Clearly, you need to work on ensuring that your team is being a good steward of all that meeting time.

Although it can seem like a “plumbing” issue of how the church does its work, in many ways the meeting culture of your church could be a make-or-break aspect of what is either pushing your ministry forward or holding it back. As I’ve had the honor of being in the orbits of some fantastic churches over the years, I’ve noticed some healthy habits that those leadership teams live by to get the most out of their meetings. Rather than seeing meetings as a necessary evil of “doing church”, these teams are looking for ways to optimize their meeting culture towards performance that pushes them forward. Here are some healthy habits I’ve seen in churches that are making a difference today:

Use meetings to make decisions, not to disseminate information.

Meetings are disagreements to move the organization forward. Healthy teams use meetings as a place to come together to make decisions. More pointedly, leaders use meetings to make decisions. A good meeting should be built around ideas that need to be debated and discussed in the context of an impending decision. Meetings are not a place to simply pass out information or keep everyone informed. It’s a waste of your team’s time to use meetings as a place to ensure they are up to speed on what’s happening at the church.

Adults are basically “just in time” learners, so when you use a meeting to simply pass along information, they are almost hardwired to not pay attention because they can’t put the information into practice right away. However, you can turn this same dynamic on its head by using meetings to present a desired and debatable outcome that you’re going to discuss. People can’t help but lean in and want to participate when change is on the horizon based on this meeting. When there are consequences to meetings, people show up and are ready to jump in. If the meeting feels inconsequential, your team will disengage at best or maybe even resent the meeting.

3 Other Ways to Disseminate Information to Your Team Besides Calling a Meeting

• Voice Messages // You’d be amazed how much information you can pass in a 5 minute audio message recorded on your phone. It’s easy to record your voice and email it out to your team.
• “What to Expect” Documents // In just one page, you can outline a lot of information that people need to know about an upcoming event or activity at the church.
• Weekly Check in Email // Many churches have a standard report email that is generated every week with data that the entire team needs to know. Get your information to hijack on the back of that communication.

Ensure people come prepared to discuss.

No agenda? No meeting! If whoever is calling the meeting doesn’t have time to prepare the people attending the meeting for what is being discussed, it’s probably best not to meet. People don’t like surprises and it’s a bad use of people’s time to get their gut reaction to issues without them having time to prepare. If the decisions being made in the meeting are of such low consequence that people don’t need to think about them ahead of time, then they should be delegated to a team member to make the decision and inform the team later. The prep is both an agenda that outlines the decisions that will be made at the meeting and reading materials to help people as they process the decision.

5 Elements of a Compelling Agenda

• Decision: // What is the big decision that is being made at this meeting? This is the overall driver for why you are calling people together.
• Attendees // A clear list of who will be at the meeting. If people don’t know each other, a one-line bio is helpful.
• Please Read // A list of resources designed to bring the team up to speed on the issue at hand.
• What’s at Stake // Why is this such an important decision? A clear and compelling reason why this decision needs to be made at this time.
• Rules of Engagement // Some ground rules about how the team is going to go about “doing” the meeting.

Healthy teams work to avoid the feedback bubble.

Learning teams win. Churches that are making a difference in their communities are led by teams of people that are looking for ways to learn from other organizations and apply those lessons to their church. Stagnant churches keep to their own small tribe and shout into the echo chamber of their community. Healthy meetings seek to bring in data from a wide variety of sources to push to a better answer, not the answer that was assumed from the outset. Too many churches just run the same plays over and over and aren’t committed to bringing in outside voices to help them make better decisions. If you are looking for a way to improve your decision-making as a team, you need to bring in voices from other circles to help you make better decisions.

This is particularly important when we think about our ultimate mission as a church. Every church needs to find ways to leverage opportunities to reach people beyond their own church. In fact, the local church is the only organization in the world that exists not for its member but for people not yet connected to the church! As Colossians 4:5 says, “Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity.” The hard truth is the voice of the “insider” will always be louder than the “outsider” and so your church needs to find ways to include those voices at your decision-making table. If you only listen to those people who are already with your church, you will miss the opportunity to reach people who haven’t been reached yet!

3 Ways to Add Outside Voices to Your Decision-Making Process

• Data is Your Friend // Find hard numbers that talk about what is actually happening rather than just your opinion or hunches. There is no bad information, just information you don’t like.
• Invite People In // Who is attending the meetings at your church should be driven by the decisions being made, not by tradition or hierarchy. Pull in people who can speak first-hand about the decisions being made.
• Coaches // Growing churches bring in people who have been down the road they are looking at before. A day with a coach or consultant can help bring added clarity to the decisions you make as a team.

Capture action steps and assign responsibilities.

Take massive action. The reason you’ve called meetings at your church is to make decisions. Therefore, coming out of the meeting should be a series of decisions that need to be assigned to team members to follow up on. In fact, the very essence of what “happens” coming out of meetings is new and vibrant energy that has been released. If your meetings aren’t leading to people taking action, then you are just using your meetings to inform people of decisions that have already been made and you should stop meeting.

3 Vital Pieces Needed to Record Next Steps After a Meeting

• Owner // Who is the person responsible for the next step coming out of the meeting?
• Outcome // What was the decision that was made by the team?
• Due Date // When does the owner need to make sure the item is completed by?

As important as the agenda is the pre-reading material, someone from the meeting needs to follow up quickly with “action steps” that are going to be initiated because of the meeting. Ideally, those are recorded in the meeting and sent right away. Again, the meeting should be a tool to push the church forward, so now that decision has been made, the organization should move to take action on that decision!

Meetings should be an exciting event, not a total bore.

All meetings should be optional and exciting. If you are just getting together for the sake of getting together, stop it. Don’t force your people to sit through another meeting just for the sake of meeting. Cut your “repeating” meetings out or at least in half. As a team leader, you need to ensure that each meeting is exciting and engaging, not boring. If the meeting is putting people to sleep, then the team leader isn’t doing their job.

6 Ways to Make Your Church Team Meetings More Exciting

• Make Them Optional … really! // If people can choose not to come to the meeting and won’t suffer any retribution from the team leader, you’d be amazed how creative the team leader will get to make the meeting great.
• Add Food // Something almost magical happens when you add food to a meeting. Have a favorite exotic food? Add it to the start of your next regular meeting and see what happens. (Skip the donuts … it’s been overdone.)
• Standing Meeting // Okay … this might not be fun, but it is just effective. Take all the chairs out of the room that you meet in and have the meeting standing up. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you move through the agenda!
• Thank You Notes // Kick off your meeting with some gratitude! Hand out thank you cards to everyone on your team and have them share something that someone else on another team at the church did that was fantastic. After people share, have them write thank you notes to the people that they shared about!
• Get Rid of the Table // The physical space you meet in matters. Get rid of that big table that blocks everyone. Paint the walls a bright color. Making a physical change can switch people’s attitudes about your meetings. What if you themed the room something fun? Hawaiian Luau Theme? Christmas in July?
• Stick It Up! // In preparation for the meeting, put 3-4 pieces of poster board around the room with short sentences describing issues your church is facing. As people arrive for the meeting, give them a pile of post-it notes and a marker and ask them to jot down solutions for each issue and stick it up on the boards around the room. Take some time to discuss the ideas generated.

It is important to connect with your team relationally, but don’t do that poorly through something masquerading a meeting. Cut out some meetings and then use that freed up time to go do something fun with your team and actually connect!

Interest in learning more about meetings? Listen to Al.

If you are interested in diving deeper in great meeting culture, you need to follow Al Pittampalli and Modern Meeting Standard. He is a leader in thinking about how organizations do meetings well and is leading a revolution to get all kinds of organizations to improve them! Much of my thought has been shaped by Al on this front and I find myself coming back to him time and again when I’m faced with needing to retool our meeting culture one more time! I’m grateful for his leadership.

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Time is Short

“Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom.” – Psalm 90:12 (NLT)

One of the most striking similarities of church leaders who are leading thriving ministries is that they realize the fact that they have a limited amount of time to do what God has called them to do; in fact, they take this point very seriously. There is an urgency in their actions that ripples through everything they do. This drive is more intense than just an “entrepreneurial drive”; it is deeply rooted in a sense of the frailty of the human condition and their own limitations as leaders.

5 Signs That a Church Leader Knows Time is Short

• Maximize Their Effort // They are constantly asking if they are leveraging their time and energy with greatest efficiency to reach people with the message of Jesus. They know that time that is lost doesn’t come back; hence, they are working passionately to maximize the time they do have.
• Looking for Return on Kingdom Investment // These leaders invest the resources they’ve been given to steward in a manner that helps them get optimal returns in changed lives. They don’t spend resources (time, finances, people) in a haphazard manner, but are constantly focusing and refocusing on making new efforts.
• Multiplication Focused // These leaders are constantly seeking ways to multiply their efforts through leadership development and expansion of ministries. They are keenly aware that their ministry might be stymied with a bottleneck going forward and are therefore, looking to multiply their influence through lifting others up.
• Next Generation Obsessed // A sure sign that leaders are keenly aware of the brevity of life is that they are focused on passing the ministry onto the next generation. They know that because their own time is limited, they need to consistently invest into those that are coming behind them.
• Open to Innovation // These leaders are constantly seeking better ways to “do” ministry. They find themselves attempting new approaches despite the underlying risks. They’re proactively involved in innovative approaches not for innovation sake, but for a deeper desire to reach more people for Jesus.

Come & See plus Go & Serve plus Stick & Stay

Leading churches are a curious mix of attracting people to their services while simultaneously sending people into the community to make a tangible difference, all while working hard to get people deeply plugged into community within the church. This tension of being both a deep and wide church is common among churches which are making a difference today. Church leaders from growing churches see themselves trying to balance out these tensions in perfect harmony. Here are some common elements of these aspects of ministry that we come across in many churches today:

Common Come & See Elements

• Invites to weekend series. // Churches will often develop compelling tools (physical & digital) that their people can use to invite their friends and family.
• “Big day” strategy. // Prevailing churches will take advantage of 3-4 Sundays every year as a key invite tool for their community. [ref]
• Teaching that connects with real life. // While remaining true to what the Bible says, these churches ensure that the teaching focuses on application on real life challenges facing their community.

Common Go & Serve Elements

• Mass community outreach events // A few times in a year, the church will work towards motivating a high percentage of it’s community to get out of their seats and go into the streets to make a difference. [ref]
• Community Partnerships. // These churches often partner with community service agencies who are looking to make a difference. The church provides volunteers and funding to these third-party organizations.  
• Talking about the poor. // The New Testament makes it clear that the church is supposed to serve the “least among us.”  These churches don’t shy away from calling people to live out this reality today.

Common Stick & Stay Elements

• Regular volunteering onramp. // On a consistent basis, successful churches are taking obvious next steps to getting plugged into a service opportunity within the church. [ref] Some even do it every week!
• Circles are greater than rows. // There is a healthy focus on the importance of “small groups” as the primary engine for care and growth of people in the church; this includes a robust strategy centered on getting people connected to groups.
• Everybody is included! // These churches stress that the church is for everyone and are doing everything they can to remove the barriers towards service and community.

Everything is an Experiment

“Let’s try it and see what happens.” Church leaders in growing churches see much of what they do as a learning process rather than opting for a settled “best practice”. They are constantly making small course corrections on much of what their church does. They firmly hold the message of the church but are flexible enough to leave an open hand on how the church accomplishes its mission. They are more like scientists testing out new theories all the time than a baker executing the perfect recipe.

5 Areas to Experiment at Your Church (and not lose your job!)

We all would like to try out some new things at our church. Yet, we’re looking for “safe places” to take some risks before rolling them out for the rest of the church.

