All posts tagged leadership

A Note to Leaders… We (Younger Leaders) Need You!

by Tim Schraeder on 11/21/2011 in Leadership with 2 Comments

I recently shared a note to young leaders saying that we don’t know it all. I also highlighted the fact that we are in desperate need of ‘seasoned’ leaders to come alongside of us… so here’s my encouragement to leaders:

We [Millennials] Live in a New World

The landscape of our world, for better or worse, has changed dramatically in the time that Millennials have grown up.

Our world is not the same.

Many of the trusted institutions [government, religion and family] have failed us and young leaders have been left disillusioned and uncertain of the role they can play in creating a better world.

Relationships and connection matter deeply to us, and our relationships are both vital and sometimes virtual. We grew up in broken families and many of us have lacked a significant relationship with an adult who has taken the time to care for us. Our “friends” may be people we’ve known since childhood or people we’ve never even met in person who live on the other side of the globe.

Many of us love Jesus but have a so-so relationship with the Church. We value faith and relationship with Christ but there’s a disconnect from the church we read about in the pages of the Bible and the ones we see in our world today. We don’t like church as an organization or the systematized way it seems so many churches spew our disciples. We crave authentic, organic Christian community. Programs don’t work for us. Relationships do.

We are passionate and provoked. We want to be a part of something that is larger than ourselves. We want our lives and our work to matter. We want to do more than work a 9-5 and happily retire. We want to think up new ideas, create new things, and take advantage of the opportunities in front of us to make our world a better place. We take Jesus’ words seriously about loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbor, whether they are next door or on the other side of the world, as ourselves.

We’ve already done some pretty remarkable things. We’ve put feet to our faith and gone into the world to create new things and do remarkable good… and most importantly, to advance the Kingdom of God. And, we know there’s much more inside of us that God wants to call out of us.

We have the right ingredients to do great things but sometimes may lack a solid foundation to build upon. The truth is…

…we need you.

We need your godly example and wisdom to help us navigate how to live for Christ in a world that is moving further away from Him. We need your counsel as we follow the journey Christ has set before us. We need your insight as we make crucial decisions that will shape our future. We need your correction need your input as we pursue our callings. We need you to speak into our lives. We need you to help us as we move forward. We need you to share the dark sides of your story and to speak to us from the painful parts of your past. We need you to embrace us. We need you to be spiritual mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, in the family of God. We need you to model for us what faithfulness looks like in the context of your relationship with God and with others. We need you to show us what we can’t see and help us give words and meaning to the things we can’t express. We need you to be authentic and genuine, we value transparency. We need you to be graceful as we bump against the guard rails and sometimes let our unbridled passion to make a difference get in front of us. We need you to hold us accountable and to help us hold the course on commitments we’ve made. We need you to pray for us. We need you to share what you’ve learned the hard way so we don’t make the same mistakes. We need you to help us see a better picture of what we could become. We need you to help us make sense of what we don’t understand. We need you to listen as we ask hard questions. We need you help us wrestle with our doubt and uncertainty. We need your words of affirmation and encouragement. We need you to trust us. We need you to believe in us. We need you to be there for us. We need you to be our mentors, spiritual directors, guides, and sages. We need you to pour into us as we pour out our lives for others.  We have a big job ahead of us and need all of the help that we can get.

We know we can be a bit of a challenge…

We know that it can be intimidating for you when young bucks like us show up on the scene. We know that it could be easy for you to get insecure or uncertain of having us around the table in conversations. We know that you could sometimes feel threatened about how quickly we can adapt and roll with the changing culture we live in. We understand that you care deeply about the work you’ve done and please know we have no intentions of undermining it or devaluing the important work you’ve done. We sometimes can get lost in our passion and cry out for change, but we care because we know that change matters. Don’t let the scare you. We just want to help build upon what you’ve already done and, together, do even greater things. We know you were ‘young like us’ once, and truthfully, we just want to rub shoulders with you so we can learn. We believe there’s more you have to offer and more you have to give. We recognize and honor the work you’ve done, even though we might not always clearly articulate it. The truth is…

…we need each other.

This whole thing is really a two-way street.

