#3 Develop Your Leadership Effectiveness – ASSESS

by Gary Reinecke | Dec 6, 2018 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

LEARN-EMPOWER-ASSESS-DECIDE-EVALUATE-REVIEW

Life-long learners constantly cycle through a developmental process to sharpen their leadership skills. It may be intuitive or it may be intentional. But the 6 steps are real: LEARN-EMPOWER-ASSESS-DECIDE-EVALUATE-REVIEW.  The third step in the leadership developmental process is ASSESS. The word assess refers to that need for leaders to assess the vision, their goals and the team members performance.

Over the last several decades a lot has been written about vision. I like to draw on Joel Barker’s quote:

Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.

Vision includes three elements. More importantly, these three elements must be inextricably connected to the vision. The larger the gap, the greater disparity between your vision and your team members – the higher the probability is that your team will NOT produce the expected outcomes you desire. Here are the three elements:

• Strategies
• Goals
• Targets

As a leader, you are constantly addressing the proximity of the vision to your strategies, goals and targets.  Here are five questions to ask team members to assess that gap:

1. Where is our team positioned currently?
2. What is the gap between our current position and our vision?
3. What do we need to do in the short-term that will help us to achieve that vision?
4. In the medium-term?
5. In the long-term?

Assessing is an important step in the Leadership Development Process. But Assessing in itself is not enough. In fact, going to a workshop, listening to a podcast or even receiving a degree in leadership does not guarantee a person can lead. I’ve found that many people have knowledge but lack the experience of actually leading a team. Applying the knowledge and learning from success as well as failure is critical in the development process.

Questions for your reflection:

1. When was the last time you assessed your team’s current vision?
2. When was the last time you assessed your team member’s performance?
3. What steps do you need to take to close the gap between your vision and the actions of your team?

The next step in the journey to develop as a leader is – Decide.  What are you going to measure and how will it be measured? This is where we will pick-up next week.

InFocus is responding to the need to help leaders empower their team through our Live Courses called Collectives.  Learn about the 2019 Collectives.  Each Collective will engage you in the 6 Step Leadership Development process above.

Related Leadership Development Resource:

Effective Leadership Storyboard

by Gary Reinecke | Nov 1, 2018 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

One of the most impactful worship environments that I’ve participated in was in a marginalized community in Springdale, Australia. The Gospel was potent that Sunday evening many years ago. We met in a community center where me and Gina (my wife) ate a meal with other members of the community, from donated food. A closet set aside for clothing and other necessities, was made available to those in need. After we ate together on the first floor, we went upstairs to participate in worship together. That evening was memorable in many ways:

• Inter-generational – from twenty-somethings to 60 year-olds
• Multi-ethnic – Pacific Islanders to Aussies
• Socially diverse – current and former drug addicts, prostitutes and people working towards sobriety

The evening began with scripture reading and prayer. A cardboard box with percussion instruments was passed around so everyone could have a shaker, tambourine or drum to beat. Then in a light-hearted manner, the worship leader  led this rag-tag band in a couple of familiar worship songs, inviting people to engage in a non-threatening manner.

Perhaps the highlight that sticks-out for me was the leader that led the Bible portion of the night who was from the local community. After various people read the passage aloud, we broke-up into smaller groups to explore insights from the passage and ways to apply the truths we had gleaned. To culminate our time together we shared Communion as a symbol of the New Covenant Jesus had called this gathering to live-out together, in a missional community called the Rainbow Church.

You might have thought I was going to share the content of the Gospel with you as if something had changed. The New Covenant Jesus preached and lived-out remains the same as 2,000+ years ago. However, the church of today must return to a more incarnational and missional expression of the Gospel.

One church staff team I consulted with recently came up with the slogan to rebrand their ministry: Be Missional to Multiply! This is what Jesus did. This is what the church must return to. This is what the church must be and move towards.

Reflect on the questions below so that you and your ministry can. Be Missional to Multiply!

1. How are you making the Gospel unnecessarily resistible?
2. What does it mean to be missional in your context?
3. What can you do differently to make missional living part of your DNA?
4. How are you multiplying disciples?
5. What else could you be doing?

by Gary Reinecke | Oct 6, 2018 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

Here is the second of seven mission critical concepts leaders are re-thinking strategically to create a more robust disciplemaking + church multiplication culture.

Concept 2 – Fruitfulness:

How do you measure fruitfulness?

Have you heard the statement – “You measure what matters” when discussing ministry.

In their book “The 4 Disciplines of Execution” the authors introduce Wildly Important Goals (WIGs). From their experience the challenge that comes when a leader and/or team identify WIGs is, EXECUTION! To support leaders, the authors emphasize the importance of Lead and Lag Measures.

Lead Measures are focused on the outcomes you are aiming for in the WIG – these are Predictable and Influencable. Predictable in that if you accomplish this, then you can expect certain results (“this” then “that”). A good lead measure for our church is: 80% of our active adults in small groups to engage our congregation missionally.

