I’m a leader by nature.  I love to try to create something out of nothing, take the 30,000 foot view and dream about the future.  I’m also very fortunate to have some very gifted and talented people around me.  One of the people on our leadership team is an exceptional manager (and a leader in her own right).  We get a long incredibly well except that we would sense a tension that arose from time to time in meetings.

When I would dream out loud, she would try to figure out how much it would cost, who would follow up and how it would fit into our strategic plan.  Sometimes that was welcome.  Often it bugged me.

At other times we’d be in a meeting and she would be so hyper focused on follow through, logistics and next steps that I would feel suffocated.  I felt like I need to get out of the room and get some air.

When we drilled down on it I learned she felt the same way for opposite reasons:  it was my dreaming that bothered her.  If she didn’t see practical or immediate value in it, and couldn’t reign me in, she would feel like she needed to leave the room to get some air or have a conversation with someone who had more practical bones in his body.

Then we consulted a corporate coach who helped us see that both approaches were absolutely indispensable to the growth of our ministry.  We need dreamers..and dreamers need room to dream.  And we need people who excel at execution like she does. And they need to plot next steps because otherwise, dreams remain just that….dreams.

It sounds so simple but sometimes you can be in the same room and just miss it.

Since someone named the value in both of our approaches we’ve been able to have more productive meetings, an even better working relationship and an even deeper appreciation for what we both bring to the table as leaders.

Questions:  Leaders…what do you need to do to better value great managers around you?  Managers, what do you need to do to affirm the leaders and dreamers around you?

I was surprised recently by statistics by the Barna Group that showed that only 4% of churches in the US have an attendance of over 500 people.

In the United States today, here’s how churches break down according to size:

• Very small churches (1-50 attenders) – 26%
• Small churches (51-100 attenders) 35%
• Medium churches (101-200 attenders) – 24%
• Large churches (201-499 attenders) – 11%
• Very large churches (501+ attenders) – 4%

While Canadian statistics are hard to find, older stats show that only 4% of Canadian churches have attendances of over 350 people.

I’ve led churches that had a total attendance of six right through to the ‘very large church’ category (although it still feels small to us).  It made me reflect on the difference between leading a small church and leading a larger one.  And I realized an important shift happened along the way:

When the church was small, I did almost everything.  Now that I lead Connexus, I do almost nothing.

When we were under a hundred people, I visited, wrote the bulletin, printed the bulletin, led the bible studies, saw people in hospital. As we grew, I gave more and more of that leadership away to people and set up systems to help people be reached and cared for.  We also stopped doing things we used to do.

The tension I felt was that I was actually competent at much of what I did.  Not great, but somewhat competent.  At least in my own mind.

One of the main challenges a leader faces is deciding what he’s going to stop doing so others who are great at it can start doing it.  Even if you’re competent at it and like it, your community will only grow as large as what you release to others.

Although I joke about doing nothing today, the truth is I’ve learned to focus almost all of my energy and time on leading, casting vision, speaking and building into key staff and leaders.  My best guess is that over 90% of the day to day ministry at Connexus happens without my direct input.  In fact, I actually couldn’t do a good chunk of what happens.  I simply don’t know how to.  We’ve hired a lot of competent, knowledgable people who are so much better than I am at what we do.  And we have hundreds of volunteers bringing their skill and heart into fulfilling our mission.

As I think about what’s holding back churches from reaching more people, I wonder how much of that growth might not be related to prayer, devotion or even having a great ministry.  I wonder how much might be related to what leaders insist on doing themselves.

What are you learning in this area?  What are you releasing?  What are you hanging onto that you could release?