Travis Johnson

Church Staff Dynamics

I have never enjoyed working with a group of guys more than I enjoy working with our team.  This week was especially invigorating and intense.  I loved what we were able to do.  I was blown away by the intensity and creativity.  You can see some of it here.

They are really excellent people who give it all, show up early, lead like they're owners, follow-through, have an intense love for God and people, and display pliable hearts.  In addition to that, going into the office is a lot of fun.  I look forward to it every single day.  The team is really strong and shows a ton of potential.

On the flip side, when teams break down, it shows everywhere.  Once you get to that point, its hard to recover without human casualties.  Some things I've learned from serving on a large staff, being the only person on staff, and from leading a staff (both professionally and in ministry) are:

• Never discuss internal team challenges outside the circle of the team.  It breaks down team and undermines trust.  If you break this rule, you create defensiveness and undermine transparency on the team.
• Be direct.  Churches are famous for beating around the bush.  Get to the point and leave no room for guess work.  Honest assessments are necessary, even when it reflects negatively on the team, an individual, or on yourself.
• Give it your best.  God's business is the best business in the world.  Lay it all on the line every day.  Work like its up to you.  Pray like its up to Him.  Waiting on the Lord does not mean doing nothing.
• Protect your family.  Don't be a griper about unresolved, unaddressed issues at home.  It builds unnecessary resentment between uninvolved parties.  Be man or woman enough to have conflict quickly, privately, and respectfully.  Unresolved unaddressed conflict builds steam with time.  When it blows up, it gets really ugly.
• Be the instigator of generosity. Bring coffee and treats and share with the team.  Creating a culture of generosity kills destructive attitudes (1 Peter 4:8) and undermines negative energy.
• Pray for the team and make the load lighter (James 5:16).  Working in ministry, you see everything behind the scenes.  Its great when your team is a family and your family prays for you and has your back.
• Have fun.  Work like crazy and every now and then, take breaks together.
• Drop dead weight. When someone disengages and quits doing their part as unto the Lord, address the situation.  Give the person a chance to change.  If they can't, be quick to help them find a place where they can give it their best, even if that means that place is on another team somewhere else.

I'm sure there are some other pearls of wisdom to be had.  But, this is what I have.  If you have thoughts, share them.

Consultation and Cloning

Today, Paul's dad, Charles Hollifield is coming in to meet with our staff to share the results of our DISC Profiles.  I got a sneak preview on myself yesterday.  No surprise there, probably no surprise to anyone.  I may share more later. Anyway, I'm looking forward to today.

It was funny when Paul's dad walked in.  I thought Paul had had a rough drive back from the airport and aged a couple decades.  Paul and Charles are carbon copies of one another.  They are both story tellers and a lot of fun to be around.  Today should be interesting.

Powerful words from an aggressive leader

Dave Ferguson blogs a great piece on Q & A with Rich DeVos. It seemed like half of the campus of my alma mater is named after him. He's a HUGE believer in financing the work of God. He's an incredible businessman and motivator. When he speaks, I'm listening. You have to check it out. One of my favorites things he said were some powerful quotes from his upcoming book:

I’m wrong,
I’m sorry.
I trust you.
I’m proud of you.
I luv ya!

Awesome stuff from a great leader.

Do as I Say Not As I Do

If you're a parent, you know you can't get by with telling your kids "Do as I say not as I do."  We reproduce who we are, not who we want others to be.  We should consider ourselves a stamp, imprinting ourselves into the lives of people closest to us.

In Nehemiah 11, we see the leaders of Jerusalem living in the city, enduring the same challenges, navigating the same terrain as the volunteer settlers and the settlers who were recruited to repopulate the city.  The Church of Jesus Christ faces its biggest problems when its leaders feel that they have one set of rules to live by while their followers have another.  It is frustrating to see people who should be leading a movement, instead taking advantage of the movement of Jesus.

Without dwelling on the negative, it is also incredibly invigorating to see leaders who lead aggressively admit their flaws, and who consistently direct people to Jesus.

