4 WAYS TO INSPIRE YOUR LEADERSHIP TEAM

Part of my job as a pastor is to build ministry teams that are motivated, hopeful, and strategically pushing towards a clear and compelling picture of the future. These teams, made up of paid and unpaid staff, must be led by leaders who know how to encourage and lead their teams forward into an unknown and uncharted future. Any pursuit into the unknown will provide set-backs and discouragement that, depending on the key-leaders ability to rally the troops, could either stall all forward movement or inspire creative and compelling solutions.

Follows are four things I have learned about inspiring my teams to hope and purposeful action.

1. No BS.

People know when the ship is sinking, crap is in the fan, and when they’ve just swallowed a sugar coated razor-blade. There is no disguise that staff and volunteers will not see through eventually. Team leaders who try to divert their teams’ attention away from the cold hard realities are the leaders who end up losing credibility, build shallow solutions for deep problems, and who often end up discouraged and confused as to why the vision seems so unattainable.

Teams that operate in their prime are known for clarity of analysis and interpretation, courage to move forward against impossible odds, and who have a face like Clint Eastwood. Teams can only move forward if they know the reality of the situation they face; this means that part of the role of team leader is to strip away the peripheral and engage head-on with the task at hand. No flowers. No sugar. Cut the BS.

2. Never Waste a Crises.

There is nothing that will unite a group of people faster than a problem, crisis, emergency, or disaster. Some of the most powerful revolutions were born on the back of shared injustice, lack, or shortfall. People, bonded together through the memories of conflict and crises, innovate out of necessity – often from the ground up.

These are absolutely critical times that will determine the strength and creativity of our teams. While we do not manufacture crises, we shouldn’t be fearful of them either. For the healthy team it tests them, allows them to do necessary purges, and brings about a closeness that is not possible when times are quieter, softer, easier, and greener ($$$).

For years, one requirement of my leadership teams’ was to go on a roadtrip every six months with people they had just met in the last six months. Besides the community and relationships this built, it was fundamental in helping our team leaders use crises to look for creative solutions. Why? Every good road trip is bound to have a few wrong turns, a missed exit, a weirdo hitchhiker, a flat tire, or an empty tank of gas. Four people in a car, while learning to either love or hate each other, must put everything else aside to work towards crises resolution – most often resulting in strengthened relational bonds.

3. Ante Up.

As one pastor put it so eloquently, “Put your cup on, lower your head, and head back into the ring.” Volunteers and staff are more likely to face the challenges of adversary head-on when they go into battle side-by-side with their leader(s). Team leaders must respond to challenge by upping the ante themselves, calling people to action, and daring people to move with them. This often requires the blood, sweat, and tears of leaders in breaking ground and punching out new and exciting possibilities – even when all the odds are against them.

Staff and volunteers don’t mind taking a few shots and enduring a few hardships when they see that their leaders are out front bearing the assault as well. Leaders, ante up, and then challenge your people to put their money on the table as well.

4. See the Future.

Team leaders who inspire and motivate their team continually open windows into the future that are both compelling and achievable. Sometimes these windows are very small and are only open for a moment to help re-direct the team; other times the windows into the future are massive floor to ceiling portholes that provide a sweeping panoramic of a land far away and beautiful. Either way, these windows into the future will continue to drive staff and volunteers towards imaginative and strategic movement.

Seeing the future is about hope. It’s about the people and places we hope for and about clearly seeing what might be. Seeing the future is about community. It’s about where we expect to be and who we expect to be there with. It’s collaborative and felt by all, seen by all, and believed by all. There are times, however, where team leaders need to become the mouthpiece of “we” re-envisioning, re-imagining, and re-calibrating what exactly it is that the team sees. A clearly defined image of the future is often enough to ensure the continued hope, inspiration, and creativity of our teams.

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Finally, leading teams through set-back and failure is perhaps one of the more difficult leadership challenges that a team leader faces. In my own experience, these are the times I feel most vulnerable to feelings of inadequacy, thoughts of resentment towards team members, and thoughtless reactions to minor issues.

