Author: Adam McLane

  • 2 Lies of Church Employment

    two-lies-of-church-employment

    Each week I encounter a new story of a church worker that angers me. These are stories from youth workers who have been wronged by the people they trusted with their lives… their church employer. Churches who fire them because they didn’t reach the right kids. Churches who fire a staff member because their spouse got pregnant. Churches who fire because a senior leader wants to hire a younger youth worker.

    If not for a deep love of God and His bride I don’t think these people could go on. Know right now that I have a deep love for the church. This is not an attack. This post acknowledges that there are churches who are good employers and bad employers. (There’s my first disclaimer)

    It sickens me that things routinely happen in the church, a place that represents Christ the king of Justice, that would be illegal in a business. It sickens me that I routinely encounter people who are wronged, been discriminated against, treated unfairly, not paid according to their contracts… and all of these people have a deep love for the church that just takes it.

    I want to share with you two lies of church employment. These are lies that are so commonly believe that it will shock you when I address them.

    1. The church is exempt from all employment laws. I’ve heard this lie so many times that I was SHOCKED to discover it is not true. A church is an employer in the United States. All employment is governed by the Department of Labor. There are very few places where the church is allowed to be exempt, your church better talk to a lawyer. But, in total, the church is not exempt from the basic provisions the government outlines. The biggest violations I see over and over involve the minimum wage laws. Unless you are a “professional” (e.g. ordained and/or certified somehow as a professional by an organization) your work is covered by the minimum wage law. So a church cannot tell you, “we’ll pay you the first 30 hours per week, but you are required to work 10 more as ministry hours.” If it is required, and you are hourly, they must pay you for that work time as well as overtime. Nor can a church have unpaid interns. Churches do this so often that you think its OK, it’s not. You can have all the volunteers you want. But if you call someone an intern and they have set work hours, you have to pay them. (Cash payment can be offset by living expenses, but its taxable income too!) This stuff goes on and on. The church, outside of “professionals” is not exempt from discrimination laws. (Age, sex, religious background, ethnicity, you know the routine) Nor can a church make your spouse and/or childrens attendance required as a term of your employment. Nor can they fire you because you are too old. Nor can they pass you over because of your gender or ethnicity. In short, the church is not exempt from federal employment laws in all areas! There is an assumption that the church can do whatever they want… they can’t.

    2. You can’t take legal action against a church when you are wronged. This is a cultural stigma, isn’t it?  In the last 5 years I’ve repeatedly encouraged those wronged [I term this “left for dead”] to hire an attorney and pursue legal action. I don’t know of a single case where a person did that. Why? The stigma of suing a church is so strong. People always toss out a Bible verse and say, “it’s wrong to sue Christians.” I would agree with you if that’s what the Bible actually said! If you think its wrong to ever sue a church or an individual, please go read 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 right now. Paul is not saying you can’t ever sue. He’s saying people within the church shouldn’t sue one another over trivial things.

    A family bankrupted and left for dead by their employer is hardly trivial! What about the pastor fired because the board wants someone younger? Not trivial. What about the salaried staff member who has wages garnished because he left 30 minutes early on a Sunday after putting in 60+ hours the rest of the week? Not trivial. What about the church worker who has a church completely violate his privacy and discloses medical information to the congregation? Not trivial! What about the church worker who has his contract changed whimsically by the board… he’s the youth pastor one day, the childrens pastor the next, and maybe not employed the third day. Trivial? These things are happening RIGHT NOW, like this week. Shouldn’t those people do something about it?

    Simply by working at a church these people have not given up their rights to be treated fairly. Our legal system provides avenues of correction for both employee and employer. We all know 99% of these cases would never make it to a trial, but church workers need to feel the freedom to protect themselves. And churches need to know that they can’t mistreat workers.

    When I hear these stories I know that most churches do what they do to their staff because they feel like they are exempt from employment laws and that no one will ever sue them. The sad reality is that nothing will change until we educate ourselves about our rights and make it known that church staff will take legal action against villanous churches who wrong workers.

    I smell a guest post from an employment lawyer coming. If you want exact information about a situation, please consult an attorney. Just so everyone realizes this… I’m not giving legal advice! (There’s my second disclaimer)

  • 3 Musketeers of Church Staff

    three-musketeersThere’s a lot of smack talk about church staffing these days. Senior pastors rightfully elevate the role of various staff members and do their best to put all staff on the same “level” as themselves in people’s eyes. There are even a few places where church leaders will acknowledge that the childrens ministry professional, youth worker, and music minister are equally valuable. Within the non-denomination world this is emerging as a style of government where the paid staff are the elders.

