5 Leadership Questions Podcast on Church Leadership with Todd Adkins and Dan Iten

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins is joined by Vance Pitman, a church planter in Las Vegas, Nevada, at Hope Church. They discuss the current realities of church planting in the Western United States and why it's important to wait to write a book.

BEST QUOTES

"A few years ago God gave us a vision to reach the Western United States.""I think one of the great tragedies of the Christian movement today is that a lot of guys are writing books who just started in the ministry and they are writing a lot of theory but not a lot of proven practice.""I'm learning from three categories of people right now: people who finish well, people from a different context, and people who are doing it.""America's west coast is still largely a pre-Christian context.""It wasn't until God brought me to Las Vegas that I realized that the real passion and the heart of God was for the Gospel and the Kingdom to expand in the city.""I believe if there is hope for another gospel movement in the United States, it's in the west.""Seasons of growth lead to seeing things with fresh eyes.""I have to prioritize the important over the urgent.""Too often in the home we do things based on distrust instead of trust.""Leadership can be lonely, but leadership should never be done alone."

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Lifeway Leadership Podcast Network

Unburdened by Vance Pitman

Vance Pitman Leadership Podcast

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins, Chandler Vannoy, and Brad Waggoner discuss the following questions:

* Lifeway Research shows that only 1 in 4 churches have a staff development plan in place, and 1/3 of churches spend $250 or less on training and development of paid staff members. Why is this a problem?* How does role clarity, job descriptions, and clear goals help in development?* How often should you meet with your direct reports? How often should you have performance reviews?* When should you give stretch assignments and how does adding responsibility help develop your staff?* What are three practical steps someone can take and implement tomorrow to begin to develop and lead their staff?

BEST QUOTES

"It's leadership negligence to not make this a really high priority.""The number one resource we have been called to steward is the people.""There should be clear expectations of what is it you expect them to do.""If people are left to their own devices, they are going to create their own job description.""Having a clear role profile and clear goals help in development because people know what's expected of them and what they will be measured on.""I would meet at least every other week, and maybe more often if that leader is in a developmental phase.""Correction, input, evaluation, and appraisal should be organic in routine.""The questions you should ask during a performance review process is really based on the goals they have for their area of ministry, the job description and values, and ask them to score themselves.""You want to be careful and measured with how you do stretch assignments.""Giving someone training often gives someone competence and confidence.""Don't just map out where they need to grow, but map out the how."

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Lifeway Leadership Podcast Network

Ministrygrid.com/churchstaff

The 4 Disciplines of Execution by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, and Jim Huling

The New One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson

Creating Succession at Every Level in Your Church

Mentor by Chuck Lawless

The Master Plan of Evangelism by Robert Coleman

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins and Brad Waggoner breakdown the leadership book Necessary Endings by Dr. Henry Cloud. In their conversation they discuss the following questions:

* What's the book and why does it matter?* Overview of the book* How applicable is the book to leadership in my church?* What are things churches should ignore from the book?* What can you do this week in light of the book?

BEST QUOTES

"The amount of disruption that goes on, I think, forces change on people at a breakneck pace.""From a leadership lens, he is trying to help people understand that change, including endings, doesn't have to be a negative thing.""He is an actual psychologist who does the hard work of distilling it and making it within reach to apply.""If you've thought through your measures of success, then you can objectively go back and say what is not contributing to that success.""I think it takes a little time to do the self-reflection this book will provoke.""This book can help give some real wisdom to a leader who may have some people around him who are the wrong persons.""There is a difference between leading a necessary ending and responding to a mess.""A lot of church relationships are more influence related than they are authority related. That's a nuance you have to figure out.""Take time in silence and prayerfully walk through what changes need to happen in your church."

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Lifeway Leadership Podcast Network

Necessary Endings by Dr. Henry Cloud

Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend

Leading Change by John Kotter

How People Grow by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend

How People Change by Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins, Chandler Vannoy, and Brad Waggoner discuss the following questions:

* What is the biblical calling of church staff and why does a church need a staff?* Why does the structure of your church staff matter?* How should an org chart in a church function?* How do you structure a volunteer staff and make sure they are effective in aligning with the strategy?* How does church staff structure set up churches for growth?