I am continually faced with the truth that not everything I do, the future that I see, and the current reality that I describe, are not always as I see them. Yet, I must continue. I must remember that God is at work and often in the most surprising of ways. I must remember that I am loved and cherished by the God whose image I am made. I must remember that my value as a person is not attached to my accomplishments, net-worth, or leadership skill set. Rather, my inherited worth is that I am undeservedly heir to the Kingdom of heaven, known as a child of God, and called and equipped to serve His community with humble faithfulness.

What have I missed? How do you inspire your teams?

-Jer

On Twitter @JeremyPostal, on the world wide web at www.jeremypostal.com, and in real life in big bad Whistler, BC. 

Why Your Church Shouldn't Be Relevant

Despite what anybody has told you, a culturally relevant church is not what your city, town, or context needs. And, just because your pastor wears skinny jeans, drinks craft beer, and preaches from his iPad, this doesn’t mean that your church is relevant. The church and its leadership might be cool, edgy and different and it’s probably even attracting hipster, home-brewing, techies. But does this really make a church relevant?

What are churches and pastors saying when they say they want to be “culturally relevant?”

If you’d allow me the liberty to break Canadian culture down into two broad categories, I would suggest:

1. The Marketplace – characterized by hard work, a drive for success, advancement, diligence, excellence, self-evaluation, and discipline.
2. Leisure & Entertainment – characterized by celebrities, PVR’s, vacations, Hockey Night in Canada, ease, consumption, and glass of Mike’s, a hammock, and Angry Birds.

By in large, when churches and leaders talk about being culturally relevant, what they are really saying is that they are trying to be “leisure and entertainment relevant.” Add to this, rarely is it well done. When pastors and leaders chase after this type of church relevance, which often happens in the name of missional, we very well may be hindering what God wants to do in our church and city. Author Hugh Halter makes the comment:

In most cases the church environments we've created fosters softness that hinders growth and involvement in God's mission.

I couldn’t agree more. The cultural values of hard work, endurance, reflection, hardship, and diligence don’t seem to be landing in our churches. This is especially problematic among our men. In particular, I believe it alienates those men who live in a hard-nosed, fast-paced work environment where anything worthwhile requires sacrifice. The temptation is to make church and Christianity easy, palatable, and without much consequence. The reality is, not many people live a world like this and when they hear this kind of Gospel, it just doesn’t make sense.

Churches shouldn’t be culturally relevant, anyhow. If we are to be relevant to anything, it would be to the person and work of Jesus as revealed in Scripture. Instead of the culturally relevant church, what I would propose is that the Church be Biblically relevant and culturally appropriate.

Missiologist Ed Stetzer writes that Christian engagement with culture means knowing what bits of culture to adopt, to adapt, and to reject. There are many parts of culture that simply are not relevant to the church. As Christians, we must think more Biblically and then work out how life and mission intersect appropriately with culture. Inevitably, this will take a church much deeper into culture. It will help the church better communicate appropriately, and now, instead of your church being discipled by culture, your church is discipling, transforming, redeeming, and loving the culture it has found itself in.

To my culturally savvy, cool, hip and urban ministry friends and partners, what do you think are the marks and traits of a Biblically relevant, culturally appropriate church?

This post was originally posted here May 23, 2011 and includes an interesting comment section worth reading and adding to. 

-Jer

Beer, Food, & Student Ministry at Christmas

Probably you've noticed, but attitudes towards Christmas food and drink are often at odds with each other. 

On one hand, we rightly applaud the many volunteers of the Operation Red Nose campaign for keeping the eggnog and rum off the road. On the other hand, we sing songs that include phrases like “Oh, bring us a figgy pudding…and a cup of good cheer/We won’t go until we get some, so bring some out here.” In other words, nobody is planning to leave the party until they’ve had their fill of “Christmas cheer,” which, in all likelihood, is referring to a cup of Christmas beer, as opposed to a cup full of Christmas good times.

