Archives For Leadership

When God gives you influence what are you going to say?

samluce —  January 22, 2013 — 1 Comment

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I believe everyone has influence to some degree or another. Here is another thing I have been thinking about. It’s very easy in the social media age we live in to have a platform before you have a message.

Here is my question: What are you going to say when people are listening. When God gives you influence how are you going to leverage that influence and what are you going to say?

Every person has influence. You have influence for a reason. You must use that influence I believe to say something of substance.

Social media has done some amazing things. It has allowed for a small world to become even smaller. I believe that social media has allowed some new voices to be heard and has given greater reach to established voices. Before the social media age your platform was created through creating something that is tangible, a book or a ministry. Because of the reach of social media that is no longer the case.

One of the things that we must be careful of is gaining a platform before we have something to say.

Here is how you leverage social media to make sure that happens.

  1.  Listen more than you talk.
  2. Connect with thought leaders who have actually created something
  3. If you are new to the ministry area you are a part of ask lots of questions
  4. Seek God more than the approval of others. 
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How to communicate so kids can understand. – CPC 2013 Breakout #1

samluce —  January 17, 2013 — 4 Comments

How to Communicate to kids.

Communicating to to anyone especially kids is more of an art than a science. I remember teaching a lesson to the kids it was a small group of like 30 kids I was going for it I had props I was ready I was engaging a boy in the 3rd grade raised his hand and I called on him he said “This is boring.”

Where you start from is as important as where you go.

To communicate to kids you need the following

1. A love for God’s word – No matter how fun amazing crazy slimy, explosiony our message is if we are not continually pointing kids back to the bible we will have failed. We have to be more intentional than ever to create a biblical world view in the hearts of our kids.

Psalm 119:89-93
89 Your word, LORD, is eternal;
it stands firm in the heavens.
90 Your faithfulness continues through all generations;
you established the earth, and it endures.
91 Your laws endure to this day,
for all things serve you.
92 If your law had not been my delight,
I would have perished in my affliction.
93 I will never forget your precepts,
for by them you have preserved my life

2. A love for Jesus – If you love Jesus it will fundamentally change how and why you do what you do. The core of our teaching has to be the Gospel. – When kids encounter the Gospel it changes them fundamentally.
One of the advantages of serving in kids ministry at the same church for 14 years you are able to see the results of ideas and philosophies you have. One of the things I regret most is not preaching the gospel as clear or as often as I should of. I don’t change hearts Jesus does.

Romans 1:16-17 
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile
For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

Communicating to kids in large group setting.

  1. Always maintain eye contact – Kids learn with their eyes if you don’t have their eyes you don’t have their hearts and minds and most importantly their imaginations.
  2. Don’t stay in the Safety Zone -  We all have a level we are comfortable with don’t stay there have Highs and lows. One of the best ways to get the attention of you kids is not yelling at them but by getting quiet.
  3. Don’t just give kids facts your information will not be life changing if it conveyed in the context of a story. Jesus did this all the time he called them Parables. Tell kids truth in a story. Tell them stories about you. Kids love personal stories about you especially if you messed up in some way.
  4. Talk to kids like people not babies – Hello boy’s and girls (elmo voice)
  5. Use massive amounts of energy. – You can rarely be to animated. If you feel stupid you are probably right on track.
  6. Help kids focus – Use lights, segments and music
  7. Be relevant – Know what kids like now don’t use examples from when you were a kid.
  8. Use your Bible – Bring it on stage. Kids need you to reinforce that bible is life. It’s not a book of fairy tales.
  9. Distill truth don’t simplify it. – We underestimate what kids can understand Einstein said “If you can’t Distill it you don’t  understand it well enough.”  One huge example for me was faith I used to describe it as “Believing in the unseen” that is a simple definition of faith a distilled version is “Knowing God loves you and because he loves you, you can trust him no matter what.” It’s easy to understand, theologically correct and doesn’t lose the power though oversimplification.
  10. Always elevate Christ – I always try in the application section to elevate Christ that because of what He’s done for us it empower us to live for him.

Communicating to kids in a small group

  1. Listen – Kids want to talk listen to them.
  2. Know you lesson, know you lesson – The better you know what you are doing the more you kids feel respected. The more you can connect with your kids. The more you can listen to the Holy Spirit and make those small adjustments that make all the difference.
  3. Take every question seriously.
  4. Be there for the families of you small group kids. What you teach makes an impact but when you capitalize on those God moments your kids will never forget it.

Communicating to kids one-on-one

  1. Get down to their eye level
  2. Make sure you always great the kids before the parents.
  3. Give kids your full attention when they are talking.

Resources

The Fabulous Reinvention of Sunday School – Aaron Reynolds
Jesus Storybook Bible Deluxe edition – Sally Lloyd-Jones
An Hour on Sunday – Nancy Beach
Creating ever cool

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Setting goals for your team.

samluce —  January 7, 2013 — 3 Comments

Teaching-Teamwork-to-Engineers_hero

One of the best things you can do with your kids is teach them how to work. The kicker is that teaching your kids how to work is far more work than actually doing the work yourself. You have to slow down involve them in the process and explain why the work you are doing matters. If your kids don’t understand why work matters to you and why it matters to God they will see work as meaningless and will try to do work by themselves so they can get it done and move on. It’s important that kids learn from the process of work as much as accomplish the task before them. Helping your team set goals is much like this.

