Tag: leadership

What to Say When the Youth Pastor Leaves

It’s June. Professional youth ministries most dangerous month. I’ve served in three churches and all the hiring, firing, quitting, and retiring with the youth ministry seems to happen in June. It’s a wicked combination of the end of the school year and for a lot of churches, the end of the budget year. I could offer some theories as to why so many churches hire and fire in June… but that’s not the point of this post.

“What do we say when the youth pastor leaves?”

Church leaders: Tell the truth. If the person quit, just say they quit. You don’t have to spin it. Just tell it like it is.

But if you are firing them, I can’t tell you how many people I have talked to who were fired and then asked to enter into an agreement (never in writing) that for a sum of money they will say that they have decided to quit. Hundreds. If you are man or woman enough to fire a person than be man or woman enough to tell the congregation. You don’t pay severence to someone you are firing to cover up the fact that you are firing them. You pay them severance because they are self-employed and ineligible to claim unemployment benefits. It only makes matters worse when you fire a person and then put on a charade that you are sad to see them go. You throw a party, you say all sorts of glowing things in public when you know full well that you sat in a board room and decided this person needed to be fired. If you lie, your lie will be found out. Your sin will be exposed and the embarrassment you were trying to avoid will come back to haunt you for years. If you made a brave decision as the leadership of the church then it is a sign of your strength as leaders. When you try to wuss out, it shows what kind of leaders you are.

The truth always wins.

Church staff: Tell the truth. If the leaders of your church dismissed a person don’t ever lie about it. It’s perfectly acceptable to say, “The leaders decided to go another direction.” You don’t have to go into the specifics of why the person was fired. But don’t participate in the leaders lie if they are trying to spin the truth. That makes you party to the lie! Your corroborating the leaders story and remember, the truth will come out eventually. And remember, this is exactly how you will be treated if they let you go later.

The truth always wins.

Youth Pastor: Tell the truth. I have been in your shoes. I know what it’s like to have that meeting where the leaders tell you that you aren’t the person they want pastoring their kids anymore. I have felt my world crash around me in that moment. I’ve looked across that table when they told me what to say. They are going to wave a big check in front of your eyes and you are going to think, “How else can I feed my family? How will I pay my rent? How will I have enough money to get the heck out of here?” Just don’t get bought by Satan. Think about it… would Jesus ask you to lie in His name? Not telling the truth is telling a lie! Church leaders who ask you to lie for a little bit of money are doing the work of your sworn enemy. Walk out of that meeting with integrity. Do not cave to their pressure and promise of financial security to further their lie. They will end up offering you the same severance check anyway… because it is the right thing to do and the congregation will demand it. Moreover, your telling a lie to the congregation will only make matters worse. They are trying to get you to take the fall because they know you are leaving the church.

Candidates for youth ministry positions: Find the truth. Your well-being and the well-being of your family and future ministry depend on you discovering the truth! If you are interviewing at a church you need to talk to the former youth worker. During the interview process ask the search committee about the previous person. Then ask for their email address or phone number so you may contact them. This is 2009, you can find them in 10 minutes on the internet. Be a detective and get to the truth as to why that person left. If there is a lie… don’t take the job. This is precisely how you will be treated. If the previous youth worker was fired and the pastor and the elders participated in that lie, confront them! No matter how good they make that job sound, that entire relationship will be based on lies unless they come clean. Confront their sin and then don’t take the job. Show them what a leader looks like.

Some may read this and think, “Boy, Adam McLane has a chip on his shoulder about this.“ You would be correct. I am sick of seeing my friends in ministry asked to lie for a few thousand bucks. I am sick of churches hiding the fact that have fired a person. I am tired of the Bride of Christ doing things that are worse– even illegal— than what happens in the business world. I know that a healthy ministry can only be built on the truth. And it is time to speak up and get some truth out there.

