weekend and I know my target is to have five unique conversations, how much more proactive am I gonna be?
Sean:
That’s right.
Amy:
If I’m waiting for people to come to me, I’m probably not having five unique conversations every weekend. So it’ll inform what they say yes to, what they say no to. And I think the extra bonus here is that the lead pastor then can stop worrying about what everybody is doing. You know, I think it was a couple months ago on our webinar on this topic, there’s so many pastors that, especially if they’re really busy, or like our podcast a while back with Jimmy, when he was really being burnt, he was feeling burnt out. When pastors are in that frame of mind, they get really frustrated when people are just kind of goofing off in the office and they’re not sure what anybody’s doing. So this process also gives the lead pastor just a confidence that everybody knows what they’re working on and how it’s connecting to the mission.
Sean:
Absolutely. Now, this might not be surprising to you, Amy, but I’ve talked to some contrarians on this concept, also some people who’ve pushed back and said, maybe this makes ministry a little too much about the numbers. And hopefully as we’ve walked through this, we’ve helped to kind of bring some light to, you know, this is really about clarity. It’s really about bringing alignment and clarity to your team so that they know everybody wants to win in their role. Everybody wants to hit a home run. Nobody wants to bump their way day after day after day, right?
Amy:
That’s right.
Sean:
But when I know, when I understand what my goals are, and then I can align how I’m spending my time towards those goals. Now I feel like I’m really contributing. And that is a gift to the people on your team. So this is not about the numbers and specific outcomes. It’s about helping every team member know the role they play and how it contributes to what we’re all doing together.
Amy:
And it’s just a good organizational practice. Doesn’t matter if you’re for-profit, non-profit, when you’re leading a team of people, you know, especially large teams, organizations need clarity if they’re gonna be effective.
Sean:
That’s right. That’s right. Well, what I’ve loved about this, Amy, is it’s been very practical. We like to focus on the practical here at The Unstuck Group. Any other next steps come to mind that leaders can take to create this kind of clarity?
Amy:
Yeah. If this is new, here’s a few ways you can start. First thing, have your team create one sentence job descriptions. Because if someone can’t summarize their role in one sentence, I think that’s a red flag. We did this with our team, Sean, they might be a little outdated. It was probably five or six years ago. But, you know, Jacinta, who leads our client experience, she said her one sentence job description. Her job is to deliver an exceptional experience for all unstuck clients. We’re not getting into the how’s and all of whatever we’re just kind of saying at the end of the day, this is why my job was created. So that we could have someone own that exceptional experience for unstuck clients. Mine today is probably lead our team and focus our strategies to help churches get unstuck. That’s probably what I’m responsible for. Tiffany, who is a behind the scenes person. Her title I think is business development.
Sean:
That’s right.
Amy:
She’s just a marketing person. She’s so strategic. She loves the church. And she said hers is, I want to help pastors who want to lead unstuck churches, find us, decipher their needs and choose us as their guide. That’s great. That’s why, that’s why she’s hired on this team. So that’s one you could work at another one if you haven’t already.
Schedule your regular one-on-ones where you’re not just checking in on tasks, but clarifying priorities and how they connect to the bigger picture. This can be, you know, monthly for high level leaders, maybe bi-monthly for others, but at least once a month. Make sure you’re talking about priorities, how we’re spending our time, what the wins look like. And lastly, this is one we’ve talked about a lot this year.
Pay attention to what you celebrate in all team meetings and communication. Make sure you’re highlighting when someone’s work directly contributes to the vision that reinforces the alignment you’re trying to build. We just need to stop recognizing busyness, stop recognizing doing, and start to recognize how people are focused on the priorities that connect to our vision.
Sean:
That’s good. Alright. Amy, before we wrap up, any final thoughts?
Amy:
Yeah. Just this: alignment is also not a one-time thing. It’s something you have to build and you have to maintain. And when you get it right, when everybody on your team knows exactly how their work contributes to the mission, you can unlock incredible momentum. People feel empowered, they’re more engaged, and you start seeing real progress towards your goals. And so it’s worth the work, it’s worth the maintenance and it’s worth building this muscle annually to make sure we’re setting goals and cascading them down to people.
Sean:
I couldn’t agree more. And if you’re listening today and you’re realizing you don’t have this kind of clarity yet, don’t be discouraged. Start with one step. Define your organizational goals, or sit down with your ministry leaders and work through those three questions. Progress beats perfection every time. So just make some progress.
Thanks for joining us today as we wrap up our How Not to Waste January series. We love helping pastors lead unstuck churches, and every week our team is on site with pastors, helping them develop ministry plans and go through exactly what we’ve been discussing today with tools and conversations to align your team and keep everyone working on the right thing. So if that’s something you feel your church could benefit from, we’d love to connect. Myself and my teammate Chad, are here for no pressure, helpful conversations about how the Unstuck process might help your church. You can connect with us at theunstuckgroup.com. Next week, we’re back with a conversation I’m really looking forward to as we chat with a couple of pastors leading great ministries in Canada.
Amy:
Canada, eh?
Sean:
That’s right. Until then, have a great week.
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