    All for one and one for all: Brilliant. Biblical. Awesome.

    I agree with the premise. As a person sitting in the pews my family is ministered by all staff pretty much equally. Certainly, there is headship and we acknowledge that one of the staff is “in charge.” But that is really just a role, isn’t it? It’s not that being the leader is necessarily harder or more important. It’s a different role, equally important and dependent to the others. And in many cases each person on staff has an equal level of education while each chose a slightly different career path. So the education argument seems to prove that most staff is equal. Another argument is that the preacher should  get more money than the rest of the staff. Really? As if the stuff taught to the kids and teens isn’t as important as what’s preached? This merely shows the ignorance in the process of how churches work on a week-to-week basis. As someone who has done a lot of roles on church staff I can tell you that there is nothing more or less difficult about preparing a sermon. In fact, its a lot easier than preparing curriculum for 5-6 age levels. So, again, the argument that somehow the person preaching is more valuable to the church organization falls apart. The day-to-day reality is that all of the church staffing roles are equally important.

    Don’t believe me? Watch your senior pastors face when you tell him the chidlrens worker or worship leader are AWOL on a Sunday morning.

    The real question is… when will that be reflected on pay day?

    If church staff are equally valuable to the organization why is there inequality when it comes to taking care of staff? Why does the senior pastor make 2-3 times what the childrens worker makes? Why does that person get perks not available to the rest? Why does that person get more time off? Sabbatical? Conference budget? Book budget? Car allowance? Special tax perks. It may shock you to know that most associate level staff makes less than half what the senior pastor makes… before the perks kick in.

    This gets really strange when staff have kids the same age. The staff all have equally important roles but can’t afford to live in the same neighborhood. One family sends their kids to private school, goes on lavish vacations, and never have to worry about their kids getting new clothes. The rest of the staff live paycheck to paycheck. They watch Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and wonder when someone will turn in their house?

    I’d like to ask you to consider a new way. What if every pastoral team member made the exact same amount of money? (Perks and all.) What if they weren’t just equal in importance, recognized 1-2 times per year, but were recognized in the one way that would keep those associate level people in the game for life?

    Want to attract talent? Pay them. Want to keep staff? Pay them. Want to change a community by having talented people in place for a generation? Pay them.

    All for one and one for all. Brilliant. Biblical. Awesome.

  • Sell Your Church Reach Your Community

    sell-your-church

    Permit this heresy: There is no mention of a church owning a building in the New Testement. I’m not saying it’s unbiblical to own a church building, I just think its worth it is worth thinking about.

    What would church look like with no building? How would programs change? How would staffing change? How would worship services change? How would staff meetings change?

    How would church finances change? How much more mission could you do without building maintanence? Without a mortgage? Without property insurance? How much less stuff would you buy, in general if you had to store it at your house?

    How would your community change? If it changed the zoning of church property to commerical or residential? If that space became a public park? If that building became used as a community center?

    I’m not saying that churches shouldn’t have buildings. I’m just saying that for some congregations the benefit of having property is not outweighed by the negative impact on the congregations mission and finances.

  • Social Media Tip: Be Consistent

    social-media-tip-consistent

    Want to know a secret about social media success?

    If you want to succeed long-term in social media you need to be consistent in how you use social media. For more than 10 years I’ve been active in some form of what we now call “social media.” Chat rooms. Message boards. Listserv. Forums. MySpace. Blogs. Facebook. Twitter. I’ve seen fads come and go. I’ve seen rock stars emerge and fade. I’ve seen high profile people take interest and then lose interest. Social media is a bit of a revolving door. Something gets popular, attracts the masses, people get bored, someone invents something better, the hype begins again.

    But yet there has always been this thread of people that has remained consistent throughout. There’s a lot to learn from these people if you want to be successful.

    Some of us have just chugged away. We’ve never gotten uber popular. We’ll never leverage what we have to make a fool of ourselves like @aplusk did on Twitter. But in the meantime, we’ve utilized these tools to meet people, share ideas, and establish ourselves along the way.

    The best way to succeed is to be consistent like Warren Buffet and not up and down like Donald Trump. Stick with winners. Be consistent. Be disciplined.

    What does consistency look like for social media?

    – Make yourself consistent by using the same handle. (social media name on a web platform)

    – Use the tool the same way, most times. (maintain your blog post consistency, tweet frequency, use Facebook in predictable ways)

    – stick to your genre. (totally OK to expand your horizons. but don’t be so general that no one cares. if you’re a mom blog, don’t post gadget tips for work. if you’re a gadget blogger, no one cares about your kids soccer game.)

