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lessons from the trenches

Here are my notes from a church planting webinar I attended today: Lessons from the Trenches.  The host/leader was Andy Wood, senior pastor at South Bay Church in Silicon Valley.  It was fantastic!

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Andy Woods – South Bay ChurchFebruary 2, 2012
Lessons from the Trenches

1.  The importance of giving the unreached a voice at the table.

Typically there is no one in a decision making position that represents the lost.  How will this decision help us reach the unchurched person in our community?

How hot is my passion for the lost?
How are we doing making decisions with the lost in mind?

2.  There are two types of health indicators: leading and lagging.

What do you measures?

Lagging = Bodies.  Seats.  First-time guests.  Budget.  Baptisms.

Leading = Are more people praying?  (What impacts the lagging indicators?).

What stats are you giving attention to?

What leading factors are contributing to the fruitfulness or the fruitlessness?

3.  Focus on revelation and contextualization, beware of imitation.

Every church has a cultural and leadership component that influences how they do things.

Use proven systems to launch; then move to uniqueness.

What parts of our vision / strategy is coming from my time alone with God?

When I hear great ideas from other leaders what lens do I run them through?

4.  Great leaders stay ahead of the curve.

Great leaders sees problems before anyone else sees them and solves them before anyone else knows they need solving.

Steve Stroop.

It’s important for senior leaders to model prayerfulness.

What’s next? What’s after what’s next?
If we keep growing at the same rate, what problems will exist in the near future?
How are we doing staying ahead of the curve?

5.  Break through growth barriers by shifting your paradigm.

Craig Groeschel = whenever he added a new kid to his family, had to change the paradigm of how the family operated.

The paradigm must change before growth will occur.  Your way of thinking must change before making operational changing.

Example: Responsibility of staff is to equip people to get work done.

What would need to change (thinking/structure/space) in order for us to double in size over the next twelve months?
Who is just beyond me that I can learn their paradigms for leadership?

6.  Organizations tend to lose urgency and gain bureaucracy.

The bigger the organization becomes the harder it is to control it.

Google = doesn’t run its organization through bureaucracy but vision.

Flexibility with accountability.

Six by six execution.  Every six weeks every employee has six objectives they are working on.

What red tape is stifling creativity and momentum?
How can you stay flexible and have the necessary infrastructure?
What can I do to infuse urgency?

7.  Healthy organizations and lives get pruned on a regular basis.

As a leader, you have be constantly making adjustments.

What systems need to be changed?
What assumptions need to be tested?
What needs to be trimmed/eliminated?
Who needs to be challenged or removed?
What are you currently having to manufacture energy for? (In other words, no one is excited about?)

8.  Focus on culture while equipping the team to create systems.

Culture is more important/powerful than systems.

Part of the shift for senior leaders is to equip staff to create systems.  Sam Chan – Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code

Staff Vision Day = driving around the community.  What could God do in the future?

You can delegate systems but not culture.

How much attention to culture?
What is celebrated/corrected?
What elephants are in the room?
How can you more effectively equip your team to develop systems?

9.  Pain and sacrifice increase with growth.

What price am I willing to pay?
What price am I not willing to pay?
How am I doing with rest?
What sacrifice am I avoiding?
What sacrifice am I making that God is not asking me to make?

10.  My heart is the wellspring of our organization.

As goes my spiritual life, so goes the church.  Proverbs 4:23

How is your personal time with God?
How is your relationship with family?
How pure is my heart?

* Bitterness or forgiveness?
* Entitlement or gratitude?
* Generosity or greed?
* Sexual immorality or sexual purity?
* Selfish ambition or godly ambition?

http://blogofandywood.blogspot.com/

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