BEST QUOTES

"The whole idea of calling in the church has gotten somewhat confusing.""The clergy are not the ones who are supposed to do all the ministry.""Strategy precedes staffing.""I think a family minister is more common because the pendulum swung away from the minister of education.""It's the leadership's responsibility to cast the vision and to then bring alignment.""The outcomes drive whether or not there needs to be an adjustment to the strategy.""No matter how elegant your mission statement is, eventually you have to take a look at the results.""The more clarity you have in your vision and values, the easier it will be to measure what's important and to lead change.""Sometimes personnel teams struggle because they tried to determine their strategy based on the gifts and competencies of their current staff.""When you have 60-100 people reporting to you who are volunteers, you have horded all of the responsibility.""Centralization is often a direct result of perceived fear.""Focus on your strategy and be disciplined in the implementation."

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Lifeway Leadership Podcast Network

The 4 Disciplines of Execution by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, and Jim Huling

Ministrygrid.com/churchstaff

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins, Chandler Vannoy, and Brad Waggoner discuss the following questions:

* When is the right time to hire more staff?* When should churches hire part-time paid staff and what type of roles are best for part-time?* Where should churches look when it comes to hiring new staff?* What questions should you ask during the interview?* What are the common mistakes we see when it comes to hiring church staff?

BEST QUOTES

"I've always believed that a good staff hire will pay for him or herself fairly quickly in many circumstances.""If the church is large enough that it is wrestling with growing the staff, consider where are you currently weak?""Be careful when hiring staff, because they will necessitate their existence. Once you do have that spot, they will create ministry where ministry was not.""Hiring a person is not a strategy.""Start out with the future you would love to see developed and then reverse engineer that.""Identify the functions that will get you from A to B, and then hire according to whatever those demands are.""The most effective way to help your church grow is to grow your people.""One of the things you have to caution if you hire internally is, what if it doesn't go well?""The person who truly has a humble wiring is going to talk about what we did as a team.""It takes time to hire the right person, whether its an internal or an external hire.""It's much harder to get away from a bad hire than it is to take the time to find the right hire."

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Lifeway Leadership Podcast Network

Staff Your Church for Growth by Gary McIntosh

Vanderbloemen

The Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni

25 Interview Questions and How to Answer Them

5LQ Episode 140: How to Crush a Job Interview

Ministrygrid.com/churchstaff

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins is joined by Will Mancini, founder of Auxano and author of Younique, Church Unique, and God Dreams. They discuss how the process of becoming who God wants you to be can be challenging and how the church in North America has been operating from a functional Great Commission.

BEST QUOTES

"All leaders have been given a special assignment from God, but most don't understand it and haven't named it in a real precise kind of way.""Rather than projecting a sense of what I want to be when I grow up, what if I actually take seriously who God made me to be?""Moving into consulting was really about me responding to increased self-awareness that my gift of discernment was higher than my gift of leadership.""Church leaders are addicted to events and products, but it's process that produces the clarity.""My primary legacy is for the local church to return to it's movemental dynamic that Jesus always intended it to have.""We stopped talk about evangelism as methodology and started talking about mission as identity.""The functional church in North America, over the last 20 years, is go in to all the world and make more worship attenders, baptizing them in the name of small groups, and teaching them to volunteer a few hours a month. That functional Great Commission is not going to work anymore.""Where there is no margin, there is no imagination."

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Lifeway Leadership Podcast Network

Auxano

Church Unique by Will Mancini

God Dreams by Will Mancini

Younique by Will Mancini

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins and Chandler Vannoy are joined by Scott McConnell, Executive Director of Lifeway Research. During their conversation, they discuss the following questions:

* Why do churches need to pay their staff? * How much of a church's budget should go toward staff?* What is the average salary of a pastor in America?* What are some common mistakes churches make when it comes to compensation?* What are some trends we are seeing in research when it comes to church staff and salaries?

BEST QUOTES

"The number one expense at most churches is people, followed quickly by facility costs.""The median we are seeing in the studies we have done is 47% of the budget spent on salaries.""Even if you are just giving a cost of living increase to keep up with inflation, you can quickly get out of whack and most churches start cutting ministries.""Ministry is never going to have less people if you do it right.""Every person is a member of the body and should be engaged in the work of Christ.""We see a model of getting a lot of ministry done by African American church plants while they are still small and young because they are training up laity to take on the work of ministry.""Leading a volunteer is much harder than leading your employee.""The average clergy salary is $50,800.""When insurance is missing, especially medical insurance, it creates a lot of stress on a household and ministry is less effective when those benefits are not there for a ministry family.""Being at a church one more year tends to have a negative impact on a pastor's compensation in total."