June 15, 2009
Pushing Back to Find Sanity in Christ

Closing in on a year as “just a family in the pews” I have learned a ton about myself, my walk with Jesus, and what it’s like to be on the other end of church life. Having spent my entire adult life on the church leadership end of things I would often say, “I don’t remember what its like to just go to church.” This last year has been an amazing vantage point.

When we first came to Harbor we knew right away that we wanted to be a part of it. We went to a service on Sunday and shared coffee with the pastor and his wife later that week. They told us their story and their vision for Harbor… Kristen and I were sold and let them know right away we were committed to staying on board.

As the months went by we felt like we were getting sucked in and were powerless against it. What I mean by that is that churches have a tendency to get their tentacles on you and slowly wrap their eight arms around you so that you find yourself fully enveloped by its grasp until you wake up drowning in holy activity. One moment you are helping in the nursery and then you wake up to realize that you are serving at the church 7 days per week and 3 times on Sunday.

Since I was new in my job and had just come out of serving at a church, I was determined that Kristen and I would stay out of the vortex. It may sound weird but people in our lives were firmly encouraging us… in order to reconnect with Jesus you need to do less church work and work more on your relationships outside of church. While I felt like it was a counter-intuitive approach to spiritual growth, I trust the people God has put in my life to tell me the truth… to tell me the truth!

And yet we started getting sucked in. A weakness I am working on is that I have no ability to say no to something I have the ability/skills/talent to do. Someone from the church would pitch me an idea and my “no thank you” must have come out like a “yes, no problem.” Next thing I knew I was sucked in. It turned out the people in my life were right… and the breath of fresh air I was enjoying so much was quickly snuffed out and replaced with bitterness, anger, and temporary depression. We were right back where we started. In fact, we were probably worse off then ever.

Flash-forward to January and early February. I was fully freaking out about our involvement with the church on Sunday mornings. In fact, for some reason I was literally freaking out at church. I would be fine right up until we left. Then we’d pile in the car and I could feel my blood pressure getting higher. I’d get to church and be ready to explode. A little dizzy, on edge, and feeling the strong desire to flee. All my mind would be saying is, “Leave me alone. I just want to be left alone.” And the more people were nice to me the more intense the feeling. It was really one of the most bizarre experiences of my life. Mr. “I’ve got it all under control” was completely not in control. I’d tell Kristen, “I think I’m losing my mind.” I was being completely honest. I was really scared that I was actually losing my mind.

Each time someone at church asked Kristen or I to do something it got worse. I kept saying to myself, “The kids hate coming to church, I hate coming to church, and I can tell Kristen is upset that we’re all upset.” While the calm rational side of me knew that we needed to worship on Sunday mornings the irrational, emotionally-charged side of me started to think that the best way to make these symptoms go away was simply to stop going to church altogether.

[Enter wise council from stage left] Perhaps the solution wasn’t either of those choices? “Stay and be miserable or leave and do nothing are both crappy solutions.” That is when it hit me. What I really needed to do was meet with the leadership and push back.

Gracious. That’s all I can say about my meeting with the staff. My experience with church leadership and AS church leadership has always been to tie someone’s involvement with church stuff to their spiritual growth. When people met with me to bail on things I always took it personally. I would always be polite and thank them for their service… but they’d leave and I would be annoyed. To look across a table and say… “I can’t explain the why, but I know that I need to say no-to-all for a while to find freedom and connect with Jesus” was so freeing. And to have those words embraced was incredible. While I’m certain the two men I met with were discouraged by the outcome of that meeting as they drove away… I was amazed at their maturity. They gained 10,000 points with our family simply by agreeing that our family needed to do nothing. (Not less, nothing.)

So here we are three months later. Other than our uber-active community group my family is a regular family who fills the pew on Sunday morning, hosts a few friends on Monday nights… and that is it. I don’t know how long we will practice this new displine of “no-to-all” but I have to tell you that it is working. The more we push back from being super-involved the better things get for our family. More family time, more family growth, less busyness, less tension… these are all good things.

