Evaluation: Crucial To the Mission

Service to God does not carry with it an exemption from evaluation. Seeking to do God’s will doesn’t mean that we are excused from carefully examining the effectiveness of our activity.

God deserves our best. We’re told this throughout the Bible (Lev. 22:20-22, Col. 3:22-24). But how can know if we are giving our best apart from evaluation? The concept of “best” assumes that which is “less,” which we can only know that through evaluation. It is only through an honest, intentional appraisal that we know if we can still do better in our service to Him.

Some will say, “Well, what we do in ministry can’t be measured, it is intangible.” Anything that is real and takes place in this world can be measured. If you tell me that something can’t be measured, then what you are talking about is extraterrestrial.

Having been a pastor for a long time, I know that evaluation takes place whether I like it or not. One pastor asked a parishioner whose spiritual gift was not that of tactfulness what he thought of his sermon. The man replied, “It was poorly written, poorly delivered, and a complete waste of time.” This troubled that pastor who told another church member about it, who replied, “Oh, don’t worry about it, pastor, he just goes around repeating what he hears other people say.”

In light of the inevitability of evaluation, churches and ministries should give thought to how they will do it. A key question is, “Should we measure activity or results?” The answer is both. If we only measure activity, then we become the standard of measurement. However, since ultimately we seek to do God’s work, we must not only look at the final outcomes, which belong in His hands. Someone has said that we measure what we do and celebrate what God does.

Ultimately, we must measure our work in light of the mission of God, the mission for which Christ sends us to the world—making disciples. We must ask two questions, what is the business of the church and how’s business? To make disciples, we do the five functions of the church (Acts 2:42-47). In regards to each function of the church—worship, evangelism, discipleship, ministry, fellowship—we must establish progress indicators. These are benchmarks to help us see what success looks like.

What is the ultimate end of our existence as a church? What are the means to that end? What are the signs that we are effectively performing those means? These are questions we must ask and answer. Why? God has made us stewards (managers) of the gospel and of His mission. The parables of Jesus on stewardship—and there are many—all contain the idea of evaluation. There is no escape from evaluation. It is only a question of when. We should do it now (2 Cor. 13:5-6) in order to prepare for what is to come.

Leadership: From The Heart, With The Hands

He shepherded them with a pure heart and guided them with his skillful hands. (Psalm 78:72, HCSB)

This has become a defining verse for me in terms of leadership. It provides a model for developing one’s leadership. It also provides a simple checklist, if you will, of what should characterize your leadership. It can be fleshed out, and should be, in more detail but the simple outline is what we read there: a pure heart and skillful hands. This is an example of Hebrew parallelism, saying the same basic thing twice, with a slightly different nuance of meaning. (Of course, this was important when all instruction was oral and repetition was crucial to retaining the teaching.)

For me, it is important to see the connection between the two. When they get isolated, integrity and impact issues begin to arise. On the one hand, I may have a pure heart but no skillful hands. We’ve heard the expression before, “Well, their heart is in the right place.” What does that mean? Usually, it means, “Well, they’re pretty much an idiot.” On the other hand, a would-be leader might have skillful hands, great abilities in administration or planning, but no purity of heart. We usually wind up reading about those cases in the news. The pure heart sees the end and the skillful hands understand the means but we need both. God seeks leaders who can with their hands direct others toward an end that is pure, which glorifies and honors Him.

Harvard Business Review captured this dichotomy pretty well several years ago when they identified two types of ineffective managers: competent jerks and lovable idiots. The former was ineffective in relational issues and the latter was ineffective in tactical issues. What is needed is a blend of the hard and the soft skills.

The old adage of “know thyself” is crucial at this point. In terms of our personality, we tend to gravitate toward either task or relationship. Neither is right or wrong but one without the other is always insufficient. Teams need to give some thought to that and the composition of the team in terms of the hard and the soft skills.

Probably some definition would be helpful in terms of the two components, which as we mentioned must be kept as a parts of a dynamic whole. Much could be said about a pure heart. One quality that cannot be omitted is servanthood. For a Christ follower, it is essential. Jesus understood what typically prevailed in popular culture regarding leadership and issued the “Not So With You” axiom in Matthew 20:25-28. For Christian leaders, the motivation of our leadership must be to serve others, not self, out of a love and loyalty to God.

