5 Ways to Keep Your Sanity During December

Here we are again. It’s December. The blog posts are fewer, the tweets are less consistent and my email response time is probably at an all time low. If you’re in creative ministry, this is crunch time. It gets no busier than this! So, how do you deal with the busiest time of year without feeling like ground beef come December 26th? Here are 5 things that should help a lot…

– Plan WAY Ahead: If you’re just now planning out your 5 Christmas Eve services, when and where to place the Kids Choir in your service and what to do to make your stage look “Christmasy”, you’re in deep junk! Though it’s probably impossible to wrap everything up in November, you should have a working “model” of your Christmas services and all that goes with them before the first snow hits the ground.

– Use Your Team: You have a team right? Use them! There’s no reason for you to be the “line up maker/set designer/video editor/light hanger”. If you’re doing it all, you’re doing yourself, your church and your family a disservice. Lean on the giftedness of the people God has placed around you.

– Take a Day Off: Yep, you heard that right. In the middle of the busiest time of your year, schedule an extra day or two during the month to call your own. Even when things are at their craziest, you can always look forward to that day of rest. I took just such a day on Monday and it has completely refreshed me!

– Focus Harder on Your Family: You’re not getting out of December working a 40 hr. work week. You know it, I know it and your family knows it. That makes your time at home even more important. Remember, even though this is your busiest time, it’s also a special time for your family. Go the extra mile to make an investment at home.

– Prioritize: Easter isn’t until April! It’s nice to be ahead, but dialing in your focus will benefit you a lot this month. Put off what can be put off, delegate what can be delegated and take on only what you MUST take on.

Anyhow…these are some things that I’m working hard to utilize this month. Give it a shot and let me know how it goes!

Dealing With The Average

Here are just a few things your average church goer DOES NOT DO:

-Serve every weekend

-Come to Sunday morning and Wednesday night services AND engage in a small group

-Discuss the weekend’s message around the dinner table

-Give 10%

-Spend daily time with God

-Understand what worship REALLY is

-Share their faith with those they can influence

So what do we do about it? Do we launch program after program trying to draw people in to the deeper part of the journey? Do we beg and plead from the stage about how badly God wants their all? Do we wrap everything in the slickest packaging we can muster and fire it off at the bullseye we’ve placed on peoples foreheads? Or…DO WE SET THE STANDARD?

Let’s be honest. Even though you may be in ministry full-time doesn’t mean you do all of the things listed above. How often does your quiet time get replaced by the busy work of ministry? How often do you check out during the message simply from brain fatigue? Do you REALLY talk about the message around the dinner table? Do you manage your finances well enough that 10% is even doable for you? I know I’ve struggled in a number of these areas and I suspect that the struggle will always be there.

Ministry is hard and often overwhelming, but if we can manage to prioritize what God is asking of us as Christ Followers over what our jobs requires of us we just might be able to be standard bearers to the people we have been called to serve…just a thought.

 

 

What’s Your Strategy?

Momentum in ministry is a really big deal. All it takes is one wrong turn and the sails deflate, the vision blurs and you and your team find yourselves in search of direction. This past week has been a strategy check for me. Even though I have 4 incredible music teams, a flourishing tech team, a great creative team, a new Music Director and a Partridge in a pear tree, I know that we are one mis-step away from losing all of this forward motion.

I’ve spent the last several days rethinking everything we do creatively at Sunnybrook. Even though we seem to be firing on all cylinders at the moment, what we do now may not be what’s best around the corner. Ministry, environment, technology, culture, perception…everything is changing and changing constantly. If we fail to strategize, we may fail on a much larger scale down the road.

For us, this kind of planning will take shape in specific ways…for you, it may flesh itself out differently. The important thing is that we strive to be ahead of the curve. We need to be leading the change instead of catching up to it all the time. More details coming soon.

10 Things I’m Convinced Are True

Straight talk is better than beating around the bush.

Ministries falter when they become more concerned with popularity than their God given mission.

Insisting on having all original ideas is a pride issue. There’s a wealth of knowledge out there…use it!

Creativity is a gift from a creative God. Leveraging that creativity for the gospel is putting the arm of God in motion.

God doesn’t give fuzzy vision. If you’re not clear where God is leading your organization, you’re probably missing the obvious.

Offering anything but our all is short changing God.

Striving towards your God given vision is going to make some people unhappy…count on it!

People will disappoint you…and you will disappoint people.

If you don’t care about what’s happening outside the 4 walls of your church, I can promise you…you’re missing the call of God.

You can’t lose momentum if you’re striving passionately towards the vision.

Decisions, Decisions…

Decision aren’t always easy to make. Sometimes we waffle back and forth for days just trying to come to some kind of conclusion. Ministry decisions can be even harder. Every decision you make needs to line up with the vision of your organization. That, along with the knowledge that the decisions you make could effect your team, your congregation and ultimately the community you’re called to reach, can render decision making an exhausting exercise. Here are a few things that have always helped me out along the way…

Pray – This seems like the obvious“Christianese” thing to say, but how often do we forget to bring our decision making process before the throne of God? How often do we make “shot in the dark” choices without seeking His guidance?