• Kids Ministry // I’ve said it before … I’ll say it again … the best ideas consistently come from kids and student ministry. These leaders are always turning out amazing new ideas.
• Off Service Time // Do you run a Saturday evening service? That would be a great place to try something new before moving into the “biggest service” on Sunday mornings.
• Declared Experiment // You’d be amazed how much leeway people will give you when you simply declare that you are trying something new and that you’re not committed to it long term.
• Summer Time // Most churches experience a small, temporary slump in momentum during the summer. This can be a nice time to fine-tune aspects of your ministry before the fall ramp up.
• Today Not Tomorrow // Seriously, what’s holding you back from trying something new today? Take some action on something you’ve been wondering about today, and see what happens!

Leadership Development Doesn’t Just Happen

“You have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others.” – 2 Timothy 2:2 (NLT)

Prevailing churches are constantly raising new leaders at all organizational levels. They are constantly seeking ways to pass along leadership training through intentional mentoring, equipping and training. They don’t see it as a “nice to have” part of what the church does but as core to what the church is. In fact, when you look at where church leaders from growing churches spend their time, it’s on leadership development tasks. Take a closer look at 2 Timothy 2:2 above and try to pick out how many “generations” of people the message was passed onto? From the beginning of the church, creating new leaders has been a core function!

4 Ways to Integrate Leadership Development into Every Weekend at Your Church

• Huddles // Before your ministry teams head into whatever they are doing, ensure that they slow down and meet first. Use these times to pass on the vision of the church, build community within the team and train future leaders.
• Evaluation Times // Every time your church does something, remember that it’s a chance to build leaders through evaluation. Take your time to slow down and talk through what worked and what didn’t. Fostering a culture of open communication that encourages people to think critically about what is happening at the church is the first step towards empowering leadership.
• “What to Expect” Documents // Oftentimes, church leaders can get intimidated by the need for clear documentation to pass on what is happening at the church to new leaders. This doesn’t need to be the case! Simple documentation that answers the question “what can I expect when serving in this area” can be the starting point towards passing systems onto other people.
• Find a book, get a group, talk about it. // Dan Reiland from 12 Stone Church in Georgia demystifies leadership development when he breaks it down to simply picking a good book and then gathering a group of emerging leaders to talk about the book. We all can find time to do that, can’t we?

Private Disciplines Before Public Performance

When you get around leaders from growing churches, you’ll notice that they have a deep sense of faith at the core of what they do. In fact, leaders of prevailing ministries know that their own faith, growth and development need to come before they even attempt to lead publicly. They invest time, effort and energy into ensuring that their faith is unshakable, vibrant and growing. The old adage that you can’t take someone somewhere that you haven’t been has never been truer about leadership in the church today. These individuals are looking for ways to consistently apply the teaching of Jesus more deeply to their lives.

5 Quotes to Encourage You in Your Personal Development as a Church Leader

• “Remember who you are. Don’t compromise for anyone, for any reason. You are a child of the Almighty God. Live that truth.” –Lysa Terkeurst
• “Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.” –Francis Chan
• “He who lays up treasures on earth spends his life backing away from his treasures. To him, death is loss. He who lays up treasures in heaven looks forward to eternity; he’s moving daily toward his treasures. To him, death is gain.” –Randy Alcorn
• “The Christian life is not a constant high. I have my moments of deep discouragement. I have to go to God in prayer with tears in my eyes, and say, ‘O God, forgive me,’ or ‘Help me.’” –Billy Graham
• “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him” –John Piper

Shift from Great Services to Great Systems

As a church starts to grow, the leadership needs to shift its attention from “doing the weekend right” to building and perfecting systems in order to accomplish that outcome. In a very real way, these leaders make the transition from trying to build ideal Sunday services to building amazing organizations that will host services for years to come. This transition can be hard for leaders because they get into ministry to minister to people directly and hence, can find the skills of organization building to be a stretch. This shift is at the very core of what allows a church to scale up and go. If the leadership can’t make this transition, the church will ultimately plateau and spiral into decline.