    – don’t be a jerk. (unless your online persona is one of jerkiness. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve met people in real life and thought… they were so much cooler on their blog.)

  • Win a Google Wave Invite

    Win a Google Wave Invite

    Tonight the Google gods waved their magic wand and granted my wish by inviting me to the first group of beta testers for Google Wave. (See the video above.) Included in my account was the ability to invite a few people.

    I have to be honest, I don’t see what all of the hype is about. Then again, that’s what I said about Twitter 2 years ago! I unwittingly posted a jab at Kristen that I had invites to give away and all of a sudden I was flooded with requests for an invite! Having no ability to chose, this is my attempt to give away some things while celebrating what I’m all about. Did you see people were selling invites on Ebay? Crazy!

    Two Ways To Win an Invite

    Contest 1: (one invite) Simply leave a comment on this post with a valid Google account email in the email field. Say whatever you want in the comment box. From this group of people I’ll pick one random person to get an invite using Random.org.

    Contest 2: (one invite) Write a blog post or Facebook note about what you are doing to change your community for the better. Tell me how you volunteer at a community center, work with a local church, raise money for a good cause, or spend your weekends hand feeding endangered turtles. Then post the link here on my blog. (Either as a trackback or as a comment.) I will read them all and pick my favorite to get the invite. It’s not as democratic as the first contest but this part reflects who I am and what I’m all about.

    Contest Deadline is Thursday, October 1st at 7:00 PM Pacific Time

    Who is eligible? Anyone who enters. Feel free to share this link. One entry per person. I’ll delete multiple entries and remove you from my Christmas list. You realize that this blog logs IP addresses, right?

    OK, 1-2-3 Go!

    Update:

    Contest #1 Congrats to Bet. She was the random comment chosen for contest #1. Bet, I submitted your invite already. It can take a day or so for Google to actually approve you.

    Contest #2 Congrats to Justin. His post is about picking up some random kids traveling through town and offering them a weekends worth of hospitality. Great story!

  • Why Did Jesus Come to Earth?

    Here’s my notes from the youth group talk tonight. Feel free to use them however you’d like.

    Title: Why Did Jesus Come to Earth?
    Passage: John 1

    [download id=”3″]

  • The Hook-Up for Youth Group

    woot

    I was so distracted by convention last week that I failed to really process/understand/comprehend an e-mail I got about our brand new youth ministry. It’s really cool to see people get on board with what we are trying to do.

    Background: About 6 weeks ago I had lunch with two pastors at Harbor Mid-City. Basically, they felt like the time was now to form something more substantial. Christine Brinn had done an amazing job with some of the young women and created an awesome model for mentorship. We wanted to build on that and reach more students. So we quickly formed a team, had 3-4 meetings, and launched last week with a handful of students. Idea-to-launch in 6 weeks. Stellar.

    What we want to do: Our dream is for this thing to be Good News in a holistic way. You can’t be in this neighborhood and think that a youth ministry can just be about teaching the Bible. So we want to meet practical needs… as many as possible. Stuff like, making sure our students get a good meal experience with us. We want to offer educational tutoring. We want to offer leadership development. We want to offer family services. And we want to provide a more substantial level of mentorship than we currently can handle. And we want to get all of that started yesterday because the need is so great.

    The problem: Practically speaking that’s an awesome dream. But as I’ve said a bunch of times… an unfunded vision is just a dream and when we said what we wanted the vision to look like we were really just dreaming. We had 4 adults. We had no where to meet. We didn’t have tutors or mentors for everyone. Pretty much all of the vision was laid out in faith that somehow, in time, God would provide.

    How God hooked us up! This church moves quick… have you noticed? I got an email from Kathy that outlines two amazing things. First, a church in City Heights has made their building available to us. That’s amazing stuff right there! Not only did we get hooked up on a place to meet– we can use it tonight! Second, Kathy made a pitch to InterVarsity over at San Diego State to students about getting involved by offering educational tutoring to students in the neighborhood. That’s right, you guessed it… our tutoring ministry kicks off NEXT WEEK!

    Building momentum towards the rest: These are two awesome things. A place to meet and a gaggle of people wanting to help teach is awesome. Those two things make the dream a little more of a reality. But there are also new challenges ahead. We still need access to family services. We still need people to help provide the stuff these kids need. We still need more mentors. And, of course, all of that stuff requires money we don’t have.

    But for now, I’m celebrating!