Skillful hands flow out of the servant heart. Together they make up servant leadership. The latter is about doing something and accomplishing something, as opposed to the “leader” who does relationships for relationships’ sake. It is important to avoid the mistake of simply taking skills that we have learned elsewhere and “baptizing” them. The skillful hands flow out of the pure (servant) heart and express it.

One of the helpful ways I have heard this put is from the book Lead Like Jesus by Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges. They talk about an educational model called The Way of the Carpenter. Jesus, of course, did miraculous things while he was here on earth. However, He did not use miracles in developing His disciples. I suppose He could have done so but instead He chose to use a non-supernatural education model to help His followers “become fishers of men.” It was the model that He would have trained in as a carpenter under his earthly father Joseph. (By the way, with the exception of the introduction of power tools, carpentry as a trade has remained a timeless trade, virtually unchanged since biblical times.)

I am thankful that Jesus chose to develop His followers this way. Why? Because, to the best of my knowledge, I do not have the ability to perform miracles. I have never been able to heal a blind person. I have never been able to feed 5,000 people through a couple of sandwiches. And I have never been able to raise someone from the dead. However, I can instruct people, I can coach them, encourage them and delegate tasks to them.

You have heard the old expression about how people fall into one of our four categories:

They don’t know but they don’t know that they don’t know

They don’t know and they know that they don’t know

They know but they don’t know that they know

They know and they know that they know

This is very similar to Blanchard and Hodges’ Way of the Carpenter:

Stage Description Need

Novice Enthusiastic beginner Direction

Apprentice Disillusioned learner Coaching

Journeyman Capable but cautious performer Support

Master Self confident achiever Delegation

What makes this servant leadership? The leader adapts to the person, rather than employing a one-size-fits-all approach. Since the skillful hands of a leader flow out of a pure heart of servanthood, that leader is willing to make the effort and adapt. They are willing to invest the time to understand where this person is and then work with them accordingly.

What is the calling God has placed on your life? Specifics vary but the ultimate end is always to make His name and fame great among the nations, beginning in your hometown. Pure hearts and skillful hands are both means to that great end. They don’t exist in isolation from each other and bring them together requires more than just personality. It requires spirituality, an abiding relationship with Christ, who is the ultimate model for leadership.

Ground Rules for Conflict

Effective ministry always requires a team (Ex. 18:13-18). Teams are characterized by solid relationships and mutual accountability (Heb. 10:24). However, even on the best of teams, conflict occurs. This in itself isn’t the problem; the problem is in how we handle it.

The time to develop these guidelines is before conflict arises; once it has started, even though they are needed, it is too late to establish them. And since teamwork demands mutual accountability, these guidelines level the playing field. Any one, even someone in a position with little organizational authority, can point out violations in a true team setting. Inherent in the idea of teamwork is that all team members, the leader included, must seek to follow the guidelines (Eph. 5:21).

Here are some biblical ground rules and principles for handling and preventing conflict:

1. Don’t rush in; pray about it! (Matt. 7:3-5; Phil. 4:6; Ja. 1:19)

2. Use “I” statements: take responsibility for how you feel (Gal. 6:4a)

3. Avoid character analysis: talk about behavior, not character (Ja .4:11)

4. Avoid mind reading: explore motives and reasons by asking, not assuming (Ex. 18:14)

5. Keep to one issue: only discuss one thing at a time (Lk. 10:41-42)

6. Keep it to the here and now: don’t use yesterday’s issues as today’s ammunition (1 Cor. 13:5)

7. Don’t counterattack: accept reproof graciously (Prov. 15:5, 19:20)

8. Keep emotions appropriate and in check (Prov. 16:32; Ja.1:19)

9. Deal with issues quickly: don’t let feelings get buried alive (Eph. 4:26-27)

10. Don’t try to win: if one person wins, the other person loses (Eph. 4:2-3)

11. Deal directly with the people involved (Matt.18:15)

12. Use edifying language (Eph. 4:29)

13. Balance directness and sensitivity (Eph. 4:15)

14. Trust God for your interests (Psa. 91)

Meetings...Who Needs 'Em?