I don’t know how long this needs to last. My feeling is that I need to guard our family like this until the desire to serve comes back. It hasn’t happened yet. And for once in our lives we aren’t in a rush to make something happen. But for now, we are embracing this new period of our lives. We are embracing a lifestyle of a new normality. It’s a renessaince of the soul that I am enjoying. Maybe a little too much?

May 20, 2009
One-Two Punch of Leaders

I’ve been thinking about leadership a lot lately as I reflect on the type of leader that I tend to follow. More to the point, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the type of leader I aspire to be.

Let’s start with what I hate.

I hate the Donald Trump-type of leader.The ego driven type A-aholics that thrive on their own power. As Trump himself has proven time and again, it is a losing style of leadership. Trump’s leadership style is bankrupt across many layers.

I hate the Mr. Rogers-type of leader. These leaders are so afraid of expressing their will on an organization that their team feels unlead. These leaders make you feel good but often lead failing organizations. This leadership style makes you feel good but fails to produce results.

Rather than go any further into this metaphor, I’ll get to the point. The type of leader I love and aspire to be is actually a combination of both. When I look at the landscape of “what’s wrong with leadership” I often see one type of leader or the other leading an organization. But I think it’d be more healthy if organizations intentionally had a little of both. You need a strong leader to get things done and cast vision. But you also need people who are insanely compassionate. And since it is nearly impossible to be both Donald Trump and Mr. Rogers… I think the best style of leadership is to have both.

It’s way better to have the tension of plural leadership than it is to fail.

Observation #1: Women seem to be better at this than men. I’m not one of those Christian men who buys into the lie that men are better leaders than women. I’ve got too much experience with excellent female leaders to believe that for a second. I’m astonished that churches openly discriminate against women who are strong leaders… but that’s another post for another day. I am not saying that men can’t do this, I’m just observing that when it comes to sharing leadership for the strength of the team… my experience has shown me that women do it easier than men.

Observation #2: The best leaders have an equal and opposite sidekick. I jokingly refer to this as “Good cop, bad cop.” I’ve played both roles in leadership… but it’s way more fun to be good cop. When this works well it gets an insane amount of stuff done. It’s an efficiency machine!

Observation #3: Everyone is happier with a one-two punch of leaders. Ultimately, there is the boss. But having a one-two punch of leaders allows people of various personality types to have someone to gel with.

Application: I’m still working through this. Let me know your thoughts.

February 17, 2009
Two Kinds of Medium Sized Church People

Here are some more thoughts on the medium-sized church crisis. My post the other day attracted a fair amount of comments and attention… and I was pretty frustrated that people jump to the issue of money.

I only think that the money problems of current are bringing the Medium-sized church crisis to the forefront. At the end of the day I’m meeting two types of churchoers. Once you cut past the nice fluff they say about their churches and preacher they are really either small church people or megachurch people.

What does this mean for medium-sized church? My experience in medium-sized churches is that there is a tension between these two types of people. One is resistant of anything “small church” so stuff that is appealing to the small church is annoying to them and visa versa. Eventually, misguided and unaccepted tension results in hurt feelings, bitterness, disappointment, and a range of other typical medium-church angst.

And that angst is why I’m saying the medium church is in crisis… Eventually, church leaders must chose to lead their church one direction or the other: Lead towards smaller environments or toward becoming a megachurch. The cultural division is causing this squeeze. The financial crisis merely accelerates the trend.

A Personal Example

In Romeo, we mislabeled these cultural issues as a “personal preference issue” instead of a cultural issue. Big mistake! Our small church folks didn’t mind if the worship team wasn’t professional sounding or if the church basement was a bit too homey for potlucks. Small church people find those things endearing… maybe even spiritual.