  • NYWC personal highlights

    Right now I am on the Surfliner Amtrack train headed south. As I travel home to San Diego my mind is full of thoughts, reflections, and highlights from this weekend. Here they are in no particular order:

    1. I may have the best job in youth ministry. Sure, I’m not on stage or writing books or in any way famous. But, I am doing work I love. I getthw unique job of meeting lots of people– practitioners of youth ministry, researchers, authors, speakers… And loads of folks who do they day to day work of reaching this generation for Jesus Christ.
    2. I averaged 4.5 hours of sleep. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
    3. The David Crowder Bamd show at The Roxy in Hollywood was incredible. My favorite part was bringing Ben Kraker. Two dudes from te trenches were VIPs for a night and that’s rad.
    4. I sat in on a conversation between Brian Berry and Shane Hipps after Shane’s big room talk. I’m still thinking about it. I want to be more present to the people in my life and less distracted by the technology I love.
    5. I spent a lot of time with Andy Marin. I love Andy and his ministry. He has grown so much in the last 12 months. Not that he wasn’t great last Fall. But he was better this year.
    6. Meeting Francis Chan was great. I can’t wait to air his podcast segment.
    7. Changes to convention were fantastic. I was a little bit nervous aboutthe changes but it was amazing to see people embrace and get excited about what we are doing and where we are going.
    8. Open space Saturday. This fundamentally changes the game. While there will always be for experts, ministry culture is moving so fast that we need practitioners to equip practitioners. I hope a higher percentage of youthcwprlers stickcarpund for it in future cities.
    9. LA was intense. I had more deep conversations I’m the last 5 days than all of last year combined.
    10. Youth workers are hurting. With culture inside the church changing so rapidly, and the stress of the economy on an already poor group of people… There were a lot of tears this weekend.
    11. Speaking of tears. The session with the Daraja Childrens choir had everyone crying. I think it’s that shared story of making it through pain to hope that caused an electric response to their presence.
    12. I loved Perry Noble’s talk. My guard was up, but Perry was very encouraging to me.
    13. The /live experience was great. I think the adjustments I made to the social media plan for convention went really well.
    14. Tash McGill is a rock star. She is going to tire of me piling her brain one day, for sure.
    15. Speaking of rock stars, Ian straight up carried our lab with his techno-knowledge of all things video.
    16. I still think it’s funny that I got a speakers packet.
    17. This was a difficult convention. I’m thankful for amazing contractors and volunteers that give way too muxhctp YS for convention. With a number of our people getting sick, I noticed they really stepped up and that was amazing.
    18. The postgame show was great. Now to make it better.
    19. For the first time, I sat in the hall for all of the big room sessions. Loved that.
    20. I’m exhausted and energized at the same time. Bring on Cincy!

  • Inward, Outward, and Beyond

    So you’ve noticed I’ve not blogged much this weekend. As you know, I’m running social media at NYWC this weekend and have literally not stopped moving. In a couple hours I’m co-leading a lab with Ian Robertson on social media and video. Pray for me during that time. I’m fried– and yet I am so thankful for this opportunity to resource youth workers who want to do media better. Pray that I might fight through my selfish tiredness and give it my all.

    I did want to share something I found incredibly encouraging this morning. Chris Brewster, our churches community development pastor, posted this on his blog and I wanted to share it. Please go to his blog, leave him a comment, and join with us in the mission of reaching kids in City Heights for Jesus Christ.

    Let me be so bold as to ask you to consider supporting this ministry. Our goal is to present Christ as the one who offers a true promise of hope. We want our ministry to be holistic in helping teens, their family situations, their economic situation, their educational situation, and the future of our neighborhood. We’ve got big dreams and no funding. Chris and Kathy are missionaries… they’d love it if you joined their financial team or prayer team.

    Check out this from Chris’s blog:

    Introducing Inward, Outward, and Beyond-yond-yond-yond-yond!!! (echo affect). Or, abbreviated, I.O.B, if we need a name that lends itself to teens pitching their new youth ministry to friends…”Yo you check out dat I.O.B…it tight!” Behind the name, I encourage anyone to read Inward Outward Journey by Elizabeth O’Conner. Primarily, to have your paradigm of spiritual formation radically challenged, but I suppose also, if you want to know where we ripped off this name.

    After an amazing Summer Internship with teens/ young adults this summer, the question pressed into the minds of our ministry team was, “What now with these young people?” Our much beloved Christine Brinn had gone deep into relationship with a group of girls for the last two years (many of whom participated this summer). Upon transitioning out of her two year internship to Fuller Seminary a few weeks ago, nurturing and intentional as she is, with the help of my lovely wife, she set these teens up with mentors.

