My guess is that, whatever you lead, you

Want to lead an aligned organization

See as much agreement in your organization as you can

Find and cultivate consensus

Let me go out on a limb here and guess that it’s been a struggle.

Aligning people around a common mission, vision and strategy is hard work. 

Getting people to agree is difficult.

And finding consensus can sometimes seem impossible. 

I get that. I’ve been there.

The trap I’ve seen so many leaders fall into is that they approach alignment, agreement and consensus backwards.

Many (if not most) leaders try to get:

Consensus first.

Agreement second.

Alignment third.

I’ve tried that too.

The problem with that approach is it almost never works. In fact, it’s backwards.

When you figure out the right order, it can change how you lead forever, and help everyone involved.

If you miss it, it can leave you and everyone you lead floundering.

Consider this: when the automobile was first invented, almost nobody saw how big the car would become. The Literary Digest wrote:

“The ordinary “horseless carriage” is at present a luxury for the wealthy; and although its price will probably fall in the future, it will never, of course, come into as common use as the bicycle.”

Consensus about the car developed after the car was introduced. Not before.

The application to your situation is direct.

So let’s get at it.

Keep reading this post…

I’ve said it. You might have said it too.

Leadership is lonely.

For all my time since graduating university, I’ve been a senior leader. It sounds more glamourous than it is.

When I started, all three churches I served had a total attendance of less than 50 people; I was the senior leader because I was the only paid leader. But as our ministry has grown, I’m leading more people than I’ve ever led. And with over a dozen staff and 1500 people who call our church home, I find myself something thinking that leadership is lonely.

Ever said these things as a leader?

Nobody understand what this leadership load is like.

People don’t really care how I feel.

It’s lonely at the top.

Leadership is just lonely.

I have. And I began to accept loneliness as part of the job.

Sure, I know I things happened along the way:

Early on in ministry I got ‘peopled out’ – I got worn down by the constant demands on my time.

My time in leadership has actually seen me move from a moderate extrovert to a moderate introvert in my personality type.

I’ve had to struggle hard to keep my heart fresh and to keep cynicism from overtaking me (see these posts for five early warning signs of a hard heart and ways to avoid becoming cynical).

I’ve also begun to realize that being lonely is a terrible way to live.

Sure, we come by it honestly.

Doing things alone is part of our culture. Ever think through High Occupancy Vehicle lanes?

Two people in a car passes as ‘high occupancy’ in our culture. Over 9 out of 10 people drive alone!!

People might live that way.

But you don’t have to lead that way.

Keep reading this post…

I read a survey the other day that made me literally sit up straight as I took notice.

The number of people in Canada (my country) who profess “no religion” is now at 24%, up from 16.5% a decade earlier.

That’s a massive shift in a mere ten years.

As I reflect on it all, I’m left with this growing realization.

People are learning to live comfortably without God. 

Want to see where this might be heading? Go to Western Europe, where people have very comfortable lives and only a splinter regularly attend church. They just don’t see their need for God.

Rather than being met with a wall of hostility, Christians are mostly being met with a wall of indifference and perceived irrelevance. 

I believe that means a massive shift in attitude and approach for those of us in leadership in the local church.

Much of the church’s outreach over the last 60 years has been based on a few assumptions that are less and less true every year:

Young adults will return to church when they have kids. 

People will turn to God when they hit a crisis.

Most people will come back to what they left when they were young. 

When people have spiritual needs, they will look to the church to fulfill them.

Instead, here’s what I see as increasingly true among unchurched people who are learning to live comfortably without God:

Affluence (even many of our poor are affluent from a global perspective) has left people with a sense they have all they need to face life.

People don’t always turn to God in a crisis; they honestly don’t think the church can help.

You can only come back to something you knew; when you are on your second or third generation of ‘unchurched’, there is nothing to come back to for many people.

Personalized, google-able spirituality doesn’t demand the assistance of anyone or anything else. 

So how do you reach a growing number of people who are learning to live comfortably without God?

Keep reading this post…