Meanwhile, the megachurch people wanted everything to be like the megachurch they used to go to and they wanted the church to become. Everything was compared to the megachurch down the road or the stuff they saw on TV or enjoyed at a conference or read about online. To the megachurch people, the failure of the small church people to realize all that Romeo could become was an abomination… a spiritual failure at worse and a lack of vision at best.

See… this isn’t about money at all. Maybe I’ll be called a heretic for this? But, I will tell you what 10 years of church ministry has taught me about giving. Giving has 0% to do with what people are taught from the Bible and 100% to do with whether or not they feel that their money will further a cause they believe in. People are just sophisticated like that. They see right through the pleas for cash to your motivation. When motivations converge they give. When they disagree they give somewhere else. Christians are extremely generous… but they won’t give to a church simply because they go there.

Next, let’s talk about money. I’ve only hinted at it, lets hit it straight away next time.

Then, I want to talk about the superiority of small church and megachurch missions in our culture. This is the core reason for the crisis.

February 14, 2009
Alpha Male Pastors

I long to see this as a caveat for ministry job openings: Dominant alpha males need not apply. Dear Lord, let it come soon!

I had three different conversations with or about lead pastors Thursday. Two were horrible and one was exhilarating. All three encounters lead me to express my frustration with alpha male senior pastors. How do these people stay in ministry? Oh yeah, they are allowed to fire people…

“Define term alpha male pastor please.” I’d love to. Obviously, they are male. And they are the big dogs at a church. They lord their power over everyone. (Mostly behind closed doors.) One word description, dominant. They lay in bed and dream of themselves as Mufasa over their church kingdoms. They would like to think that everyone shudders at their brilliance when they hear their name. Every single one of them thinks they are brilliant and that they will one day write a book that sells more copies than Purpose Driven Life.

Situation #1 I exchanged emails yesterday with a church staff member sharing his frustration with his AMP. Well, he wasn’t really sharing frustration with me, because that sort of disloyalty isn’t allowed in Mufasa’s pride. He contacted me about a very practical problem but within a couple of short exchanges the truth came out that his AMP wouldn’t let him lead the youth group. So let me get this right, a church hires a man… calls him a pastor, grades him on his ability to lead the youth group… then is hamstrung by an insecure AMP from doing his job they called and paid him to do? Brilliant. I’m sure that the AMP will feel completely justified when that guy quits, his life devastated. I wish it weren’t true… but I think I have this same conversation with one church staff member per week.

Situation #2 I had a conversation with a church staff member sharing a complete lack of human decency by his AMP. Of course, this staff member couldn’t tell his AMP that he was being a jerk because that was ultimately questioning the virility of the AMP. Questioning an AMP about any of his habits, practices, and especially blatant sins is a challenge that is always met with snarled teeth and threats of being expelled from the pride. At the end of our conversation I was left with the impression that this staff member’s boss thinks he is a more important person than the rest of his staff. It’s as if Jesus’ words didn’t apply to him. Matthew 23 says, “Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ.The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” Nope, that only applies to lowly associate level pastors and other non-AMPs who make the day-to-day stuff happen when the AMP isn’t bestowing his 30 minute message from the mountaintop. When heaven opened and Mr. AMP appeared on the scene… Jesus didn’t call that guy to servant-leadership. He’s better, bigger, more powerful than his staff members. You know, because he’s the preacher.

Situation #3 (For those skimming –> This is the good one) I had lunch with my new friend and pastor. As a parenthesis to this– I was so relieved that the lunch meeting came with no agenda. We had lunch and shared life, a novel concept that more church leaders should consider. Stephen has all the skills and background to be an AMP. And what I love about him is that he intentionally chooses not to for the sake of the Kingdom. Something that blew me away about our conversation was this, he’s perfectly fine not getting his way in a theological discussion. (Something an AMP would see as a weakness is really a strength!) The mere fact of the various staff backgrounds proves that out. They are a hodgepodge group of denominations completely sold out to the concept that personal preferences don’t really matter. I’d say he and I see eye to eye on “high 90s” of things. But those few percentage points of difference don’t matter at all.