If you look at the marketplace, you can see all kinds of examples of people who were “obsessed” with building great products or services. However, over time, they shifted to building great organizations with a lasting legacy. Arguably, the story of Steve Jobs is one wherein his first iteration of leading Apple was all about building the perfect computer. But his second stint as the CEO was all about building an amazing organization. Ultimately, that organization went on to scale new heights than he was able to achieve in his own lifetime. We’re seeing the same thing happening with Amazon as well. Earlier on, Jeff Bezos was all about being customer driven, but he has most definitely shifted to building a world-class customer-driven company. The task of leading an organization that attempts to scale and grow is about gearing up for the task of building an amazing organization rather than myopically focusing on the actual deliverables we’re delivering. How are you working “on” the church rather than just “in” it?

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Are you tired of church leadership books that are long on theory but short on practical help? Have you wanted to reach more people in your community but you weren’t sure where to start?

Are you worried that your church isn’t reaching its full potential?

Today, I’m releasing a new book called “Church Growth Flywheel: 5 Practical Systems To Drive Growth at Your Church” and it’s full of practical insights to help your church reach more people starting today!

The “big idea” of this book is that prevailing churches have five “systems” that they leverage to see their church’s growth. Each of these systems help the church encourage their people to invite friends and ultimately grow. Your church grows because people at your church tell their friends about the church. However, we know from studies that only 2% of people who attend church have invited a friend to join them in the last year. [ref] Core to the “Church Growth Flywheel” are a series of strategies to encourage your people to start talking about your church.

Below is a broad overview of the 5 systems that we talk about in the book. For each system we deep dive and provide:

• Background information to understand why this is an effective church growth strategy to put into action right away.
• Step by step “getting started” instructions that you and your leadership team can start adding to your church right away.
• Real life examples from multiple growing churches who are leveraging this as a part of their growth strategy.
• Each system discussion ends with “rapid action steps” designed to move you from simply thinking about the topic to making an effort to apply these lessons to your church.

Big Days are a Big Deal

Don’t worry; I’m not going to ask you to have live camels at your Christmas Eve services or to have a robotic Jesus that goes up into the ceiling of your church at Easter. I am going to push you to think about how you can make those services, and a few others during the year, the kind of service which your people would want to invite their friends to witness, and moreover, which their friends will actually attend.

In this section, we’re going to talk about the three or four Sundays which happen at your church every year, and which are critical for the long-term growth of your community. You know those Sundays: the mornings when your people are more inclined towards inviting their friends to come to a service (and their friends are more than willing to attend). We need to ensure that we’re crafting experiences on those big days that are set up to encourage invitation, especially to those who may have never attended the church before. You’ll learn about how early on in my career, I held convictions and led in a way that, in hindsight, actually hindered our ability to reach out to the people with the message of Jesus. We’re also going to talk about how churches get visitors from these Big Days to return for all the other days, because you might be able to drive in a big audience on Christmas and Easter, but how can you drive them back on non-holidays as well?

Leveraging Series Roll-Out Rhythms

Your church should be packaging up the way it talks about scripture into series. These stretches of four to eight weeks are the ways to focus your audience and your community on what it is that you’re talking about the teachings of Jesus and the Bible. We all know that people don’t just want to know what’s on the TV; they want to know what else is on TV. This has only become a stronger reality as we now live in a universe influenced by Netflix. How are our churches leveraging the way we talk about our content to help people wrestle through not only what we’re talking about now, but also to make them realize what we need to be talking about in the future?

Social Media & Content

How can you produce engaging content that can help your community, and how can you leverage social media channels to spread that content?

I don’t think your church needs a specific social media strategy for a particular social network. I am aware this might seem controversial in an age where Facebook is so incredibly dominant in most of our lives. However, what I do believe your church needs are a content marketing and social media strategy. We’re going to give you action plans for how you can leverage both content and social media channels to drive interest and engagement at your church that ultimately translates not just into more likes, comments, and shares, but into driving more people showing up to your services and eventually, drives people to engage in your community.