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Lifeway Leadership Podcast Network

Ministrygrid.com/churchstaff

Every Christian a Minister by James T. Draper

Lifeway.com/compensationsurvey

"SBC Pastor Salaries Not Keeping Up With Inflation"

Lifeway Research Study on Compensation and Insurance

Lifeway Research Study on Full-Time Pastor Compensation and Vacation

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins is joined by Ben Mandrell, president and CEO of Lifeway Christian Resources. During their conversation, they discuss the transition from established church pastor to church planter to Lifeway and the importance of listening to a diverse group of people from the larger group you lead.

BEST QUOTES

"All ministry is hard, no matter where you serve.""Pastoring the established church requires a lot more patience, when you are a planter you are driving a speedboat.""If I could go back and be an established pastor again, I would be a church planting pastor.""Planting a church in the west was the hardest thing I've ever done, but very rewarding.""I think Lifeway is now positioned to make a massive impact in the local church.""I think a lot of learning happens through good conversation and good question asking.""If you aren't constantly articulating the overall mission, then all of the subgroups begin to take on their own focus and lose sight of the big picture.""The leader's job is to keep shuffling that deck and to make sure that different people have the opportunity to exert influence.""Form 4 or 5 listening groups that have a diverse representation from your flock and ask some big picture questions. See what kind of information comes out of that because it will be some of the best data you can get.""I feel the gravity of leadership so heavy some days that I forget to have fun.""Beware of the barrenness of a busy life.""It took me at least 15 years in ministry to realize how important it was to spend time with my key staff."

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Lifeway Leadership Podcast Network

Ministry Grid

Age of Opportunity by Paul Tripp

Getting Things Done by David Allen

Leadership Pipeline Coaching Events

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins and Ben Mandrell are joined by Carey Nieuwhof, author of Didn't See It Coming. During their conversation, they discuss the following questions:

* What is a conflict or failure that has benefited you and your leadership?* How are you adjusting to the identity change of who you've been for so many years is not who you are anymore when you wake up?* Who or what has been the greatest leadership influence in your life?* What do you want your leadership legacy to be?* How do you keep you well full of fresh water so that when you sit down to write you have something fresh to say?

BEST QUOTES

"When I burned out, it was so dark. I thought life, leadership, and ministry were over.""Here's the irony, I write on leadership, but I am also the leadership lid.""Understanding what the problems are and then dealing with them in your own life those are two different things.""If it's on vision, on strategy, and on budget, then I don't even need to know about it, you just go for it.""In my devotion time in the morning, I have made it a discipline not to read anything that I would be using in any direct sense in ministry that day or that season.""The reality is most churches pay horrible and that puts stress on families.""The culture we create at work has a direct impact at home.""I want people who have worked with me to go home feeling built up.""Everything I say isn't ideal, but at least it's me. And that means I can do it again tomorrow."

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Lifeway Leadership Podcast Network

New Churches Q&A Podcast

Ministry Grid Free Courses with Carey Nieuwhof - Complete a course in January to receive a free copy of Didn't See It Coming by Carey Nieuwhof

Didn't See It Coming by Carey Nieuwhof

CareyNieuwhof.com

The Truth About Employee Engagement by Patrick Lencioni

Why Leadership is So Exhausting and What to Do About It

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins and Jenaye White are joined by Esther Daniel,the global director of talent acquisition at International Justice Mission (IJM). During their conversation, they discuss finding joy in the midst of difficult work and how her work has transitioned to developing leaders.

BEST QUOTES

"If you want to see sustainable change, you need to see the public justice systems transformed.""I've learned to live my life with open hands, my husband and I, wherever God takes us whatever He wants us to do for His kingdom.""When I look back at what God has been doing in my life, it has been building leaders.""I have to constantly center myself on this thing we are doing as an organization: This is God's weight, and this is our work, yes, but we do it Jesus' way.""It's important to balance the darkness with finding joy.""I know that when I submit to my husband, there's a blessing in it.""Rest in God's sovereignty and have an eternal perspective.""God is really interested in us, in our spiritual formation and who we are as His people.""You can't lead uniformly. You lead each person according to what they need."

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Lifeway Leadership Podcast Network

International Justice Mission

Good News About Injustice by Gary Haugen

The Power of a Praying Wife by Stormie Omartian

Let Me Be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliot