Why You Should Ask For Help
How often do you ask for help?
I know you offer help. As a leader, helping and serving are part of the job.
But I find most leaders aren’t as open to receiving help.
Why is that?
In this post, we’ll discuss how receiving help helps you and your helper.
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QUICK QUESTION: Where do you need help? Every leader is capable of some things, but not everything. If strategy, change, or systems is a gap in your natural leadership, perhaps we should talk. For most clients, I serve as their organizational strategic advisor.
Reply to this email if you’d like to connect.
Fixing, “The Church Just Wants My Money!”
“In just two months, 122 people gave to Centerpoint Church for the very first time, and we added 18 new recurring givers! Working with Gavin on our generosity system gave us a plan to grow giving and fully fund our church.”
– Bryant Golden, Senior Paster, Centerpoint Church, Tampa, FL
This is why I’m offering my new MASTERCLASS: The Giving Funnel that Funds Your Church – https://gavinadams.com/givingmasterclass/
This giving post may help your church, but if you’re looking for more, check out the Masterclass Experience.
NEW POST: Fixing, “The Church Just Want My Money?”
“The church just wants my money!”
How do you overcome that obstacle as a church leader?
Undo the past thirty, forty, or fifty years of Christianity? Too bad that’s not an option! One simple solution is to stop talking about money, which certainly would fix the problem. Of course, that could create many more. If you never taught or mentioned money, nobody would complain and nobody would give. Worse, nobody would begin to trust God with their financial life. Yet, when you talk about money, people both complain and leave.
It’s unfortunate the perception exists. But it is for legitimate reasons. We, as church leaders, have done a terrible job talking about money and stewarding what we’ve received…
Why Competing With Yourself is the Best Competition
Are you competitive?
The answer is “yes.”
Most of us are competitive. At least to some extent.
You may not be the ultra-competitive type who throws tantrums when you lose (FYI: if you are, that’s another post.). Perhaps you’re much more laid back and claim to be uncompetitive. But that’s not wholly accurate. Every single person lives with a version of competition. Some are stronger, and some are more hidden, but competition is present for every person – especially every leader.
Some versions of competition are hazardous to our health. But there is ONE version we all should embrace.
In this NEW POST, I outline two bad competitions and the one we all need.
3 Reasons You Should Learn From People Different Than You
Here’s a questions I’m working through:
Does the breadth of your learning impact the depth of your learning?
I know… I think in tweets. But to say it a little less 140 character’ish: How much more could we learn by expanding the context of our education? And I don’t mean studying more people in your current industry. Granted, it’s not natural to study other industries and organizational leaders unlike us, but I think finding breadth could be a hidden ingredient to accelerated growth.
This idea hit me recently while at a conference. It was a great conference full of wonderful leaders – who I’ver heard from too many times to count. I saw an advertisement for another conference. Guess who was speaking? Basically the same people. Don’t get me wrong. I love and respect these leaders. They’re my mentors – some directly. But I wonder – does a homogenous learning community stunt growth at some point?
As a pastor, I primarily learn from other churches, church leaders, and church models. As a younger leader, that was a great place to start. Seeing other perspectives and approaches to church helped solidify how I wanted to create and lead a local church. There was great clarity found in watching those who were already doing it. Yet, the more comfortable I got as a leader in my church, the more critical I became of leaders in the church. I accidentally replaced learning with critiquing.
Of course, that’s not a healthy dynamic, but it is a natural progression. When we visit other organizations within our industry, we are hyper-critical of what we understand (or think we understand).
Unplugging the Microwave of Success
Have you heard the soundtrack to the hit broadway musical “Hamilton?” If you’ve seen the actual musical, just keep that to yourself — intentionally causing envy is tantamount to envy, itself.
The music is quite spectacular. And historically insightful, too. My kids are way more knowledgeable about the Founding Fathers due to our time in the car together. It makes me question everything about my school upbringing! Hip hop trumps note-taking all day long.
Production aside, Alexander Hamilton was quite an amazing guy. He accomplished much, including establishing one of the first banks in America, the Bank of New York. Here’s what made me take a step back while jamming along to the soundtrack — it took Hamilton seven years to establish the bank’s charter. I know, the local community bank went up in a months time, and that seemed like forever in today’s world, but think about that for a moment. Seven years. That’s a long time to focus on something. Anything.