Community Engagement

People want to make a difference in the world. We think it’s a God thing, the world thinks it’s a good thing. Let’s stop fighting them over it, and just work together. I have seen that community engagement is a vitally important tool for church growth as we go into the future and look to reach people that currently aren’t in our churches.

Over the last 15 years, we’ve seen an increasing trend that shows people are more likely to join the church to make a positive social difference in their community before they come to our Sunday morning services. Rather than pushing back on this trend and saying that your church isn’t involved in social justice issues, I want you to consider how you can encourage your community to work together for improvement and ultimately see that as a front door for people connecting with your broader church community, including the Sunday morning attendance.

Internal Communication

Finally, we’ll talk about how you can get your people who are currently in your church the right message at the right time so that they’re able to tell their friends everything that’s happening at your church and arouse their interests to ultimately get them plugged in. We know that not everyone in your church is inviting their friends to come visit every Sunday, and so in this section, we’re going to show you how to identify those audiences who are currently attending on a regular basis and are connected to your church family, because they’re the ones most likely to extend invitations and essentially drive the growth of your church. We’ll even discuss ways to engage people on the fringe of your community in a way that encourages them to draw people into your church.

What other leaders are saying about Church Growth Flywheel:

I’m humbled by the early feedback that is pouring in for the book. Particularly, I’m honored that so many leaders from some of the fastest growing churches in the country have been so supportive of the book and it’s message. Here are just a select few comments, you can see more quotes when you “look inside” the book on Amazon.

“Rich is right again. Momentum is hard to catch, easy to lose, and most important. If Flywheel has any importance, it has loads of importance. Don’t miss this book!”

– Clay Scroggins, Lead Pastor, North Point Community Church

“Rich Birch has knocked it out of the park with Church Growth Flywheel. His new book is full of practical helps for church leaders looking to reach more people in their communities. Rich cuts through the theory and offers solid advice and guidance that you can put into action right away.”

– Dan Reiland, Executive Pastor, 12Stone Church, Lawrenceville, Georgia

“Rich Birch has been reading my mind! After reading the first 15 pages, I made this book mandatory reading for my entire staff.”

– Hal Seed, Chief Mentor at PastorMentor.com and Founding Pastor of New Song Community Church

“What an incredible book! Rich has a unique way of sharing real and relevant practices from his experience and conversations that will no doubt be a game changer for you and your church community. Church Growth Flywheel is a gift to church leaders filled with practical yet challenging steps to help initiate growth and change within your community. And what church leader doesn’t want to see more lives changed by Christ!”

– Sonja Waltman, Executive Director of Ministries at LCBC Church

“In Church Growth Flywheel, Rich helps us as leaders think through the way we lead our churches, understand the dynamics of how our churches are perceived in today’s world and for us all to become futurists in painting a landscape for that allows us to have Kingdom impact for the gospel message. Thanks for making us think about how we impact the world Rich…well done!”

– Dennis Richards, Executive Pastor of Operations & Expansion at Preston Trail Community Church

“Rich brings a wealth of passion, knowledge and experience to the subject of church growth. He presents a treasure trove of best practices and learnings around engaging people in your city with the message of Christ. Church Growth Flywheel is full practical steps that you can actually start doing and growing in your church, today. I’m so grateful for Rich’s voice on this subject and I think you will be too.”

– Carey Nieuwhof, Founding & Teaching Pastor, Connexus Church

“I’ve followed Rich Birch for many years as he has had a front row seat to some of the fastest-growing churches in North America. That’s why I got excited when I heard he was releasing a book with some of what he has learned. You will be energized, informed, inspired, and equipped after reading Church Growth Flywheel.”

– Tim Stevens, Vice President of Consulting, Vanderbloemen Search Group

“Insanely practical… super simple… and absolutely essential!  Rich Birch has captured the disciplines and behaviors that will allow your church to experience growth that enables you to thrive. Buy one for every member of your team and read it together!”