What should AMPs do instead of dominating local churches? Fix the auto industry! Go get a job at a car dealership and bully people into a gas guzzler.

Want to know the secret to defeating an AMP? Hint, you don’t have to commit a felony even though you want to.

December 5, 2008
The Danger of Changes

Whether it’s a business, a school, or a youth ministry or even a blog there is both fun and danger in change. Some would say that half of the fun of change is the danger.

Good Catalyst
Almost all of the change I deal with is neccesitated by the existing way not meeting expectations and/or goals. Somewhere in a meeting the team will decide that a radical change is needed because the existing “thing” just isn’t going to cut it anymore. It’s always a pure thought. It’s always a change for the better. And it’s always a change with the best of intentions.

The Dark Side of Change

There are some people lost in every change. For some recipients of the change, your customers or students or youth group kids or blog readers, the change becomes an opportunity to check out.

In Romeo, a format change to the youth group meant that several students never came back. It wasn’t a judgment of the quality of the program… in the end, our changes just gave them an excuse to not come back.

At adammclane.com I’ve never recovered all of the RSS subscribers I had when I was on Typepad. I went from 100+ to about 30 and have never gotten back to 100 RSS subscribers.

Just today a blogger I follow announced he was moving from Blogger to WordPress and I decided this was a good time to stop following him. It’s not that I don’t care for him, it’s simply that I don’t care enough about his blog to both unsubscribe to his content and then go to his new site and re-subscribe.

On and on this principle continues. A change is made and we accept a certain fallout percentage.

So here’s the big question: Are those changes worth it?

In hind site I would have rather kept those 70 subscribers to my blog and those 3-4 families in the youth group than embrace what was changed. Sure, in the process of changing I’ve gained new subscribers and now youth group has several fresh faces… but I’m left wondering if we could have had both if the old way was tweaked and not overhauled.

No matter what you lead or have the power to change you have to weigh is the change I’m making for the potential of growing exponentially worth the loss of some people who won’t make the transition?

I can think of many times when the answer to that is a resounding YES. But I can think of a couple where the answer is NO.

So, fellow change-o-holics: Is change worth it or are there times the biggest risk we can take is to stay the same?

August 24, 2008
“Who are you anyway?”
Recently, God has been all up in my video about who I am. It’s crazy how easy I get my identity wrapped up in what other people think of me. I suppose being in a public position will do that to you.

One of the things that Bill Clinton was always accused of as President was that he based a lot of decisions on public opinion. As much as I disdained that style of leadership I recognize it as a legitimate way to handle yourself when all eyes are on you. “Just do what the majority wants and everything will be OK.”

But I don’t think that’s leadership.

Adam’s definition of what a leader is: A leader takes you where you don’t want to go on your own.

Not only do I want to be a leader that takes people where they don’t want to go on their own… I want to be the type of person who is lead by God in ways that I wouldn’t do on my own.

Confession #1: I’ve gotten wrapped up in being called a leader. I fall into the mistake of thinking people want to know what I think. Instead, a true leader defers to the ultimate source of wisdom, thinking, and counsel. The most appropriate thing I can do as a leader is point someone to ultimate truth found in the Bible. And I recognize that sometimes I do that and sometimes I depend on my own talent, experiences, and personal preferences. I used to be so good at saying, “This is what the Bible says: _______. And this is what I would do if I were in your position: ______________.” It seems that the more people want to recognize me as a “leader” the more I want to emphasize the latter instead of the former. The result is that I’m not always the best leader I can be. Ironic, eh?

Confession #2: I get wrapped up in being called a pastor. I’ve never been comfortable with that title. But as the year’s have gone by I’ve gotten much less diligent in blushing it off when people call me “Pastor Adam.” I don’t know if it’s that I’ve gotten comfortable with what God has done and others recognize that in me or if I just like being called a pastor? Now, it’s true. That is what/who I am. And I am not ashamed of the title. I am not ashamed of my position. And I am not ashamed of my church. It’s not about shame. I recognize that its a sign of respect for my position yet I’ve always been uncomfortable with being labeled any title. Since I entered full-time ministry I’ve always self-reflected and laughed at God’s slapping me… ME… with the title of pastor. Sure… since I was little… even before I was a Christian… I always knew I’d be in ministry. But I also know who I am. I am biblically qualified to be a pastor and yet I know who I am.
- Above reproach? As far as I know
- A one woman man? Heck yes!
- Temperate? I do my very best to not lose it
- Self-controlled? To the best of my knowledge
- Respectable? You tell me
- Hospitable? Check
- Able to teach? Check
- Not given to drunkenness? Been good on that one since early teens
- Not violent but gentle? By the grace of God
- Not quarrelsome? Not my thing
- Not a lover of money? How could I be?
- Manage his family well? Could always do better
- Not a recent convert? Check
- Good reputation? Let me know, OK?
Confession #3: I want to get more wrapped up in my identity as a daddy and husband than as “Pastor Adam.” Closing in on 6 years of working in churches full time and I know well why some denominations don’t let their pastors marry. The demands on the position are over-the-top hard to balance with a family. People think nothing of about calling me late at night or early in the morning to talk to me or ask me to do something. And I’m always tempted to work every day and most nights for youth group, small groups, meetings, and other stuff that lands on my schedule. I really don’t think this is biblical and I should be more disciplined about saying “Can we talk or do this tomorrow?” In the past 6 years we’ve had countless family meals interrupted, countless dates disrupted, dozens of movies put on pause, play time put on pause for other people so many times my kids hate it when I take a call, times with daddy missed for this and that. Spending quality time with other people’s kids while missing the same with my own. Honestly, I hardly ever noticed. But my wife and kids did. It’s tough being married with kids and being married with kids to a church. Only recently have I been doing some studying in the New Testament and I realized… “Wait a minute! These guys weren’t nearly as available as I am and God still thought they rocked as pastors and leaders.”

How about you? Who are you anyway?
May 27, 2008
Planning for Entropy

A key component to the second law of thermodynamics is entropy.

Entropy is the scientific principle that all systems will eventually go from order to disorder. Entropy allows mathematics to explain dissipation within a system boundary. In the first law of thermodynamics, energy is never lost in a macrosystem. But in a microsystem, entropy explains why stuff breaks down. The classic example of entropy is a glass of ice water. Water, a system where water is in a mixed state of solid and liquid, is constantly breaking down. Entropy explains that eventually the glass of ice water will break down. The ice will melt into the water because of the heat energy outside of the glass or the liquid will freeze because of the lack of heat. But entropy will not allow the glass of ice water system to stay the same.

In short, entropy is one of the variables that explains that stuff (a system) breaks over time. Pressure, stress, strain, temperature… all are variables. It’s why cars don’t last forever. It’s why toys eventually break. It’s why today’s superfast computer will be slow in three years. If you are a scientist designing a closed system… a car or a medicine or anything scientific you have to plan for entropy… that system will break down over time. If a scientist has no plan for entropy in his system he has failed on a professional level.

But what about entropy in social organizations? Does social entropy exist within systems?

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March 11, 2008
You Matter to Your Schools

This was just posted over at Youth Ministry Exchange. Here’s an excerpt:

Here’s a thought that will blow your mind. The God of the Universe chose you to help him build the church in your town. Here’s another thought to give you some perspective. The God of the Universe has an enemy, Satan, whose deepest desire is to distract, discourage, debilitate, and destroy you. It’s as if Satan has a special department in the community you live in just for that. Just like there is a Street Department and Water Department, Satan runs the Ministry Destruction Department in your town and people like you are his number one project. Read the rest

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March 9, 2008