There are many leadership skills that are important. But there are two skills that overshadow all the rest. If a staff can master these two skills, there is no way a church can keep from reaching more people for Christ. Want to know what they are? Sure you do. So here goes.
Skill Number One: Develop your skill of multiplication. By that I mean getting to the point where every member of the staff, including the lead pastor, understands and implements serious disciple-making to the point that monthly they are multiplying themselves and the Kingdom.
Skill Number Two: Get Out of The Office. It should be obvious that you aren’t going to make new disciples in your office, so why spend time there? Spending too much time in the office is one of the fatal mistakes church leaders make and one of the biggest expectations of older church members.
One of the favorite sayings of many of the most admired companies in the U.S. is “get out of the building.” When I’m working with a church planter I tell them to spend at least 80 percent of their time in the community. In a church of 200 in worship I tell the pastor to spend at least 75 percent of the time in the community. But it doesn’t matter how large a church becomes: everyone on staff, including the lead pastor, needs to be spend as much time as possible in the community. How or where that time is spent is not as important as the actual act of spending the time. Anyone with any amount of perception is going to pick up clues to reaching people by simply being out among them.
A corollary to this skill is “never give staff a comfortable, large office, not even the pastor.” Large, comfortable offices encourage spending time there. Many of the new start up companies like Google and Facebook have small cubicles for an office, barely large enough to turn around. One of my favorite pet peeves is the church that has someone on staff in charge of evangelism and provides them an office, but not car and gas money. Insane.
So here is my question: Is it the expectation of every member of your staff that they should multiply themselves on a regular basis and do most of them spend a good portion of their time out of the office? If not you are probably making a fatal mistake.
As a mission developer in 1973 planting a new congregation I had a sign made for my office which read: THE BEE THAT GETS THE HONEY DOESN’T HANG AROUND THE HIVE. I still have that sign in my “Re-Firement” study!
Love that sign Pastor Paul. So true.
I used to have office hours at a local Starbucks. I eventually made that a place where most of my evangelistic efforts were centered. I wound up ministering to the Starbucks staff, hanging out with them. We had a local picnic where a barista brought his guitar and provided the entertainment and the store manager gaves us a free vat of passion tea. Lots of unchurched Starbucks workers attended the community picnic too.
None of that would’ve happened if I’d stayed in an office in the church building.