On the topic of alcohol, while many churches and pastors condemn the over-indulgence of holiday spirits, it is also not uncommon for these same people to eat until they could actually fill out that big jolly red suit. While gym memberships and bottle recyclers make a fortune in January, excess of both food and drink are explicitly condemned throughout Christian Scripture. In the church, well-mixed hops get the evil-eye and the roasted turkey gets a feast. 

Why is this?

Most feasts, by the way, are meant to be shared with our families and loved ones. Yet the extra hours and stress spent at work so that we can somehow manage to pay the over-inflated Christmas prices are, at best, taken out on our families in the form of fighting, dysfunction, and all around Grinchyness. 

Unfortunately, many of the homes and families your youth ministry touches, the turkey isn’t the only one to be feathered and skinned in the mad rush for consumption during the holiday season. Kids feel it the most. 

Anyhow, all this to say, during Christmas season fight the urge to make your youth ministry calendar busier than it already is. Slow it down, give families room to breathe, and let your youth ministry be characterized by the mystery and anticipation of Emanuel, God with us.

Singer, songwriter, and author Michael Card says it this way, “The celebration of the birth of Jesus should be ever new, however; the scenery of Christmas has become too familiar and comfortable. It blocks our view into the depth of the stark mystery of it all…Perhaps the reason so many of us find it difficult to celebrate the birthday of Jesus is that we have confined the celebration, in many ways, to a single day… and, at that, a day that’s become more cluttered than any other day of the year, a day that better represents the noise and business of all our other days.”

Happy Ho! Ho!

-Jer

Jeremy is a youth ministry veteran based out of Whistler, BC. You can stalk him on Twitter or find reasons not to like him via www.whistlerisawesome.com where he sits as Editor-In-Chief. 

6 Rules of Brainstorming

I’ve had the privilege of working and brainstorming with many incredibly talented people over the years; daring people, risk taking people, entrepreneurial types with creative appetites that never fill. These are artists, film makers, business people, preachers, musicians, graphic designers, internerds, super-shreds, and even a few random strangers who just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

My experience with these people has helped form a set of guidelines I use in leading and shaping creative spaces to brainstorm. I don’t hold to these with a tight-fisted rigidity, however, brainstorm sessions are markedly different when I ignore any of the guidelines. Sometimes these guidelines are explicitly expressed so that everybody knows and understands the “rules,” other times – with seasoned creatives – the guidelines are implicit and embedded into the conversation; everybody just knows.

Wine Box Art Show, Whistler BC. Photo: Jeremy Postal

1. Be Careful Who You Brainstorm With

There are certain people who have a tendency to stir creativity, give life to a thought or concept, and who are ok with wide-open reckless imagining. There are other people, often calling themselves realists, who are especially gifted at putting out the fires of the creative process. At some point, these realists do come in handy offering valuable insights; however, they are rarely helpful in the beginning stages of brainstorming. Make sure that the people you invite into your dialogue are generous with their imagination.

2. The Environment is Important

Simply, get out of the boardroom.* A bunch of suits sitting around a big board table trying to drum up the next slick marketing campaign, initiative, or whatever, does produce results; but maybe not the best. The environment does influence how we think and live – the study of human geography clearly shows this. I’ve found that getting out of places that encourage systematic, top-down, and structured cultures and into places that are more fluid, relational, experimental, and playful generates a culture of creativity that far surpasses the boardroom. Some of my favourite places to brainstorm and imagine are brewpubs, après-shred patios, the forest, crowded public spaces, and in my living room with people I like.

*One other note re: leaving the boardroom: turn your mobile device off and stop worrying about your twitter account, noisy emails, and text messages. Give your attention to being present with your thoughts and where they might lead.

The Hemloft, Whistler BC. Photo: Jeremy Postal

3. Practice Imagination

Once you’ve got the people and the place nailed down, begin with some exercises in imagination. Don’t link these warm-ups to the project. Make them fun and eccentric, and go out of your way to show how an idea can blossom into something never imagined just moments before. This helps people to loosen up and begin thinking wildly without the controls and limitations that so often ambush a brainstorm session.

