Went to Catalyst One Day in Columbia, MD…it was challenging, uplifting and motivating. Below are the notes I took, they are pretty raw but do with them what you will:
Session 1: Andy Stanley – Gaining and Sustaining Momentum (pg 4 of workbook)
Momentum – Forward motion fueled by a system of wins.
Things are just easier, even problems and situations.
Lack of momentum leads to doubt and a search for things that aren’t there.
What can we learn about momentum?
What is God blessing in your ministry?
There are some common denominators (principles) that lead to momentum. When you can examine the systems, the denominators and the principles we can see how things can gain, sustain and lose momentum.
Principles found in Ministry That Lead to Momentum:
3 Components of Sustained Momentum
New
a. Always trigger momentum
b. Anything new by trait will trigger momentum
c. The momentum can be positive or negative.
a. A negative event can create negative momentum (9/11)
b. A negative event can create positive momentum(Rescue)
i. Negative circumstances are the fertile soil for a burst of positive momentum.
ii. How can negative events like your finances make a positive event?
c. Positive event can create positive momentum
Improved
a. Organizational momentum is always trigger by 1 of 3 things
1. New leaders
2. New direction
3. New product (program)
b. Implication – when evaluating an organization or program that is lacking momentum ask, “Do we need a new leader, new direction or new product?” Don’t jump to the conclusion that you need a new leader.
c. Momentum is never triggered by tweaking something old; it is triggered by making something new. Minor improvements don’t trigger momentum.
ii. New does not guarantee sustained momentum
iii. The new must be a noticeable improvement over the old. Ask is this a significant improvement over the old. If cost is an issue you are probably doing too much.
iv. Mediocre does not create momentum
v. Even significant improvement has shelf life.
Improving
a. Momentum is sustained through continuous improvement.
vi. If you are committed to momentum you will make mistakes.
b. Continuous improvement requires systematic evaluation.
c. Continuous improvement requires unfiltered evaluation. (Everything has to be on the table.)
d. Everything you do and everything your church does is evaluated each week.
What to Do With That:
New
1. New personnel
2. New programming; shutting down programming to create new programming
3. New season of programming.
4. New series creates momentum.
5. New look.
6. New Venues.
Improve
1. Look for ways to upgrade your presentations.
2. Visit other organizations (talk to other leaders)
3. Attend other churches
Momentum stoppers (Improving)
1. Disengaged Leader
2. Overactive management – Momentum thrives on chaos (this is what managers miss)
3. Complacency
4. Complexity
5. A breach of trust
Q&A:
What do I need to do to be relational with my ministers so that they pass it on to their ministers and they pass it on to the students?
Session 2: Craig Groeschel – Busting Barriers with Mindset Changes
How do we change the way we think so that we are prepared to do what God is asking us to do?
Romans 12:2 – Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
As things grow the mindset must grow.
5 Mindset Changes:
1. Think differently about your church culture.
– We say our people won’t _________________________. Fill in this blank
– Instead we should say we haven’t led them to _________________________. Fill in this blank.
– Your congregation will reflect your values…what are my values?
2. Think differently about your programming.
– We believe we have to do more to reach more.
– We can reach more by doing less.
3. Think differently about the mission.
– What is our mission?
– If someone is not in the right role…
o We are afraid to hurt their feelings.
o We can’t allow someone to hold back the mission of the church.
o Hire for the future not for the present.
o We might have to endure pain to put someone in the right role.
4. Think differently about people leaving the church.
– We can grow when people leave (pruning).
o The secure and confident church is attractive.
o Give people permission to leave well.
5. Think differently about limitations.
– We say, “We can’t because we don’t.”
– We need to say, “We can because we don’t.”
o Often time our limitations will help us make huge strides.
o There is something that you might want but you can’t have because you don’t see what you need.
3 Assignments
1. Find someone one or two steps ahead of you and learn ho they think.
– Most want to learn what they do – not how they think.
2. Identify one wrong mindset and ask God to renew your mind with truth.
3. Identify one painful decision you’re avoiding and commit to make the decision no matter what the short-term pain.
Session 3: Craig Groeschel – Creating Personal Spiritual Momentum
The way we do the work of God may be destroying the work of God in us.
Genesis 31:43-44 Laban answered Jacob, “The women are my daughters, the children are my children, and the flocks are my flocks. All you see is mine. Yet what can I do today about these daughters of mine, or about the children they have borne? Come now, let’s make a covenant, you and I, and let it serve as a witness between us.”
What can we do today that will lead to the spiritual growth in the future?
I will do today what I can do, to enable me to do tomorrow what I can’t do today.
4 Things to do Today
1. Do something to defeat your dark side.
– My leadership dark side is _____________________. Fill in the blank
– The quickest way to forget about what God thinks about us is to think about what others think about us.
– How can you make your dark side God’s biggest significant impact.
2. Create artificial ministry deadlines.
– If you don’t set the deadlines, you won’t know how to turn it off.
– Design the ministry around your values.
3. Delegate what someone else can do.
– Don’t delegate responsibilities delegate authority
o When you delegate authority you create leaders.
o The reason we don’t is because we are filled with pride.
4. Do something only you can do.
– There are only two or three things that you can do that can impact your ministry in a great way…what are they? (Husband, Father and speak on the behalf of God)
– We sometimes allow ministry to be a substitute to how we relate to God.
Session 4: Andy Stanley – Don’t Be That Couch
Every program in your current church was an answer to a certain question to a certain need.
1. Whereas programming begins as an answer to a question, over time it becomes a part of organizational culture.
A. As culture changes, many of the questions remain the same, but the answers don’t.
B. The tendency is to institutionalize our answers.
a. This is the way we always did it.
b. This is what we do.
C. If we institutionalize and answer, the day will come when it is no longer an answer
Are you willing to fall out of love with the old couches (programs) to bring in the new ones that bring in people?
2. We must continue to be more committed to our mission than to our programming or our model.
We have to be in love with the vision and the mission of our ministry, the what shouldn’t change, the how will.
A. Over time sustaining the model can become the mission.
B. Over time, the model/programming can work against the mission.
a. Seth Goden The Dip – Don’t fall in love with a tactic and defend it for ever and decide once and for all if you are in a market or not.
b. Churches are empty because the leaders love the model more than they love unchurched people.
3. Points of Discussion – Questions to ask your ministry staff.
A. What have we fallen in love with that isn’t as effective as it use to be?
B. Where are we manufacturing energy? What are you plugging that you aren’t so excited about?
a. Andy Grove Only the Paranoid Survive – If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what would he or she do? Why shouldn’t we walk out the door come back in and I it ourselves?
C. What are our organizational assumptions?
There are assumptions that drive the organization. The assumptions a team has held the longest or more deeply are the likeliest to be their undoing.
a. What do we assume about people and how to reach them?
Ex. We assume Christians love to stand up and sing.
b. What do we assume programmatically?
c. Which assumptions are false?
d. Which assumptions are true, but not fully leveraged?
Ex. People don’t stick to a production they stick to a relationship