Meetings. Everybody hates ‘em. Here’s a few quotes that would bear this thesis out.
· A meeting is a gathering where people speak up, say nothing, then all disagree.
· The best meeting is a group of three with one person sick and another out of town.
· A meeting is indispensable when you don’t want to accomplish anything.

Funny stuff. Taking a swipe at meetings is almost like arm wrestling with your grandma. It’s really no contest. Or is it?

I’m a radical. I believe in meetings. I believe in them because I believe in the power of teamwork. Great teams use meetings as a playing field upon which their excellence is displayed.

Why don’t we like meetings? Here’s what I think. It is because we don’t believe in the power of teamwork. Instead we believe in the power of “Me, Myself, and I.” The only reason for a meeting is if we can do more together than we can apart. If I disdain meetings, maybe it is because I believe that I can accomplish more on my own.

God has gone on record frequently in Scripture to affirm the priority of teamwork and synergy (Exodus 18:17-19; Leviticus 26:8; 1 Samuel 14:14; Ecclesiastes 4:9; Mark 3:14; Luke 6:12). We see the principle of teamwork built into God's nature, His creation pattern, and the assignments He gave to men and women. Even some of the great heroes of our faith--David, Daniel, Moses, Paul--served God and His mission in conjunction with others.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t love all meetings. I don’t love to meet for the sake of having a meeting. I do believe in effective meetings as the way to get things done.

Meetings are the way things get done. And if we want to move forward in advancing God’s kingdom, we must improve how we do meetings. Essentially, an effective meeting takes into account three things: purpose, people, and process.

Purpose: Every meeting needs to have a clear purpose that in turn relates back to the purpose of the church, which is making disciples. This is accomplished through a written agenda, built around action verbs, such as “decide” or “review” or “brainstorm”. At any point in the meeting, a team should be able to tell if they are “on task” or “off task.” Getting off task is why many people hate meetings. And they should.

People: Not every meeting has the right people there or, as Good to Great puts it, “the right people on the bus.” Make sure everyone who needs to be there is…and not one person more. If someone only needs to be there for part of the meeting, let them make a cameo appearance. They’ll love you for it.

Process: Every meeting worth having needs a written agenda. It should have a timed schedule, defining how long the team will spend on each agenda item, and include the aforementioned action verbs.

It is true that some meetings cause more harm than good (1 Cor. 11:17). However, that’s not because meetings are intrinsically bad. It is because we don’t really believe in the power of teamwork and leverage its synergy. Like the old saying goes, “Don’t curse the darkness. Light a candle.” Shine some light on teamwork through effective team meetings.


For more information about hosting a workshop on High Performance Meetings at your church or organization, email me at bselby@bgco.org.

Part 3: Developing Your Leadership DNA: Leading Well In Everything You Do

Before you can lead others, you first must lead yourself. Socrates supposedly said, “Let he who would move the world first move himself.”

This doesn’t mean you have to talk to yourself or look in the mirror every morning to give yourself a pep talk. It doesn’t mean ignore every other consideration and just do what pleases you.

It means that you must choose what kind of leader you want to be. This is where you begin developing your leadership DNA. Your response to these questions will determine what type of leader you will become.

Whom will I serve, others or myself? This is the most fundamental question about your leadership. Many leaders, if not most, seek to gratify their own egos and pursue their own personal agendas. Chuck Colson has said, “All the kings and queens of this world have sent their people out to die for them. Only One has ever died for His people.”

Whom will I seek to please, God or other people? The approval of others is a drug to which many people are addicted. Unfortunately, the nature of an addiction is an ever-increasing desire for something that has an ever-decreasing capacity to satisfy. This is not true of God’s approval. Knowing His smile on your life never loses its joy.

What will I live out, my calling or the calling others have for me? Someone has observed that at the moment of death for a codependent person, someone else’s life passes before their eyes. God has a purpose for each of us. However, so do other people. Which purpose will I embrace?

What will I focus on, the future or the present? Effective leaders see far ahead into the future. They focus on what will be AFTER their season of leadership is over. As a parent, a friend, and a minister of God, I must ask, “How am I preparing those around me for the time when they won’t be around me anymore?”

By the way, Jesus answered each of these leadership questions at the beginning of His ministry. In His baptism, He sought God’s approval and received it. In His temptation in the wilderness, He chose to serve others, pursue His own calling, and forgo immediate gratification for future impact.