Counsel – Don’t make the tough decisions alone. Get with your team and weigh your options together. More often than not, the right choice is found in the midst of fellowship.

Go Slow – Don’t rush a decision simply because you don’t want to look like you can’t figure out what to do. Sometimes God needs us to slow down and work through the finer nuances of a situation before we move forward.

Consider the Cost – Weigh out what this decision means in regards to your team, congregation and ministry target. Sometimes the answer you’re looking for is found in considering it’s impact on those you serve.

Humility – Sometimes we simply get it wrong. We make a decision and somewhere down the road realize we blew it. Be humble enough to admit you made the wrong choice and work hard to find an alternative.

Choose – In the end, if you’re a leader, people are looking to you for direction, vision and decision making. You don’t have the luxury of sitting back and choosing to do nothing. Seek God and make a choice…to decide nothing is not an option.

It’s not always easy to lead a ministry. We’re all human and we will all fall short as leaders, you can count on it. However, if you seek God, surround yourself with a great team and strive towards the vision God has given you, you’ll find that your decisions hit the target consistently.

Knock It Off!

Are you trying to please everyone? Are you trying to create worship environments that yield absolutely NO complaints from anyone within a 100 mile radius? Are you trying to hit every style, taste,  look and sound possible week in and week out? Are you trying to avoid the dreaded comment card (that generally isn’t very complimentary) with your name on it? – Well…KNOCK IT OFF!

Ministry isn’t about keeping everyone happy all the time. It’s about striving towards the vision that God has laid out for your organization. Ministry isn’t about catering to the court of public opinion…it’s about meeting the needs of the community God has placed on your heart. Ministry isn’t about making half hearted decisions in an effort to keep people off your back, it’s about making gutsy calls and difficult choices that line up with the will of God…even if there may be “fall out” to deal with down the road.

When God called you into ministry, He NEVER promised it would be easy. He NEVER promised there wouldn’t be struggles…and He NEVER promised that everything He asks of you would be “popular” with the people you are called to serve. Ministry is a challenging and often difficult journey, that isn’t for the faint of heart. If you find yourself making decisions based on a “popularity meter”, you’re missing the whole point of what God has called you to do. The bible is filled with story after story of people who became “unpopular” for the cause of Christ…and we are certainly called to do no less when it is asked of us.

Who’s Your Tonto?

The Lone Ranger had Tonto… Batman had Robin. Lavern had…well you get the idea. Having a trusted companion is everything in ministry. Having a source you can be accountable to, share your heart with, be corrected by and spill your guts to is vital to staying the course. For many years I struggled in this area. Not because there were a lack of qualified “confidants” around me, but simply because I was too arrogant to enter in to this kind of relationship. Over the years, this approach failed me on more than one occasion.

Today is different. I work in an accountable staff environment, where we hold each other up and lean in to God together. I have a great friend, who I meet for breakfast every week, who’s not afraid to ask the tough questions. And thankfully, that big spiritual “chip on my shoulder” was removed the hard way by the hand of God.

If you’re in ministry (or even if you’re not), I can’t begin to stress the importance of having a trusted companion. I’ve lived both sides of this equation. We ALL need to be accountable. We ALL need someone to encourage us, challenge us and…yes…correct us when it’s needed.

Who’s your Tonto?

Understanding Passion

If there’s one thing ministries need more of it’s passion. Passion for their calling, passion for their art, passion for their people and passion for God. Try to lead towards a vision without passion. Try to invest in relationships without passion. Try to seek God without passion. I’m telling you…it can’t be done. Without passion, we end up relying on our own abilities to make things happen, which eventually leaves us falling short.

Granted, passion isn’t something you wake up and decide to have. True passion is found when we dive into God’s story and play the part He has chosen for us. True passion is found when we walk down the center of His will and calling on our lives. True passion is found when we lose ourselves in the pursuit of God. If you’ve lost your passion for ministry (or if you’ve never had much of it to begin with), it’s time for a perspective change. I can almost guarantee if you’re not passionate in your ministry, then your ministry has become about you. I’ve been here before, more times than I care to admit. We get tired, run down and frustrated. It’s in those moments that we begin to shift our focus off our calling and on to the miserable state we find ourselves in. It’s an easy trap to fall into.

The key is to dive in even harder. Allow your frustration to be leveraged into action. Allow your tiredness to be leveraged into a deeper time with God. Take your eyes off of you and allow them to catch a glimpse of what it is God is asking of you.

There…you will find passion!

What’s the Difference?

I’ve been thinking about what makes a difference in the church today. What makes one church successful while another church begins to falter? What makes one ministry flourish and impact lives while another can barely impact the people they already have? I think the difference is risk. Call it what you want (taking chances, ambition, drive…faith) – It’s the churches that aren’t afraid to strive towards their God given vision that succeed, while the ones that wallow around thinking about “what ifs” and fearing what’s around the next corner tend to fail. Sure, there’s room for caution, sure there’s room for processing and making wise decisions, but when those moments of processing and pondering grow into excuses and lack of action, the vision, direction, momentum and effectiveness of the church can be lost…just a thought.

The New Screens

It just dawned on me (in the midst of being a blogging slacker) that I haven’t posted any pics of the new screens we installed at Sunnybrook. So, without any further adieu…here they are!