4. Mix and Match Opposites

Mixing and matching opposites, experimenting with apparent contradictions, messing around with the taboo and the prude, turning propositions into metaphors, and using unconventional mediums go a long way in helping ideas develop and form. Plus, it’s a Canadian metric ton of fun to peer around corners and feel out nuances and subtle connections. If we look hard enough, we begin seeing that everything seems to be connected to everything else. This requires creatives to have good eyes, listen with attentive ears, and delve into seemingly unrelated disciplines of thought and practice. When the curious brainstormer pokes and prods around with ambiguities, new ideas are likely to be unleashed.

5. Where There is Smoke, There is Fire

If a thought or an idea sparks an interest, follow the idea and flesh it out until the thought becomes ridiculous…and then follow it a little further. Over and over, I have found that out of some of the very weirdest, wackiest, and worst ideas come the very best. The endurance to follow these ideas from horrible-to-great requires some creative hop-scotching and a singular dedication to this: Do not prematurely evaluate ideas. Leave that to the realists (aka CFO’s and accountants) and wait for a good level-headed strategy session later on. Critical evaluation of ideas is important, but it is for a later time.

6. Have a Safe Word

Finally, build into the brainstorm a place of refuge for anyone who feels like their idea is being unfairly attacked. Make it fun, light, add an action to it, but whatever you do, make sure that your creative team feels safe to explore. The safe word or action should be decided on beforehand and respected when it is used. Safe words provide a moment of pause that helps everyone to recalibrate and begin moving forward again. Brainstorming with daring creatives is a tremendous amount of fun, tends to look more like fun than work, and is likely to produce more results at a consistently higher quality more often. 

Happy brainstorming!
-@JeremyPostal

Student Ministry in The Trenches: A Story

Following is a short letter that I received a few years ago from one of our high school workers volunteering in a local high school. I love this story partly because I know and have walked with this student for years and partly because it shows a larger picture of why we do youth ministry! 

If you're a youth worker, paid or volunteer, thank you for sharing your life and energy with the next generation of game changers! This story is about you and the impact you and your life, church, and ministry has in the life of students. Please read this slightly edited version (names changed), take a moment to pray for the students in your youth ministry, and then pass the story on.

Student Ministry is more than large events. It's all about in-the-trenches relationships. Photo: Jeremy Postal @ Historymakers, Abbotsford, BC

Jeremy,

I thought I would send you this encouraging story about our campus pastor ministry at (local high school). Last Thursday I spent the entire school day at school. It was a strangely busy day with students and many students were in the centre with a lot of various issues. I sat with 4 boys doing work, talking through home life, and stuff for the first two periods then, in the 3rd period, a student named Caleb came in. We spent time working with this student last year...anyways…without going into too much detail, this student, though an amazingly bright kid, is and has been involved with some severe drug addiction and family trouble.

Caleb is trying to stop using drugs as they are becoming a destructive hold in his life. He shared his biggest goal is to get through high school. Through an amazing 2.5 hour discussion it came to a particular point in conversation whereby we sort of in a round about way talked about Jesus, Life, the bible, sin, new Life in Jesus, and God being a rescuer. It was amazing! At one point I had to actually stop the conversation, because we were totally about to pray in the counseling centre...!

Anyways, as the day progressed it became clear that Caleb had hit a new low and is looking for some hope and some motivation for life. He was being kicked out of the school – however - after our conversation, exchange of contact info, and an invitation to youth, I spoke with the program director. 

The program director said that his major leverage to keep Caleb in school was the fact that the student showed lots of interest in me (the campus pastor) and our church's youth program. The program director said that he viewed "the church youth group as an advocate for high school students," and that he sees our group and students as a "tremendous resources for students’ success in the community and high school."

- Campus Pastor.

Wow! How amazing would it be if every youth ministry in our country was known like this? Youth pastors, workers, and volunteers - what you do is significant and changes lives. Keep at it, don't give up, walk through life with students, and keep advocating for them. We love what you do.