Are you ready to lead like Jesus?


For more information on scheduling a Lead Like Jesus encounter in your church or organization, contact me at bselby@bgco.org.

Part 2: Developing Your Leadership DNA: Leading Well In Everything You Do

There is an old saying that says, “Lead, follow, or get out of the way!” This assumes that a person can exert a neutral influence by simply “getting out of the way.” I disagree. Even the act of neutrality sends a message. You cannot NOT lead. That statement may reflect poor grammar, but it communicates a fundamental truth about leadership.

The only issue is the nature of my influence and my leadership, not its existence. I may lead in a positive sense or I may exert a negative influence. Either way, I am a leader.

Which of the following are examples of leadership?

• An assistant handling an irate person over the phone with patience and kindness
• A businessman who stops to visit with a homeless person and take him to a café for a meal and some conversation
• A mother with a child at any time of day
• A Marine sergeant who issues a command that puts his men in harm’s way in order to complete their mission
• A high school baseball coach who curses an official in the presence of his players
• A government official who receives a bribe in exchange for awarding a contract
• An elementary school teacher who helps their class learn to appreciate the beauty of nature
• A handicapped person who displays grace, joy, and courage in front of their family and coworkers
• A deacon who visits a church member in the hospital
• A college student who helps an overburdened classmate with an important paper
• An angry driver who makes an obscene gesture to another driver during rush hour traffic

Actually they are all examples of leadership. As you can see, influence can be either positive or negative. It can be one or the other, but it cannot be absent or neutral. In addition, leadership can be obvious (a Marine sergeant issuing a command) or hidden (an official receiving a bribe). It can be very specific (a coach who curses an umpire) or general (a handicapped person living with courage).

However each of these examples comes down to one crucial decision. It is the decision to either serve others or serve one’s self. How are you leading today? Who are you serving?

Part 1: Developing Your Leadership DNA: Leading Well In Everything You Do

I’m not a scientist. Biology almost ended my college career. However, I am familiar with something called DNA, which basically is a genetic blueprint in each of us. Although I tend to say that it stands for Do Not Ask, the truth is that every cell of our body contains our DNA code. It pervades every aspect of our entire physical being.

Leadership is like DNA. It is in everything you do. The question is not if you are a leader. You are. You exercise leadership in everything you do. The only question is how you are leading.

Physical DNA is a matter of birth. Leadership DNA is a matter of choice. One comes by nature, but the other by nurture.

Shakespeare wrote, “Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.” (Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene 5) The same is true of leadership. Some people have natural leadership gifts. Yet the rest of us can develop our leadership, sometimes in response to circumstances (e.g. parenthood) that are “thrust” upon us.
Sometimes I wonder if we should just do away with the term “leader” altogether. It seems to exclude and intimidate people. Much of the time it gets equated with an organizational role, which many don’t have, instead of a life role, which everyone has.

Perhaps we should use instead “influencer” as the more accurate term. The study of leadership is the study of influence. And every person has influence. You have influence. You impact people around you. That much is certain. All that is to be determined is the nature and quality of that impact.

Everyday, in more ways than you realize, you are a leader. You exercise influence. Leadership is in everything you do. It may be positive or negative, but it is there. That’s your leadership DNA.

Vision: What Do You See?

Purpose is important. Process is crucial. But what is it that keeps us pursuing our purpose according to the process we have defined? A vision of the future, a mental picture of what it looks like, is the inspiration for purpose and process. It is also what keeps us moving when things get tough.

Vision is a picture of what we believe can and must take place for our purpose to be fulfilled.

Walt Disney had a vision for his theme parks. It was that every customer would leave the park with just as big a smile on their face as when they entered it. That’s vision.

Horst Schulze had a vision for his Ritz-Carlton luxury hotels. It was summed up in their motto: “We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.” That’s vision.

Eugene Kranz, flight director of the ill-fated Apollo 13 space launch, had a vision for it. He saw the doomed Odyssey landing safely in the Pacific Ocean. That’s vision.

What’s our vision? What do we see?