Geiger on Leadership

Eric Geiger drops a beautiful post into the blogosphere today on leadership multiplication.  Here's an excerpt:

In the corporate world, those who are able to work themselves out of a job will never be without a job. In ministry, the church’s ability to raise up leaders is directly proportionate to the church’s ability to expand ministry into the community, to reproduce, to multiply.

Expectations Our Team Has for One Another

Earlier this week, our team sat down and shared what we expected from one another.  This is team generated.  One of the observations is that each of these expectations are totally dependent on the rest.  If you blow one out, in many cases, you've blown out a lot of the others.

• #1 Love God!  If you aren't passionate about Christ, it doesn't matter what time you show up or how excellent you are or how good your follow-through is.
• Respect yourself (your health, finances, future, etc...)
• Trust me.  Understand what I'm doing to some degree and let me do it without interference.
• Establish and pay attention to clear lines of authority.
• Be direct. Beating around the bush has no place here.
• J.D.W.Y.S.Y.W.D. (Just do what you said you would do!)
• Play hard.  Have fun and enjoy the relationships we have built over the years.
• Respect one another.  Disrespect breaks down team.   
• Always be prepared.  There is no excuse for a lack of preparation.  Showing up unprepared is a respect and mission issue.
• Be on time. Early is on time.  On time is late.
• Take ownership.  Obsess over our mission.  Think about the details.
• Be excellent. God deserves our very best.  Whatever it is we do, we do as unto God.
• Honor your family. When you are at work, be at work.  When you are at home, be with your family.
• Work hard.  There is no substitute.  I've seen inferior talent and organizations overwhelm the competition because they got up earlier, worked harder, and outperformed better positioned organizations.  One saying that we had in my past life was, "It is not a matter of the big beating the small.  It is a matter of the fast beating the slow." 

An addition to the team

This is a great time to be at Life Pointe.  Just when things were getting comfortable and the bills were getting paid and things were getting figured out, we have decided to accept another challenge to step up in our mission to reach this city.

We just hired Jesse about a month ago.  We had to make that move to keep up with our growth and continue moving forward.  But, now we are making another hire, an executive pastor to take a more strategic hands on role in leading the ministries of the church.  That will take more pressure off of me, help with equipping, systems, and teaching.

This is a forward-looking move.  We had been looking for a strategic person to come on board with us.  We looked inside and out passing on some stellar and very committed guys.  Ultimately, I felt there was only one choice.  I'm glad to welcome Paul and Anne Hollifield to the team.

Paul will be joining us on July 15th.  Make sure you stop by his blog and give him a little welcome.

My hands have come off the steering wheel

We break from our Life Groups from July until the week of August 26th.  We encourage our groups to continue hanging out, doing bbq's, dinners, etc...  But, there is zero pressure for our groups to maintain teaching sessions in their homes.  It shifts to strictly relational connectivity over the summer.

In place of our groups, we will be hosting a leadership worship gathering for everyone that considers themselves a leader or wants to develop into a leader.  There are no requirements for coming to the gathering other than showing up.  There will be a time of worship, equipping, and vision casting/strategy formation (sharing strategy and participating in strategy formation).

The July 11th kick-off meeting is going to offer a directed, open forum type environment where we will be discussing some huge stuff that may impact a lot of what we do entering into the fall.  Some of the discussion will probably lead to a "strategic chaos." Already our creative planning session this week has caused me to shelve our summer message series until August 26th.  For those of you that heard the teaser on Sunday, get ready because our roll out is going to be pretty big.

This Sunday, we'll announce our new series that we'll be beginning July 15th.  We have not promoted a series since April.  The current series has lasted 14 weeks.  We've experienced significant growth since then to the point that we need to be adding a second service no later than August 26th.  Even this past Sunday we were over the 70% capacity mark for our auditorium. 

People that come in late have to sit either separated from their group or in the uncomfortable down front seats.  Those seats are so close that people end up looking up my nostrils which is uncomfortable to all parties involved.  I also learned in my communications classes that strong enunciation leads to spitting...hopefully you don't see that from the back.  But, when you're down front super close, you definitely do.  Summed up, that's pretty gross.