– Jenni Catron, Founder/CEO The 4Sight Group and author of The 4 Dimensions of Extraordinary Leadership

“In this book, Church Growth Flywheel, Rich has distilled years of experience and study to help church leaders succeed. This book is full of practical insights and shortcuts for leaders like you. Worth picking up!”

– Brad Lomenick, Founder, BLINC; Author, H3 Leadership & The Catalyst Leader

“Most pastors I meet are frustrated since they are trying tons of tactics for growth, but not seeing any results. It isn’t good enough to just go out and just do 100 things. Rich’s system is what they are lacking. For sustained growth, you need an end to end process that’s strategic and easy to follow. This book gives you the entire blueprint in one shot.”

– Kenny Jahng, Founder, Church Butler Social Media

“What makes Church Growth Flywheel a must read is that is a book with practical applications.  Rich is not just a theorist of church growth, multiplication and reaching people for the gospel…he is a Practitioner. He has lived it. He has led it. He has gotten his hands dirty DOING IT!  As Rich says…”We need your church to grow. We need your church to make a difference.” We are counting on you!”

– Tim Cool, Chief Solutions Officer, Cool Solutions Group

“Rich gives us strategic rocket fuel for growth in our ministries. This book goes way beyond theory and gets practical about what you can do this year to impact your community.”

– Frank Bealer, CEO, Phase Family Center / Executive Director of Leadership Development at Orange

Pick up a copy (or two!) today.

I’d be honored if you pick up a copy or two of “Church Growth Flywheel: 5 Practical Systems to Drive Growth at Your Church”. I wrote this book because I want to help your church impact more people in your community than before. This book is designed to help you take action and reach more people.

If you do pick up a copy of the book I’m wondering if you’d be willing to do two things:

• Leave an honest review on Amazon. Telling others about what you think about the book helps spread it to other people.
• Pass along a copy to a friend. Pick up another copy and pass it along to a church leadership friend that you think it might encourage!

Today Shawn is sharing with us about his experience with burnout, and how that helped shape the way he sets priorities in his life – especially important when one leads a fast-growing church with constant demands.

• Seek your priorities. // Burnout is a real issue pastors need to be ready to face in today’s world, regardless of the church size. But when you add fast growth to the already demanding needs of a ministry, it can shut you down if you’re not orienting your life around the right things. As Shawn shares, it’s natural to get tired. For a while Shawn was seen as “the fixer” before he began to pastor Life Church in Green Bay. He was a young guy and sent places around the country to “fix” ministries. Shawn also had a rigorous speaking schedule and traveled continuously for about five years. Meanwhile, his wife was a youth pastor, and so they often found themselves in different places. Those early years were tough – being on the road meant Shawn barely got to know his kids when they were infants; he was away from home for their milestones, and eventually things imploded. All the accumulated pressure and stress led to a huge burnout in which Shawn’s credentials were taken away. He spent a year at home, taking a break from ministry, but that time was crucial for helping him reevaluate his life. Shawn shares, “What I learned in that year off was how to love my wife, how to love my kids and I learned how to love Jesus. I tried to leave ministry, but ministry wouldn’t leave me, so when I got the opportunity to get back in, I determined this time I’m just going to have priorities.” He spent six months praying and seeking God’s voice on what should be his top 5 priorities.
• Jesus is number one. // Shawn’s hitting rock bottom and taking a break from ministry provided the time Shawn needed to really cultivate a deep relationship with God. At this point, Shawn can honestly say Jesus is his top priority. We’re all supposed to say that, but ask yourself honestly, is He really your top priority? This doesn’t mean making church your top priority, but making Jesus Himself your top priority. Truly seeking His face and listening for what God was saying to him helped Shawn put Jesus as his top priority above everything else.
• Prioritize yourself above others. // As Christians, we think it may sound selfish and shocking to say it, but Shawn has learned that if he doesn’t prioritize himself, then everything else in his life will suffer. You might think you sound self-centered if you say this, but if you get into the mix of life and aren’t taking care of your body, mind, and spirit, there will be consequences. We have to pay attention to our health in all these areas and what we are feeding our bodies, minds and spirits.
• Love your spouse above your kids. // We are blessed with our kids, but we choose our spouse. One of the problems in our society is that we can often ignore the person we chose in order to give our full attention to our kids. Shawn teaches that there should be no one else on earth that you choose over your family, but that when it comes to your spouse and your kids, your spouse is your priority over your kids. This both keeps your marriage strong, and adds a measure of security and confidence to your children when they see how you and your spouse prioritize and love each other.
• Say no. // For Shawn, his top five priorities are all relationships with either God or his family. When you realize that church is not one of those five priorities, you can say no without apology to things that are not vital or an emergency. You don’t have to attend everyone’s graduation or birthday party. Saying no guards our lives and helps prevent burnout for pastors and church staff. As Shawn says, “From a burnout perspective, sometimes as leaders we’re spinning our wheels trying to keep everybody happy while making the people who make us happy miserable.” As ministry leaders, you are not here to impress others; you are here to serve Jesus.