Jeremy Postal is the director of Whistler School, a bible and discipleship school based out of beautiful Whistler, BC. He is passionate about building communities of restoration & creativity with Christ as the focus. You can also catch him regularly on his blog at www.jeremypostal.com or connect via Twitter @JeremyPostal. 

Can't Keep Up? 5 Ways to Simplify Student Ministry

In today’s climate of youth ministry the pace and workload of the average youth worker seems to be ramping up and the number of overworked and burned out pastors is almost unbelievable. With so many demands, programs, events, and people to please (or pastor), it seems like the only choice is for the youth worker to work harder.

But working harder doesn’t usually mean that you are working smarter. In fact, working harder is typically the onramp to a road of burnout, frustration, or pride. Simply, youth workers must learn the rules of efficiency and productivity in order to keep pace with the vocational side of their calling.

RockShox Pump Track Challenge - Crankworx 2012, Whistler BC

Work Smarter, Not Harder

1. Write a Yearly Plan

With the rate of change found in today’s youth culture, writing a 5-year plan is nearly useless. A plan crafted even two or three years ago is at best a cultural dinosaur and at worst, working against you. However, there is definite benefit in getting away for a few days to pray, dream, and strategize into the coming years’ focus and how it will look and feel. Writing a yearly plan and then working that plan will save you a ton of anxiety and will build your leadership credibility. Trying to organize & inspire your students, volunteers, and parents while having no idea what the next month or two holds is frustrating to everyone involved.

A good plan, actually, sets the stage for a youth worker to be prepared. Preparedness is far more significant and noteworthy than the plan itself allowing the youth worker to be ready and flexible – key performance indicators of a good plan. Trust me, it’s worth your time.     

2. Eliminate

Not every task that comes across the desk of a youth worker is worth doing. Or, if the task is worth doing, it doesn’t mean that the youth worker must do the task. This game is called Prioritizing and there are seven rules:

1. There are urgent items on your task list.
2. There are important items on your task list.
3. Know the difference.
4. Do what is important first.
5. Next, do what is urgent.
6. When you missed “urgent” because you did what was important, it is important to congratulate yourself. Urgent took care of itself.
7. Repeat.

To stay sharp and energized for the important tasks, eliminate lesser tasks from your schedule, thoughts, and energy.

3. Train Leaders & Delegate

There are two ways that pastors screw this up: one, by delegating a task and then micromanaging it and two, by delegating a task and then offering no guidance or parameters. Delegating is the smart money on most things if you do it right.

PS – You don’t have to only delegate to people. Delegating to technology is also a great option! The key here is automation: autoresponders, filters, and applications that help you batch.

4. Batch Tasks

Is it more efficient to respond to emails as you get them or to respond to emails in one sitting? Studies show that every interruption requires approximately 20 minutes of recovery time to return to the same level of concentration. This means that every tweet, email, phone call, or Facebook notification that grabs your attention slaps your efficiency in the face. Batching tasks allows one set up and tear down time, focused energy, and better output.

Practically, I respond to emails once per/day, I write 3-5 blog posts in one sitting, and I’ll stack a bunch of meetings on top of each other. The goal is to only do one task at a time and only when the task needs to be done.

5. Shorter Deadlines

If there are ten hours available to complete a task, guess how many hours the task will take? Ten. Guess how long it will take to do the same task if the available hours are five? Creating tighter deadlines forces the real work to get done with as much focus and learning as possible. In the world of industry and start-ups, this is called the minimum viable product. Guaranteed, those lingering projects will never finish if you don’t set a deadline.

As youth workers and church leaders the bulk of our ministry doesn’t happen behind a desk in some bunkered down office. Youth ministry happens with people – students, volunteers, and parents – and so we must create sustainable administrative structures that will free our time to do just that, spend time with people. 

Jeremy Postal is the director of Whistler School, a bible and discipleship school based out of beautiful Whistler, BC. He is passionate about building communities of restoration & creativity with Christ as the focus. You can also catch him regularly on his blog at www.jeremypostal.com or connect via Twitter @JeremyPostal.