Sunday seemed personally challenging for me.  I left the service feeling worn out.  But, the feedback has been phenomenal.  The offering was much stronger than our 6 week average.  And, our attendance was more than 30% higher than the same Sunday the previous year.  That's totally God.  Because I felt like I went up to share and was just inadequate for the job.  Ultimately, I am.  But, moreso on Sunday than most.

I have to tell you that just when I think I am figuring things out, God has come in and messed me up.  I feel like I'm spinning down an icy road and in frustration with being able to control the car, I've taken my hands off the wheel.  Its up to God where this vehicle goes from here.

Anyway, if you want to be a part of a corporate worship time, prayer for our future, and strategy formation, Wednesday, July 11th @ 7:30 PM (in our building) is your day.  I'm asking God for one of those Upper Room experiences where hearts and minds are in one accord.  The result is an outpouring of power to impact the culture here in our city in a HUGE way.

The complaint box is in the trailer

Michael Lukaszewski, the lead guy at Oak Leaf Church in Cartersville, GA said this about leaders.  You've got to read it.   It reminded me of a portable church pastor who was dealing with some criticism from a group of chronic complainers.  He responded to them by saying his church's complaint box is in the setup trailer.  One thing is certain, chronic complainers don't last long around people who are stake holders.  A guy or gal that has bought into the mission won't put up with whining people and will put them in their place.

Leadership ala Flamingo Road

I had lunch with Troy Gramling, Raul Palacios, and a few really decent church planters yesterday at Flamingo Road Church.  I think the world of both of these guys and have enjoyed every moment we've interacted.  God has used Troy in an incredible way there in Broward.  I can't wait to see something similar here in Miami. 

I continue to pray for God's Kingdom to come here...I feel like I see it develop daily through guys like Nathan Griffis (get a blog, Griff), Matt Mehaffey, Mathias Grehn, Bob Franquiz, the guys at CF, church planters, and a ton of others.  Raul mentioned how it seemed like there has been a significant church planting focus on Miami and I totally agree...so encouraging!  Still there is much need here in perhaps the most diverse and relationally needy American cities.  With some of these guys, I really think I can see some sort of informal network of planters developing here for the sole purpose of brainstorming and friendship.

On a more personal note, I was blown away a few months back when Raul drove down to Homestead and treated me to sushi.  Hanging with the Executive Pastor from one of the nation's fastest growing churches is a real treat and a learning experience for me.  I'm also pretty excited that when we make our Executive Pastor hire (which I hope we can make happen soon), he'll have a go-to-guy for some of the big calls we'll be making.

Now, check this out, Jesse was hanging with me on the trip and we ran into one of Jesse's friends, Benny Salas from Humboldt Park in Chicago.  I remember Benny's face from my church planting days there.  I'm blown away at the talent that came out of that place. Benny is planting in Midtown.  He's a real high energy guy.  I think he'll do very well here.

Before getting off this horse, let me leave a few bullets of observations from yesterday's lunch:

• Humility is key to growing an effective reproducing organization.
• As a pastor/leader, there is nothing more important than family.
• Leading your family and having an intense work ethic are not mutually exclusive. (If you are going to receive flexibility as a staff member, then you better be willing to lay it all on the line for the mission.  Its a two way street).
• If you aren't a learner, you aren't a leader.
• Keep EVERYTHING simple.
• Ministry should be as much or more focused on developing the ones doing the ministry as the ones receiving the ministry.
• Coach John Wooden's name and words were invoked, "You can use young men to build a basketball team or you can use basketball to build young men."  Great words. By the way, this a great website to explore.
• We have to constantly be envisioning what leadership looks like at the next level.
• We have to constantly remind our leaders what leadership will look like at the next level.
• If our leaders do not take the necessary steps to prepare themselves for the next level of leadership, we should not feel badly for replacing them with someone who is ready or preparing themself.
• No one is bigger than the vision.
• Many leaders are not willing to make the tough decisions in ministry. 
• Choosing an expedient comfortable leadership decision over a difficult, right decision is a decision to remain stuck and a decision to ignore future potential.

I could go on.  There is much to share.  But, you've probably already checked out from this entry.  Bottom line is that it was significant to me.  Thanks to Troy and Raul for everything.