Setting goals for other people is a tricky business. As someone who leads others it is very easy to set goals for the team to hit and whip them into compliance constantly reminding them about what goals I have set for them. Can you accomplish things by setting goals for others? Yes and no. Yes people will do some things out of fear or because of relationship. If you do not involve your team in the creation of the goals you are trying to accomplish what you create is a unhealthy focus on results without regard for the process. They and you will see the trees but miss the forest. It’s much like teaching your kids how to work. Kids can understand that work gives me money without understanding that work glorifies God. As leaders we must be careful that we don’t get the results we want at a cost to our team and organization that will ultimately not bring glory to God.

Goals are achieved through a series of practical steps. Your team needs to buy into the goal but not necessarily the steps. If your teams buys into the goal they will trust you with the steps. There are actually three types of leadership The command and control leader who says these are our goals do them, the consensus leader who says what goals should we have, and the collaborative leader who says what goals should we have here is what I think we need to do together and this is what you need to do.

I favor collaboration because that’s how I believe you have to lead when leading volunteers for the long haul. Do you have to be command and control sometimes? Yes. Consensus sometimes? Yes. I believe both command and control and consensus leadership should be the exception to the rule especially when it comes to setting goals.

Practical Suggestions:

1. Goals should be agreed on how they are carried out should be dictated. Creativity and collaboration needs guidelines and riverbanks.
2. Personal goals are as important as team goals. – Personal goals help you see your fellow team member as humans and not goal production machines. Knowing the personal goals of your team reveals a side of them you don’t see when you are so focused on your ministry silo.
3. Goals help us focus as individuals and as teams. – You see through the unimportant to the most important. We all crave security. Security is achieved through clarity, clarity is achieved through specificity.

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What goals and dog food have in common.

samluce —  January 3, 2013 — Leave a comment

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I remember once doing an object lesson where I took a can of beef stew and removed the label and then cut a dog food label off of a dog food can and taped it to the can of beef stew. I opened the can of beef stew and started eating it. All the kids thought it was dog food. Kids were grossed out and my illustration was more powerful than the point that accompanied it. The kids had no idea what I was talking about. The girls were grossed out and all the boys when home and tried to eat dog food. Don’t try this illustration I beg of you I had a few gagers and at least one sympathy puker.

We do the same thing with goals. We take something we hate and know we need to do and put a different wrapper on it hoping that will make a difference and mostly we get frustrated and confused. Don’t make your goal this big awesome amazing goal and then fail to put steps in place to make it happen. If you don’t set goals correctly they can often do more damage than good, sort of like beef stew illustrations for small children.

Here is what I think every goal should be. 

1. Measurable - You need a trigger to tell you on a daily/weekly basis that you are doing good or need to work harder. One of my goals this year is to read 52 books. (In addition to reading my bible daily, that side note is for Jonathan Cliff) I know I need a book a week if I fall back I know what I have to do to push on.
2.  Clear - Attaching a number helps but isn’t necessary. Saying I want to read more never works. How much do you want to read by when.
3. Realistic – Saying I want to read 365 books in a year sounds awesome right? The problem is I will never do it, that is if I want to stay married, and keep my job. A goal is only is powerful as it is achievable.
4. Difficult – No one gets anything out of setting a goal they can reach without any effort. Getting to the playoffs isn’t the goal of the New York Yankees they do it almost every year it’s winning the World Series that gets them going. If your goal is not a challenge it isn’t worth celebrating.
5. Celebrated – This is the one thing we so often forget. We achieve a goal and then move on to the next one so often we don’t take time to reflect on the journey and celebrate the victory. Such a huge step. Last year I read 44 books I missed my goal but read way more than I did the year before. I took time to celebrate that and then I started working on next year how can I reach my goal. What do I need to learn? How can I do better next year?

 

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The difference between a goal and a new years resolution.

samluce —  January 2, 2013 — Leave a comment

new years resolution vs. goal

Research shows that 80% of people who make a new years resolution will break them. 60% or more don’t even make them because they know they are going to break them. People don’t make resolutions because they feel awful when they break them. People don’t want to feel bad so they avoid the things that make them feel bad. The problem is that if we shoot at nothing we are going to hit it every time. To many people drift in frustration and borderline burnout because they have nothing to tell them that they are making a difference. They have nothing forcing them to get out of bed in the morning. We need a goal. We need something more than a random thought at 12:01 January 1st.

There is a huge difference between a goal and a resolution – A goal is something you keep in front of you every day. A resolution is something you wish could happen to you. The biggest difference between a goal and a resolution is active behavior versus passive behavior.

In our personal lives and in our professional lives we live for the weekend and for vacation because we don’t have personal and professional goals that drive us to produce and that provide us the opportunity to celebrate throughout the year.

In the next few posts I want to talk about goals and what part they play in our personal life and as a team. How do we set them? Why do we set them? What do goals tell us about ourselves and others.

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