It was 1922 and these two archeologists were excavating in an area where all others had given up on. Years later, they might have shared a laugh about the question. For on that fateful day in the Royal Valley, it was posed by his assistant to Dr. Howard Carter, whose head had entered the ancient tomb of King Tut, “Do you see anything?”

That’s the question God puts to us, “Do you see anything?”

What do we see? Can we see a different picture than the obvious one that is staring us right in the face? No tired, threadbare platitudes need apply for the lofty position of vision. We need a fresh picture, one that will marshal our cooperation and galvanize our resolve.

Ask God to touch your eyes, to lift up your head, give you a new vision, and paint a new picture of a preferred future in your mind’s eye. Without it, we probably won’t even start and we definitely won’t finish. Ask God for a new vision of what He wants done through you and through this church.

Process: The Bosses' Helper

There are two crucial questions for a church to answer. The first one is a “What” question, which allows the body of Christ to ask itself, “What is our mission?” The second one is a follow-up question to the first: “How will this mission be accomplished?” It is the “How” question.

In my last post, I wrote that purpose is boss. Our purpose and mission should decide everything. If we don’t pursue God’s purpose, we forfeit the right to even call ourselves the Church. It is the ultimate question. However, the process question runs a close second in importance. What do I mean by process?

There was a man who noticed a city work crew. It was a peculiar sight. The truck would pull up and one employee would get out and dig a hole. When finished, he returned to the truck and the other employee would get out. He would fill the hole. Eventually the man approached the truck and asked, “What are you guys doing?” One worker replied, “Our crew is responsible for planting trees in the city but the guy who puts the tree in the hole called in sick today.”

You see, process is important. The sequence of steps that leads to a fully developed follower of Christ is important. Every church must clearly define its process, the movement that takes a first-time guest, especially someone who is not a Christ follower, to the point of being a ministering member. It must be clear, simple, and strategic.

It must be clear and succinct enough to write on a business card. It must be simple enough for any person to understand. And it must be strategic, i.e., the process itself must be the means to fulfilling the purpose of the church.

This process should be made up of three parts. There is something about the number three that the human brain can remember. I have noticed that process statements which have four parts, not three, are harder to retain. Maybe God has built something into the number itself which is conducive to memory.

What's your process? How is it helping "boss" your church?

Purpose Is Boss

It seems like in every organization people want to know who is in charge. “Who’s the boss?” is the perennial question. That’s not necessarily a bad question. There is value in knowing where the proverbial buck stops. It is important to have a means to reconcile value conflicts and to decide between competing demands. Bosses do that kind of thing.

The answers to the question are varied. Some will say, “The pastor is the boss.” (Pastors, of course, are fond of this answer.) Others will observe that the deacons are the boss while yet others will point to a governing body like a church council. And there will be some who will say, “Well, the church is the boss.” Though we use a congregational form of church government, it is hard to operate and administer a church by monthly business meetings

And let’s be honest: for many, tradition is boss. Some people take the Doxology and try to run the church with it: “As it was in the beginning, it is now and forever shall be.” Or maybe you’ve heard it like this: “We’ve never done it that way before.”

Of course, there will be at least one pious soul that will say that the Lord is the boss of the church. I can’t argue with that. However, when it comes to deciding on budget issues, He doesn’t typically write in the sky to tell us on what we should spend our money. We need something a little clearer.

Yet that last answer does get us closer to where we need to be. Jesus Christ is Lord of the church and He has given us our reason for existence, which is to make disciples. Here is the answer to the $64,000 question: purpose is boss.

Our purpose, which is making disciples as commanded in the Great Commission, should decide every question. Every potential step we consider should be prefaced by asking, “What does purpose have to say about this? How does this help us make disciples?” Every line in a budget, every event on a calendar, and every decision in a church business meeting should be decided by purpose, not precedent and not preferences. The buck should stop at purpose. Everything—the music, the building, the budget—everything should be determined, yea, even “bossed around,” by purpose.

I have to wonder how things would look different if purpose truly was boss. On jobs in the past, I’ve noticed that things changed when the boss showed up. I’ve noticed that surly attitudes suddenly became sweet in the presence of the boss. And I’ve noticed how questions that were once inscrutable became crystal clear when the boss walked into the room. Maybe the same could happen for us.

Probably the only real question is this. Are we listening to the boss? Are we doing what he commands?