Why We Should Stop Comparing Our Average to Everyone Else’s Awesome
Every week, pastors and leaders are recorded all across the country. But more often than not, there is a good deal of editing, re-communicating, and “let’s try that again” happening before it ever goes public. We watch these other preachers and teachers and feel both inspired by their message and intimidated by their abilities. But we’re only seeing their highlight reels.
Do Labels Limit Potential?
Do you have a label maker in your workplace? Or maybe at home like I do? A small little printer with only one purpose in life: labels. My wife really loves label maker, which explains our pantry. She’s labeled every bin, which felt like overkill until I needed to distinguish between powdered sugar and all-purpose flour. A light dusting of flour on your pancakes isn’t a good as you probably imagine!
My wife isn’t alone in her love of labeling. People by nature love to label things. You have probably labeled something today — or many somethings. Not necessarily physically, but mentally. And that could be a good thing. Labels are helpful. And labels give context. A label describes what we know and what we can expect. Powdered sugar or flour. Black beans or green.
Here’s where labeling goes downhill. Unfortunately, as a leader, our propensity to label things often transfers to labeling people. We do it for the same reason as the bins in my pantry — labeling people gives us context. It helps us understand who people are and what we can expect. We label people through personality test, which is often helpful, as these types of tests give us context on how to best lead individuals individually. We label people’s roles though job descriptions and titles. Again, helpful for us and the person on the other end of the role. If we could stop the labeling there, maybe all would be fine. But we don’t. In fact, it’s as if we can’t. We love context too much to stop with personality characteristics and job descriptions.
Giving Yourself Some Growing Grace
If you are leading in any way, no doubt you are faced with potential personal growth opportunities. These opportunities come in various forms. Some are easy to understand while others are more complex. Some learnings are easier to implement than others. Unfortunately, the most difficult aspect of personal growth isn’t identifying the growth opportunity, but rather dealing with our implementation attempts and setbacks.
9 Reasons You Could Be the Growth Barrier in Your Church
This is Part 2 of a blog series on Creating Continuous Growth in Your Church.
SERIES SUMMARY:
Every church leader facing a growth barrier desperately wants to break through, because every church leader, including me, desires a growing, thriving church. Not because church attendance is the only measure of success, but because increasing attendance is proof that people are being reached.
If that is true, then breaking through barriers is important. But, what if instead of just breaking through a specific barrier we were able to barrier-proof our church? Pause for a moment and imagine never hitting a growth wall again.
I believe barrier-proofing is possible for every church in any denomination, and that’s exactly what we are going to evaluate in this blog series.
I believe there are 6 specific ingredients to create continuous growth in your church. In this post, we are going to look at the first, and most difficult to embrace:
Ingredient 1: REMOVE YOURSELF AS A BARRIER TO GROWTH
By far, this is the most challenging of the ingredients to evaluate and embrace. Often when we bump into an issue or problem, we are tempted to look around and cast blame. At times blame should be cast elsewhere, but as a point leader of any team or organization, there is always an element of blame that should fall back on our shoulders. After all, we are the leader.
Looking in the mirror is more onerous than looking through a window, though. Discovering and owning our part in any problem is painful at best, but if we desire the build THE Kingdom more than our kingdom, a mirror moment is necessary.
It’s about to get all personal up in here, but it’s worth the introspection, because the church and the people in our community are worth it.
Let’s start by acknowledging a truth for every leader: “In some way, I am a potential growth barrier.” In fact, just pause for a moment and read that aloud. Do you believe that? I hope so, because every leader has something in them that can impede growth. I’ve yet to meet a leader who doesn’t have the potential to become a barrier. The best leaders both acknowledge this potential and embrace proactive solutions.
Don’t Quit On Your Dream
You had a dream.
Maybe it was to launch a new product. You had a new idea, and there was nothing like it in the marketplace.
Or to provide a new service offering.
Or maybe it was bigger. You wanted to start your own business. Or you wanted to solve a worldwide problem. You dreamed of providing justice to those suffering the greatest of injustice.
Here’s a common dream in my industry: You wanted to plant a church. You felt the calling, and not just in general. You felt confident in the when and where. You knew the mission and vision. You felt sure of what could be and passionate about what should be.
You had a dream. In your mind, you could see the end result, and it was beautiful. Your picture emboldened you to move forward, so you did.