There’s a lot we know you have to give and there’s certainly a lot we have to learn. But, there’s also a lot we could teach you, too. Technology, the language of our culture, the speed of change… these are all things we understand because it’s the world we’ve always known. As you help us we can help you. Imagine what we could do together. There’s a lot we could learn from each other and I guarantee if you give us a chance you’ll see. We need you. You need us. The work we are doing matters too much for us to be separated and segregated. We need the wisdom of those who have gone before along with the passion of emerging leaders to collectively move the church and the work God has called us to do forward.

This isn’t “us vs you,” this is all of us in front of the great task God has called for each one of us to fulfill: to go into this world and make disciples.

We should start by investing in one another… imagine what God could do.

We need each other.

And speaking on behalf of all young leaders, let me say that we need you.

A Note to Young Leaders… We Don’t Know It All

by Tim Schraeder on 11/19/2011 in Leadership with 10 Comments

Being a “young leader,” I am definitely so excited about the incredible things our generation is doing in the world today.

Whether on the platform of ministry, leading social enterprises to create good, or living out our faith in new ways in the public square, we are doing some pretty remarkable things.

We’ve really got the entire world at our fingertips and are able to connect with people around the globe like never before. We have more available to us than any other generation before us and our potential is really limitless. We’ve seen the landscape of our world be flattened by technology, have lived through massive cultural changes, live in new economic realities, and are able to go and do things that generations before us could have never dreamed was possible.

We  are poised to do incredible things to make our world a better place and see more people come to know Christ and be connected with the local church. We take seriously the words of Christ to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

It’s an amazing thing to witness and something that’s humbling to be a part of.

God has created, chosen, and called us to walk on this earth for this time in history… amidst times of massive change, great need, cultural revolution, and technological advancements, we’ve been given the keys to shape the future. That’s a pretty tall order.

In our passion and zeal to change the world and create good… with our commitment to Christ and desire to lead the Church forward… and with our drive to do go against the institutions or “the man,” let me, as one of you, humbly confess, we don’t know it all.

Now I know we all share a lot of doubt about what we’ve inherited. We can be disillusioned by faith and have distrust for the church as we know it. We can be dissatisfied with the way things have been done and want to do things dramatically different. I know that it’s easy to write off the past and press forward to create a better future. I’ve felt the pain of being looked down upon because I was young. I know the frustration you can have if people who are older or who are in leadership over you “don’t get it.” I know sometimes it would be easy to just want to abandon the trail and blaze your own path. I get it.

But I’m also learning [and sometimes the hard way] that there is a lot we don’t know. There’s a lot we haven’t experienced. There’s a lot we don’t fully understand. There’s much, much more we have to learn. In our youthful exuberance we can miss some vital wisdom.

Simply put, we need to be teachable. And we need mentors.

We need to be willing to be teachable and to be able to take correction. We need to pause in the midst of creating great output and get input. And we need those who are further down the path to invest in us and impart wisdom they’ve learned along their journey.

We need men and women in our lives who have lived a little bit longer and experienced more to help us as we navigate our journeys and pursue our callings. We need people to point out our blind spots and lovingly correct us and give us  words of caution. We need to admit we don’t know it all and pursue wisdom from those who have gone before us.

We stand on the shoulders of giants and what we have today is the result of the faithfulness of those who sowed their lives, passion, and energy into us and the churches, organizations, and workplaces where we lead today.

We do a great disservice to ourselves and to God by thinking we know it all or that we have all of the answers. While we are poised to be used by God to great things we cannot neglect the need we have to be discipled and mentored by those who are wiser, older and more experienced.

It seems to me that a lot of us have jumped right into doing things for Christ [which is great] and the expense of being discipled to be more like Christ [which is not so great, at all].

I also realize the frustration you may feel for the lack of mentors that it seems we have.

I’m nearing the age of 29 and have been in ministry for over decade and have lacked a true mentor. I’ve learned a lot through my experience in ministry [and I do believe wisdom can come in the form of experience] but the only significant person I’ve had consistently listening and giving me advice is a counselor I pay to meet with every week.

I’m discovering that mentors won’t come through a program at a church or by filling out a check box in a bulletin. In order to find one, you’ve got to pursue one. You’ve got to be intentional, prayerful, and courageous to pursue those types of relationships.