    But, we all knew, especially after this dynamic summer, that part of being church, is being church together as a larger community. Jesus wants us to catch him INWARD within our own lives and hearts, and within our dynamic webs of relationships. But not to stop their, to find him OUTWARD as this large community encourages, envisions, energizes, and activates us, to discover him once again outside of our corporate life through piggy backing on his work in the world. And to find him BEYOND doing things “we couldn’t ask for or imagine.”

    With the young people God had given us, we knew this meant extending out the experience of our summer into the school year in some sustainable way. Also personally, I knew that it was time to form a community that would allow me to invite students from Hoover, who I know through all my activities there, to find a safe place to explore faith in Jesus. Introducing Inward, Outward, and Beyond!!!!!!

    Before we arrived here though…I surely didn’t want to go back to being the guy who would “make it happen,” as “the youth guy.” That guy is someone I admire, someone I can slip into being, but someone who exhausts every introverted fiber of my body. In fact, I don’t even think that guy or gal really exists, except among those willing to leg press the facade until it topples on them, like it does everyone else who plays that game. I knew that God had to assemble a team with someone to direct it who had more focused passion than myself.

    Enter Kathy Pham! Notice her with the confident youthy peace sign on the right of the picture, with a look on her face like “Peace is so RAD!!! Its what you neeeeed!!! Kathy (tall girl with glasses, black shirt) was amazing as a summer intern this summer. She thought she was merely exploring a call into urban ministry, she ended up falling in love with teens and young adults in our community, and doing such a good job loving them, that our ministry team took notice and then began to petition the Lord to put her in a half nelson and drag her into our community.

    Kathy is now raising support for a position as Director of Youth and Young Adults. Oh yes, I will shamelessly ask some of you not only to give to Anastasia and I, but to give to her as well, because she is the real deal. Kathy is from Westminster, the largest Vietnamese community outside of Vietnam in Orange County (an omen for her joining up with a Presbyterian church? I think so…theology nerds only please.) She has found that City Heights feels like home, with a Vietnamese business every 10 ft., yet she trips out like all of us, at how people are mish-mashed together into this strange diversity casserole called City Heights.

    Kathy has a background in the corporate world, and therefore moves on everything so efficiently and intentionally, she makes me feel SLOOOOW. Somehow, she has figured out how to incarnate herself into cyber-space, and through the strange power of Facebook knows what teens are thinking before they think it themselves. Kidding aside, her entrepreneurial and gregarious nature make her uniquely fitted to direct our new youth ministry. Interestingly, she happens to have run a tutoring center, which we beforehand had said would be a vital aspect of a ministry intent on loving the whole person, rather than just” saving their soul.” Coincidence? I think not.

    Enter Adam Mclane. Adam, the white guy with glasses with the “Oh crap, am I really doing this” smirk, was one of those youth guys I was talking about who had the facade topple on him. He works for Youth Specialties as a resource to other burned out youth guys, and as their computer boy genius inventing an array of online tools to help resource youth pastors. He and his family happened to land in our church awhile ago, but if you mentioned doing ministry of some sort, he would bare his teeth like a wary dog, knowing that the kind hand of a stranger can end up with him back on the ministry leash. Thank God Adam is ready to go! He will play an incredible role in teaching, resourcing, and generally helping us to envision a youth ministry that doesn’t fall into the same tired paradigms that lend themselves to hollow entertainment-based ministry, that fails to offer the costly but full and compelling invitation to follow Jesus in sacrificial ways.

    Enter Erin. My first memory of Erin was of her bailing out of my house in the first days of our church plant, needing some breathing room from the suffocating worship and God-talk that spooked her and challenged her at the same time. Once our token skeptic, she is now living out her new-found faith by taking a risk to with work young people from a world very different from her own. Erin brings authenticity, someone well aware (as we all should be) that she is along the same journey with the young people she will work with. The value of an older person who is not settled and secure in their beliefs, is immense. Young people need to see examples of other seekers being used by God, even though they have not fully “arrived” at rock solid conviction.

    Where am I in the picture? Fittingly, I was on my back in bed, after an awkward and humbling procedure which will make Maddie and Toby the only children I will father again (I think.) Isn’t it beautiful! Our first youth night, and I, literally and symbolically am out of the picture!!! When I was grinding my teeth, timid about moving forward, because I thought that all of this would somehow fall on me, God said, “Yo Chris, I am going to put you on your back with some awkward soreness, just to let you know that ministry is not about any load you carry my friend.” Thanks God, I needed that.

    I invite you to pray for us, as we moved forward….

  • NYWC 2010-2011

    Thoughts?