From our work with 200+ organizations, we’ve identified the 7 crucial aspects of the church that will either unlock organizational flourishing … or prevent it.
These aren’t extra areas. Each of the 7 Ways names an area where something is already going on in the life of the church.
But each Way also names the approach to that area that proactively leads you to experience and create the flourishing your church is made for.
Get to know each one:
THE FIRST WAY: TRUE SELF IDENTITY
Every church bears God’s image in a distinct way, just like each human does.
The challenge? The more generically you understand and share your Identity, the more challenging every aspect of your church’s organization will be (just like an image-bearer who doesn’t yet understand their True Self).
The clearer you understand and share your Identity, the more empowered everyone is to participate in the life of the church and to lead in the direction God’s called you to.
[Click here to watch a brief overview video.]
THE SECOND WAY: REHUMANIZING LEADERSHIP
All of us bring our default leadership styles to work.
The challenge is that some of those styles are highly ineffective or even toxic. (At the very least, a variety of styles makes life confusing for your staff.)
Rehumanizing Leadership gets your leaders on the same page, leadership-wise, and enables you to live out the life-giving role leaders are made to play in God’s world.
[Click here to watch a brief overview video.]
THE THIRD WAY: THE PURSUIT OF CLARITY
From the beginning, God has transformed darkness with light. And clarity means light.
If you’re a leader, it’s your job to create the specific clarity your church needs to move out of fog, stuckness, frustration, or conflict.
But most people were never taught how to create clarity (making decisions or solving problems) as a team.
What if you could walk out of staff or Session meetings with actual, shared consensus? What if you kept track of that clarity, so you don’t repeat the same conversation months later? It might be transformative.
[Click here to watch a brief overview video.]
THE FOURTH WAY: PROACTIVE MODE PLANNING
We aren’t called to control or predict the future, but we are made to participate in God’s world proactively, starting from a vision of the joy that is set before us.
Planning is an area where organizations of all kinds struggle. Sometimes the planning doesn’t happen at all. At other times, the plan doesn’t come to life.
But planning can look like
getting on the same page about the clarity God’s given us about the future,
rewinding from that future clarity to identify the best next steps in that direction,
and then learning how to act on those steps with confidence and humility, expecting to gain more clarity along the way.
[Click here to watch a brief overview video.]
THE FIFTH WAY: PLAYBOOK WISDOM
As any church grows, it becomes more and more challenging to keep a shared sense of “how we do things around here” — whether that’s how we prep and print our bulletins each week or how our church walks through advent each winter.
The key processes of a church are many, and they’re typically just walking around in people’s heads.
That’s where Playbooks come in handy, especially if your entire leadership can learn:
what kinds of things benefit most from getting playbooked,
how to walk through the process of drafting, formatting, & sharing,
empowering teammates with tangible ways to row together in the same direction,
and how to improve your Playbooks over time.
[Click here to watch a brief overview video.]
THE SIXTH WAY: The TEAM MEMBER JOURNEY
The local church is temporary, but people are forever. And in a growing church, most of those important relationships are on the staff team.
These relationships are often the ones where dysfunction or flourishing shows up first, and where needs can lead to the most distractions (if you’re not prepared for them).
The Team Member Journey is a resource and program designed to equip you for the relationships you’re called to lead, over time, with the staff team members who join you in the work of the church.
It hands you biblically-based guidance and tools to navigate each major stage and situation you’ll face with a teammate, empowering you to lead with wisdom, care, and health.
[Click here to watch a brief overview video.]
THE SEVENTH WAY: THE CONGREGATIONAL JOURNEY
The attendees and members your church exists to serve make up the other major relationships your church is meant to lead.
If no one takes the lead in that relationship, you end up with a church where many people attend, but few are involved, and even fewer are integrated, growing, and contributing as members.
It’s not only possible but loving to notice where you can take the healthy lead in your relationship with visitors, attenders, and members. It can also be a gift to design key moments or transitions for them, to help them engage in your church (& theirs) the ways God’s made them to.
[Click here to watch a brief overview video.]