We can complain there is a lack of mentors and write it off [which I have sadly done in the past] or you can become proactive in seeking one out [which I am currently doing]. I haven’t gotten one yet [yes, this is shameless "ask" to those of you who are older!], but I will say pursuing one may be one of the greatest investments we can make in our lives and development as young leaders.

We need mentors. We need wisdom. We need correction. We need someone to point out our blind spots and to share lessons they’ve learned the hard way. We need to be teachable. We need to be open to what God wants to speak to us through the life, wisdom, and experience of someone else.

We need to also realize the need to “mentor up.”

There is a lot we do understand that others don’t. We get technology, we get what’s happening, we see the changes happening around us because change is a part of our everyday lives. Mentoring can be a two-way relationship. As someone else invests in our lives and speaks truth to us, we need to also be willing to share what we know and candidly speak [in humility!] about the reality of our world and generation today.

There’s much we have to learn and share.

So, would you agree we don’t know it all?

Would you agree that we need mentors?

If you have one, how did you them?

If you are older, what’s stopping you from investing in someone that’s younger?

If you’re younger, what’s stopping you from pursuing a mentoring relationship with someone that’s older?

We need each other.  

Building a Healthy Staff Culture :: Andy Stanley, Catalyst One Day-

by Tim Schraeder on 11/17/2011 in Catalyst One Day with No comments
  • The process is often far more important than the product.
  • The local church should shave the best organization in your city.
  • The Monday-Friday life of your church should be as excellent as your weekends.
  • We have huge advantages… shared faith, shared values, honor, integrity, clear mission, etc.
1- Healthy and productive staff cultures are characterized by mutual submission.
  • Mark 10:32-45
  • …not so with you.
  • …not so with me.
  • Jesus introduced a new paradigm for leadership.
  • Jesus argued against the way it was done.
  • Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant.
  • In being a leader you are becoming a servant of all.
  • You’re not abdicating leadership or abandoning authority, you are becoming a slave or servant of all.
  • Even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve.
  • Jesus is the head of the Church.
Healthy and Productive Staff Cultures  Are Characterized by Healthy Submission
  • The message of mutual submission: I’m here to facilitate your success regardless of where either of us shows up on the organizational church.
  • The assumption of mutual submission: While our responsibilities differ, we are both essential to the success of the enterprise.
  • The question of mutual submission asks: “What can I do to help?”
    • The Gospel is God looking down from Heaven asking, “What can I do to help?”
    • He looked at our pitiful situation and sent His Son for us.
    • Great leaders don’t serve over, they serve under.
    • How can you leverage your power and your influence to make others successful?
    • There is no such thing as God’s anointing on a man or woman of God for ministry.
    • The Anointed One is Jesus.
    • The idea of us being the “anointed” is an Old Testament way of thinking that works against the way Jesus taught.
    • The New Testament way of thinking teaches that every part of the body of Christ is essential.
    • The idea of “the anointed” creeps away into the way we looks at and approach our leadership.
    • We set up our pastors for failure and set our staff up with unhealthy patterns.
    • Jesus gave us a brand-new view of leadership that is all about leveraging our authority for other people’s benefit.
    • We are all essential.
    • Abandon the way of thinking of a pastor as being “the anointed.”
    • That doesn’t dishonor your pastors or leaders, it protects them.

The ultimate dysfunction of a team is the tendency of members to care about something other than the collective goals of the group… Team status and individual status are prime candidates. – The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

Best Practices

Do for one what you wish you could for everyone.

  • “If I do it for you, I’ll have to do it for everyone…”
  • If you want to create a culture of mutual submission, look for opportunities to be fair.
  • Fairness is not a biblical value.
  • Fairness ended at the Garden.
  • Don’t be fair, be engaged.
  • If you use fairness as an excuse to not be engaged, you’re living unbiblically.
Systemize top-down service.
Create and maintain a sustainable pace.
  • Without margin, there is no room to serve.
  • Without margin we seek first our kingdoms.
Celebrate and reward mutual submission when you see it.
  • What’s rewarded is repeated.
Confront your ego.
  • What’s most important, building a great organization or building a great name for yourself?
Drop the term loyalty from your vocabulary.
  • Loyalty isn’t a fruit of the spirit.
  • If you have to ask people to be loyal you have an organizational problem.
  • If you ask for it or demand it, you are the one with a loyalty issue.
  • If you can’t serve people so well to the point they wouldn’t be loyal to you, you’ve got a leadership problem.
  • You don’t need loyalty if you’re leading well.
  • If you need it, you need counseling.