Lag Measures are focused on the goal. Here are four good lag measures our church set this year to engage our people in mission:

• Two Mission Weekend
• Two Mission Trips
• Two Missional Moments
• Two Missional Invites – view Going Together sermon for more.

These are really important to our church; therefore, we track the weekly attendance in all our small groups. We believe that people who are engaged in a small group will have a much great chance to being engage missionally. Every church has their WIGS.

WIGs simply give focus with language to establish what is important (Lead Measure) track and assess where you are (Lag Measure).

I was discussing the idea of goals with a leadership team at a church and they were clear that they did not have any goals – by choice.

If you are of that same line of thought then I would point you to the notion that God knows the exact number of hairs on our head (Luke 12:7 & Matthew 10:30). This could be figurative – communicating the Lord’s care and concern for His people. But would it be fair to say that if he cares this much about hair follicles that He probably cares a lot more about the individual lives we are able to influence with the love of Christ? And could it be possible that He might be pleased if we gave focused attention to that in our efforts to make disciples?

Many churches do a competent job of tracking the low-lying fruit e.g. nickles and noses.  But to move into a missional paradigm I suggest 5 metrics of fruitfulness in ministry.

5 Metrics for disciplemaking and church planting movements using a coach approach

This is not an exhaustive list – but is a good start:

Disciples taking the next step on their spiritual journey

• What percentage of your people are in disciplemaking communities?

Caring for the poor

• What percentage of your time and resources are dedicated to serving the poor?

Disciples making disciples

• What percentage of your people are reproducing apprentices of Jesus into the third and fourth generation?

Leaders being developed

• What percentage of your leaders-in-training are taking the next step in their development?

Planting new churches

• What percentage of your time and resources are dedicated to the planting of new churches?

Once you have that data the three questions below can help you set WIGs to measure fruitfulness of your ministry:

1. What percentages do you want to alter?
2. What is your lead measure(s)?
3. What is your lag measure(s)?

Please continue the conversation and respond below….

by Gary Reinecke | Sep 30, 2018 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

Here is the first of seven mission critical concepts leaders are re-thinking strategically to create a more robust disciplemaking + church multiplication culture.

Concept 1 – Discipleship:

What is your discipleship pathway?

Immediately when I asked this question to a youthful church staff regarding their list of “indicators” for a disciple – the notion of a  non-organic, results-oriented disciplemaking process was rebuffed. Over the next few minutes I attempted to logically explain the rationale behind my question. I earnestly explained my “why” observable behaviors are important for a growing disciple are essential – but lost that battle!

Whether you have a relationally driven, organic disciplemaking process or a highly structured approach, the point is, every disciplemaker has a process they follow. A deeper question is, what are the essentials of a growing disciple?

My conclusion is that a discipleship pathway that leads to a disciplemaking movement embraces the following missional behaviors:

Grounded in Biblical principles

• You can have disciples of all kinds, such as, religious, philosophical schools of thought, diets, etc. For apprentices of Jesus the Scriptures are the moral compass we follow.
• Key Insight: Stay true to the Word of God.

Clear understanding of what a growing, reproducing disciple does

• I like Covey’s Habit #2: “Keeping the End in Mind”.  The principle holds true to making disciples.  A framework with the essential outcomes, like the Making Disciples Storyboard, is helpful to keep the end in mind.
• Key Insight: set boundaries for disciplemaking relationships, then stay within those.

Values relationship(s)

• Some leaders gravitate towards 1-1 vs. others leaders who think 2-3 OR some leaders think small group vs. missional community.  Crosspoint Community Church is the local church I attend with my wife, Gina where we lead a small group of 15 apprentices of Jesus. Our church consistently has 85% or more of the adult church attenders in small groups which is one of the strategic focuses of our disciplemaking process.
• Key Insight: Relationship(s) trumps content.

Takes a coach approach

• I write a lot about this. Essentially, taking a coach approach is anchored in the ability of the disciples to hear and respond to the Holy Spirit and the disciplemaker helps the disciple draw out new insights by listing and asking questions.  See 5 Shifts to be a Great Coach blog.
• Key Insight: Listening & asking questions help disciples go further, faster.

Revolves around transferable concepts

• I remember a conversation I had with my mom when I was first starting out in ministry. She was an amazing leader who discipled many people, families and groups over her lifetime – that are still making disciples to this day. However, to my knowledge she never completed the 1-1 discipleship program our church (which is a great church) had introduced. In my niavete, I had a conversation with mom to critique the way she had made disciples over her lifetime to help her see “the enlightened path” I was following. Needless to say, she did the program and I am sure benefitted – to a degree. To this day, I regret having this conversation with my mom who is one of the most influential disciplemakers I have ever known.
• Key Insight: transferable concepts have the potential of reproducing disciples into the 3rd-4th generation.

Take a moment and reflect on your experience:

1. What missional behaviors do you practice?
2. What missional behaviors do you need to adopt?

Please continue the conversation and respond below….