You can find Life Church Green Bay online at lifechurchgreenbay.com or church leaders can email Shawn.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! 

Lightning Round

Helpful Tech Tools // Blinkist app

Ministries Following // Saddleback Church and David Chrzan

Influential Book // Love Does by Bob Goff and Love Lives Here by Maria Goff

Inspiring Leader // Bono

What you do for fun // Travel

Contact // http://lifechurchgreenbay.com/ or email Shawn

Frank was at Elevation Church the last time we spoke with him, but he is now the executive director of Leadership Development at The reThink Group (also known as Orange) and the CEO of Phase Family Centers. He helps make decisions that move the overall organization forward as well as oversees the resources, books, podcasts, initiatives, and coaching that help give church staff the tools and training they need in order to better lead.

Frank joins us today to talk about his book The Myth of Balance and how church leaders can find ways to handle their busy work, life and ministry schedules.

• The role of ministry is relentless. // You are not alone in your never ending list of events and tasks. Most church leaders across the country have the same tensions and concerns. It doesn’t matter if it’s a church of 100 or 5,000, ministry leaders are always in a “busy season” and the work is never finished. Because we want to help people find Jesus and take their next steps with God, it’s hard to cut something out of our schedules because it’s all good work. Frank shares that in addition to ministry work, which at times can feel relentless, he has four kids and they have their own schedules and activities that can feel like a full-time job. The reality is that the tiredness you or your staff might feel isn’t due to a lack of passion, it’s just exhausting balancing it all.
• The routine and the sporadic. // There is the routine of ministry, the regular schedule, where organization and productivity tips can help. Frank believes that the routine—which can be managed—is not the problem, even if it is more than we ask for. Rather it’s the sporadic part of the schedule which is the exhausting part. The sporadic is the parts that we know will happen, but we don’t know when. These are things such as weddings, visits to the hospital, pleas by the people for the leader’s help. We know they will come up at some point, but we don’t build a plan for them. Ultimately Frank’s book is about learning to make a plan for the sporadic things which can feel disruptive, rather than treating them like surprises. Frank uses the When This, Then That leadership formula to do this, and shares how you can use it too.
• Schedule both the sporadic and the routine. // When the sporadic events come up, it forces you to move the things you had planned to another time. This could end up being on a Friday night when you were supposed to be relaxing with family. When Frank was gone for a trip, or something unexpected came up in his schedule, his first instinct when he returned was to focus on work and what needed to be done and caught up. But now he puts everything on his calendar, including time with his family. By putting everything on his calendar, it forces Frank to move these blocks of time around when something unexpected comes up, and make sure he isn’t neglecting time with family.

You can learn more about Frank’s book The Myth of Balance at www.mythofbalance.com where you can find free resources and worksheets. You can also find Frank’s Discovering Leadership Podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! 

Lightning Round

Helpful Tech Tools // Evernote, Asana

Ministries Following // Compassion International

Influential Book // Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done by Jon Acuff

Inspiring Leader // Eugene Peterson

What does he do for fun // Mountain Biking

Contact // frankbealer.com or fbealer on social media