The Decade // 10 Things I’ve Learned from 10 Years in Ministry

by Tim Schraeder on 08/04/2011 in Church Communications, Personal with 9 Comments

This week marks my 10th year in ministry.

That’s a decade.

That makes me feel really old. It also amazes me that I made it this long!

Some days it seems just like yesterday and other days I feel like I’ve been doing this work forever. Regardless, it has been an amazing decade and I’m thankful for the opportunity God has blessed me with to serve the churches and ministries I’ve had the privilege of serving.

I started in ministry as an 18-year-old, right out of high school. I had no formal training but simply had a heart to serve the Church. I learned what I know in the trenches of everyday experience and am thankful I had a church and a pastor who believed in investing in and empowering the next generation of church leaders.

I could not have imagined what God had in store for me and am in awe of the amazing opportunities, people I’ve met, and experiences I’ve been a part of these last 10 years. It’s all by His grace.

Although I’m not on a church staff team today, I’m still heavily involved in the life of the Church and am thankful for the opportunity I have to serve churches with Church Solutions Group and the Center for Church Communication.

These last 10 years have taught me a lot… about myself, ministry, and the church. I decided to share 10 things I’ve learned (5 personal and 5 about the church) from my first decade of ministry.

1 – Surrender your ego at the door. I worked many, many years with the idea that I was God’s answer for the churches I worked at. I wasn’t. I may have been a part of the solution, but I needed to get beyond myself for God to use me to my fullest. Don’t have an ego in ministry. It doesn’t look good on any of us. Be humble. And don’t take yourself or your ideas too seriously. Humility is a posture of the heart and God honors it. It doesn’t matter how gifted or talented you are, if your heart isn’t right, there won’t be much for God to work with.

2 – Submit to the vision and to your leaders. This seems fairly basic but most of the time it’s an area where most young leaders fall short. If you join a church staff team, you are aligning yourself with the vision of that church. Your job, regardless of your title, is to submit to that vision and to do, with all that’s within you, to see that vision fulfilled. Don’t go creating your own vision or ideas of how things should be. If you aren’t in the visionary role, your job is to serve the vision. Honor your leaders and pursue the vision with everything you have. Not only is that the right thing to do, it’s the Scriptural thing to do.

3 – When you feel like it’s time to go, go…but don’t walk away with a rebellious heart or attitude. I’ve seen way too many people stay on church staff teams beyond their time, or leave too quickly. Most people stick with it too long for very good and honorable reasons, but in my experience, if you feel like God is leading you elsewhere the best thing to do is follow that leading. Your staying beyond your time won’t help anyone. Listen to God’s voice intently and follow His leading. Don’t leave with a rebellious attitude, though. The greatest growth happens in hard places. Looking back over 10 years I can say that the years I thought were the hardest in the moment were, in the end, the most fruitful. Running away and doing your own thing isn’t the solution, especially as a young leader. Grow though the hard times and follow God’s voice when He says its time to go.

4 – Remember you’re not pursuing a career, you’re fulfilling a calling. We are not professionals. The church is not a business. Don’t look at what you do as a career. The work we do is work of the Gospel. It’s ministry. Check your heart. Why are you doing what you do? Do you fill like you are fulfilling a calling or performing a function? Sure, sometimes parts of the work we do may feel mechanical but every little thing you do is contributing to something greater that’s all about impacting people’s lives. I can honestly say that in 10 years I never felt like I was “going to work” when I walked into my office. I felt like I was fulfilling something greater and had a sense that I was a part of something bigger than myself. If you want your name in bright lights, you’re in the wrong business. Ministry is hard work but it’s fueled out of a passion and calling that’s inescapable.

