I was never taught what to say to someone lying on their deathbed. I never learned anything about hiring and firing church staff. Seminary didn’t teach me anything about managing a church budget.

- Geoffrey Janes in his blog post What You Need to Know…

Go read Geoffrey’s full post.  While you’re at it, subscribe to his RSS feed or make it a point to visit his blog regularly.

Like Geoffrey, there are so many things that I didn’t learn in seminary that I deal with on a regular basis.  Now, that’s not to say that seminary wasn’t worth it or didn’t teach me anything.  And even though my Greek and Hebrew are very rusty right now, it was even worth the time spent learning those languages.  But you see, there are some things that even if my profs had tried to teach me that I still wouldn’t have understood until I’d been in ministry in the real world and experienced it for myself.  Nothing like on-the-job training…

But here’s the real point of Geoffrey’s post:

I want you to know that you have a lead pastor who cares deeply about the people in this church. I want you to know that he is a man called by God to lead this church who wants nothing more than to see people’s lives transformed by the power of Jesus Christ.

I’ve been on staff at Southbrook for four and a half years.  I’ve learned a lot in that time and in three different roles.  I’m thankful to work with Pastor Rob and the rest of the team at Southbrook Church.  When we go through trying times like Geoffrey referred to in his post, I’m even more thankful for the solid leadership of our pastor.  I’m thankful for his vision for Southbrook and his desire to see those far from Jesus come to know Jesus and be transformed into growing disciples.  I’m also thankful for his spiritual sensitivity and care for our church.  Pastor Rob has exciting study in the works for Wednesday nights beginning in January.  If you attend Southbrook, clear your schedule for Wednesday nights.  Make it a priority to be here for this series!

Here’s Scott Wilson and Raising the Leadership Bar:

• “The Church can never grow past it’s leadership.”
• Ephesians 4:11-13
  It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (NIV)
• Pastors and staff in the church should be “equippers” or coaches.
• Unless you’re growing, you can only lead as many people as you’re leading right now.
• The goal: All paid staff should be leaders of leaders.

The Plan | Creating Equippers

• Year 1 |  Model It
  Read 35 books and listen to 102 CDs
• Year 2 | Mentor It
  Read 20 books and listen to 52 CDs
  Take your key leaders through 5 books and 12 CDs
• Year 3 | Multiply It
  Read 20 books and listen to 52 CDs
  Take your leaders through 5 books and 12 CDs
  Have your leaders take their teams through 5 books and 12 CDs

This is an aggressive plan, but it is a plan that would cause a revolution in the church.  I know that my highest strength trait is being a “learner” so I get excited about a plan like this.  That passage in Ephesians has haunted me (in a good, God way) since college.  I blame this in part on Pastor Walt and Pastor Carl from Faith Church in Anderson, IN where I attended and served during college.

These questions came to mind:

• How I could make this easier or more manageable for those who cannot read or process as quickly?
• What kind of systems and resources could be given to the staff to effectively share books and insights with each other?
• How can I rearrange my priorities and responsibilities to free up more time to start a plan like this for myself?
• How can I better utilize my volunteer base?
• Who on my teams could I invite to be a part of a program like this?

We’ve determined that the first step for Southbrook is to create templates for all campuses and ministries to use for publications and advertising.  So, I’ve been working on Word templates for a few of our most basic uses.  So far, I’ve created a very simple letterhead template that is locked down in a way that formatting and layout remains the same, but the end-user can put their text into the document.  There are color and gray-scale versions in a “blank” letterhead layout and a pre-formatted letter on letterhead.  I also completed a new fax cover sheet.  These are not spectacular feats of graphic design.  They are simple, easy to use templates for everyday use.  These templates are designed to free up the end-user.  The ministry assistants and volunteers don’t have to worry about formatting a document to our preferred specs, fonts, sizes, etc.  These people can focus more on the ministry that they need to do and less on the frustrations of following communications guidelines.

Seth Godin at Gel 2006 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

DC09: Kem Meyer Keynote from Fellowship Technologies on Vimeo.

Pastor Rob, I vary much injoyed finaly meeting you face to face this morrning at the men’s meeting. As I told you this morrning, I have been watching the vidio’s your church has put on line. That was how I frist came to know you. Its a great ministory keep it up and thank for your blog.

That’s confirmation from God that we’re making a difference.  We don’t regularly get signs like that, especially in the ministries that I work with, but I thank God for those rares times when we do and the encouragement that gives to take the next step forward when the vision seems crazy and way too big.

On Tuesday afternoon, a staff member alerted me that incoming calls were not making it to the automated attendant system.  I quickly found that voicemail was completely down.  I took the long hike up to the children’s ministry building where our phone system still lives and reset the voicemail card.  All good, right?  Uh, wrong…

On Wednesday morning, I bearly sat down at my desk before having multiple people coming to my desk saying that the phones weren’t working again.  So, I make the hike to the children’s ministry building and reset the voicemail card again.  I hoped it was just a fluke.  I prayed that it was just a fluke.  All good again, right?  Uh, no…

Bad and annoying turned worse late Wednesday morning when the voicemail and automated attendant stopped working again.  I made a call to the vendor and explained the situation.  Hoping for the best, I was squashed with the bad news that it sounded like our voicemail card needed to be replaced.  They jumped right on finding options for replacing the card.  Card was ordered on Thursday and overnighted to arrived today for install this afternoon.  All good, right?  Sadly, no…

One of the components is on back order and the install for today was cancelled.  Last I heard, the part should be shipped today or Monday, with install either Monday or Tuesday after of right now.

In the mean time, in the midst of one ministry assistant on vacation, one ministry assitant suddenly in the hospital, membership classes at both campuses this weekend, the women’s ministry consignment sale at the Weddington campus, many staff working on big projects, everyone thinking towards Easter planning, and more, this happens.  And I forgot to mention that we don’t have a receptionist.  We heavily rely on our automated attendant and volunteers to cover our front desk during the week.

Reality is that sometimes technology and equipment breaks. What systems are in place to make sure that as little as possible falls through the cracks during the down time?  For us that means calling in the volunteer troops to aid us with answering the phones.  It means that anyone who sees or hears the phone ringing needs to jump in to answer it.  It means taking messages for staff not at their desk to take a phone call and passing those messages on by email and Yammer.  We even pulled out the old two-part phone message pad.  Glad we didn’t throw that in the garbage when we moved the offices into the new building last fall!

That afternoon, Pastor Rob had come to me and said that he couldn’t move on to the next section in Hebrews for our “Only God” series.  He felt that he had to continue the section on angels at the end of Hebrews chapter for one more week.  We agreed to let the printed pieces go with the wrong titles.  Not long after, the new reports started pouring in about the “miracle on the Hudson”.  Rob knew that this was the reason he couldn’t move on…

We used our weekly connecting email, Facebook page, and twitter to get the word out that we were looking for passengers from the plane.  Pastor Rob’s assistant, Daryl Wagner, worked tirelessly with him through the weekend sorting through responses and trying to find someone from the plane who could come on Sunday to be interviewed.  In the end, two passengers, Don Norton and Dave Sanderson agreed to speak during our services.  Many media outlets from the Charlotte area covered our services and we made it on the front page of the Charlotte Observer on Monday morning.  It was an incrediable service.  Moving.  Powerful.

Our Monroe Campus is on a week delay from our Weddington Campus, so the interview will be seen there this weekend.  You can also listen to the service; get the podcast at on our website.