5 – Make space for yourself. Working for a church will rob your soul unless you carefully learn to guard it. Learn to make space for yourself and Sabbath. Take a break, rest. Turn your phone/email/other devices off. Set some boundaries. If you can’t think of the last time you took some time for yourself and were able to just “be,” then you need to take a breather. Don’t get so consumed doing work for God that you neglect the time God needs to do work in your own heart and life. Don’t fall for the trap of excellence. Yes, we need to give our all and honor God with our best, but as my friend Shawn Wood says, good enough is fine. Your own heart and soul are primary ministry spaces you need to focus on… that’s where everything else you do flows from.

6 – The Church will never be destroyed by outside forces; churches will always collapse from the inside out. I’ve seen so many churches full of potential lose significant people or momentum because they didn’t know how to deal with internal conflict. Whether its gossip, sin that isn’t addressed, or any other host of reasons, the things that will bring down a church will come from inside. Protect the unity of your team. Support one another. Be willing to have hard conversations and do the right thing. Don’t run from conflict, embrace it and honor God through how you handle it.

7 – Churches that are unwilling to change have an uncertain future. Change is an inevitable part of growth… healthy things grow and growing things change. Don’t make an idol out of what worked in the past. God’s message is unchanging but in a culture that’s adapting and changing, the method in which we communicate it must change, too. Don’t hold on to what worked before, see God and embrace something new. Irrelevance is irreverent. For real. Growth is hard and painful but worth it. What worked yesterday isn’t going to work tomorrow. Do you care more about your methods and ideas than you do about the people in your community that God has called you to reach? Check your perspective? Where’s your focus?

8 – People don’t want programs or events, they want connection and community. We can do some amazing programs and productions and fill people’s schedules with events, but when is all is said and done, all people really want is connection. To be known. To be accepted. To be loved. Don’t forget to focus on the individual. How are you creating space for people to know and be known in community? Community isn’t a noun. Community is what we were created for and is what people desire. Don’t give people another program, give them an on-ramp for connection and relationship. Churches that have healthy community will grow exponentially.

9 – Churches need to stop comparing and start celebrating. I think many churches get bogged down by what’s not working, what they want but don’t have, and don’t realize or celebrate the significance of what God is doing through their ministry. It all comes down to redefining how we measure success. Numbers matter but aren’t a definitive measure of effectiveness. God is doing something amazing in churches all around the world and every church is uniquely wired to bring something to bear in the life of their community. Don’t compare your church to another church, celebrate what God is doing in yours.

10 – The local church is the hope of the world… its future is in our hands. Paraphrasing Bill Hybels there but I believe that statement to be true now more than ever. The Church is God’s idea and His plan. It’s His hands and feet in this world. We are all, regardless of a title or a position, a part of forming and shaping what the Church will look like in the future.In a world filled with hopelessness and uncertainty, injustice and pain, we have hope and know we serve a God who is love and who desires to reconcile us into a relationship with Him and one another. There is nothing like the local church and there is no greater cause to give your life to than to building the House of God. The work we do matters. We stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us and have been given an amazing opportunity in this time in history to carry that calling and to do the work that will extend God’s Kingdom into future generations. The darker our world gets the brighter God’s light will shine through each one of us… and collectively, as the Church, a city on on a hill. No matter what happens, nothing will prevail against us… God will build His church. We get the honor of joining Him in that work.

Immense thanks to Eric Robbins and the team at Columbia Heights Assembly in Longview, Washington; John King and the team at Riverside Community Church in Peoria, Illinois; and to Jackson Crum and the team at Park Community Church in Chicago. You all took a risk with a young buck like me and I cannot thank you all enough for the blessing and opportunity you gave me to serve with you.

Also, I would have been lost without the insight gleaned from some other key people and ministries: the Willow Creek Association and the Global Leadership Summit; Catalyst; ministryCOM; the Center for Church Communication and my friends, mentors, and peers Dawn Nicole Baldwin, Kem Meyer, Kirt Manuel, and Shawn Wood… and many others who have been along for the ride.

Ultimately, thanks be to God for this amazing journey. Every day I’m thankful and humbled to do the work I do and know I’m so unworthy and incapable… it’s all been by God’s grace and faithfulness.

I’m thankful for what God has done and am excited for what’s ahead… greater things are yet to come!

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