Those further along in their leadership journey likely need to be guided differently than those just starting. Team members further along in their development are more likely to be high-capacity leaders. High-capacity leaders can be challenging to manage. They have high expectations for themselves and others, a constant drive for growth, and are impatient with mediocrity. Many times, it is hard to keep them satisfied or even to hold on to them at all. So, what can a leader do to manage a high-capacity leader?

1. Grow Yourself –You are the pacemaker for your team. You set the example. If you set a culture of personal growth, you will inspire many of your team members to grow themselves. You will also make the high-capacity leaders on your team feel as though they are in a growth environment. 
2. Give Them What They Need to Succeed – Don’t hold your high-capacity leaders back. Give them the tools that they need to succeed. Give them the freedom to do their work without being micromanaged. Give them the ability to try new things. Don’t tie them down to doing the same things all the time. Give them room to work and let them take your organization to the next level.
3. Give Them Good Work – High-capacity leaders get things done, but that doesn’t mean you should give them the worst jobs because you know they will do it. Give them the best projects to benefit the organization while at the same time stretching their leadership abilities. 
4. Share How They Are Making a Positive Impact – High-capacity leaders typically like to know that they are being productive and making a difference. Share with them and others how they are making a difference. This could be as simple as commenting to them in the hall about something you noticed they did well or sharing their success with the whole team. The occasional card – or even gift card – also goes a long way.
5. Encourage and Pay for Personal & Professional Development – Continue to invest in their growth. Buy them books. Send them to the conference. Hire them a coach. Bring in a consultant. Give them some money to take another leader to lunch. Help them grow their network which will broaden their horizons, provide new insights, and help them develop valuable connections outside the organization.
6. Challenge Them to Think Bigger and Risk More – High-capacity leaders often already think big but challenge them to think even bigger. This excites the individual and lets them know they are in an environment where they will grow more.   Often, they will rise to the challenge, bringing even bigger results than what they were already achieving. 
7. Support Work-life Balance: High-capacity leaders can sometimes be prone to burnout. Encourage your team members to maintain a healthy work-life balance and model it yourself. Encourage them to take time off when needed, promote flexible working arrangements, and create an environment where self-care is prioritized.
8. Pray for Them – As a pastor, I believe the most important thing you can do for your team is pray for them. Check-in with them regularly to know what is happening in their life. Pray for them, their family if they have one, and their job/ministry. 

High-capacity leaders can be hard to manage. Left unsupported, they can become discouraged or even leave the organization. But doing a few simple things can go a long way to seeing them grow and achieve even more than ever before.

Recently I was challenged to think more critically about my preaching, specifically when it comes to application.  Often when we preach, the application of that preaching is for use in the church, or in our private Christian lives.  It may be how to serve in ministry, how to pray, read our Bibles, or live out any other number of Christian disciplines.  There is certainly nothing wrong with sermons that teach us how do any of this, as they are a part of Christian life and growing in these areas is drastically needed.  We need to preach sermons that cover these topics.  However, effective preaching, preaching that sticks with people, should cover far more ground.

Think about the average person’s week.  Most working adults will spend 40, 50 or 60 hours a week at work.  Many people sitting on the pews Sunday, have families and friends that they will share most evenings and weekends with.  Some will spend hours enjoying hobbies, whether that is playing golf, watching baseball, or running half marathons.  They’ll coach pop warner, volunteer in civic organizations, and take naps.  Those are all great things.  On the not-so-great side, some studies say the average American is spending over five hours a day watching TV, and spending countless hours online mindlessly scrolling through Facebook.  Those that attend church will also sit in service for an hour, or hour and half, each week.  Additionally, they may even volunteer in a ministry or attend a class.  Hopefully they will spend time praying and reading their Bibles as well.

Here is the issue though, even if we rounded up, and said the average person sitting on the pews spends 10 hours a week in church and focused on spiritual disciplines, it is still only 10 hours.  Ten hours is a pretty small part of someone’s week.  Clearly, the majority of people’s time is spent outside the church, whether it is with family or watching ESPN.

This is where many sermons miss the mark.  With people spending 158+ hours of their time outside the church each week, sermons that exclusively focus on the 10 hours are not addressing the largest part of  people’s lives.  The challenge I was given a few weeks ago was worded this way, when you are preparing your sermon for a Sunday, don’t think about where the people in the congregation are going to be 10:00am on a Sunday…think about where they will be at 10:00am on Monday.  They most likely won’t be sitting in a church pew, they will be sitting in a cubicle at work.  They won’t be rushing around the church serving, they will be rushing around town doing errands.  They won’t be sitting and listening to you, they will be sitting and listening to their professor lecture or their doctor give them a diagnosis.  Think about where they are going to be at 10:00am Monday morning and make sure you sermon speaks to that situation.  Think about how to apply your sermon to the largest percentage of people’s lives, their life outside the church, and it will be much more memorable.

At lot more people would remember our sermons if we would think about how they were going to apply what we were saying on a Monday at 10:00am.

This one day local conference, on Tuesday, June 13th,  is designed to help pastors and church leaders create fresh momentum and energy in their ministries, promote and market their churches better within their communities, and so much more!  In order to make the conference as accessible as possible, the cost is only $30, which includes a catered lunch.

If you are a pastor or church leader in New England you do not want to miss out on this special day!  To register, or find out more information, simply go to nepastorsinitiative.org.

Too many pastors go for the quick kill.  They are looking for the one big event that will reach their community and bring hundreds, if not thousands, of people to their church.  They start a new ministry hoping that it will immediately touch a felt need around them and reach a throng of new people.  They are looking for a silver bullet, one that kills quickly all in one shot.

The reality is, that is not how most growing churches actually grow.  Most churches grow slowly over years.  Most healthy churches grow one day, and one small decision, at a time.  They build a reputation based not on doing one event well, but on doing many things well over the course of years.  Gary McIntosh of the Church Growth Network said it this way, “Word of mouth is not based on one thing you do or donâ€t do.  Itâ€s the result of tens or hundreds of little things you do consistently well.  Occasionally, short term rumors may focus on one particular aspect of your ministry.  The long-term rumors, or word-of-mouth conversation, changes slowly since it depends on the history of ministry found in your church over many years.”

Most churches grow when they do things consistently well over many years.   One great event is not likely to singlehandedly grow a church, however, doing a great Easter production every year over the course of decades might.  Preaching one great sermon that knocks it out of the park probably won’t do much to help your church grow, but preaching consistently solid sermons every week will.  Going the extra mile to care for one family in need is important, but caring and ministering to families over the course of years is what truly builds a church’s reputation.  It’s not the one time event that grows a church, it is the faithful ministry over the course of a long time.

The question becomes then, not what big event are we planning next, but what reputation are we building with each and every small decision we make.  Are we caring for people by visiting them in the hospital?  Are we providing quality ministries, not just one time, but each and every week?  Are we administrating the day-to-day business of the church well? Are we doing small and consistent things in our community to build a good reputation? Are we loving people and sharing the love of Christ in every interaction we have?

There is no quick route to church growth.  Churches grow slowly, by building a reputation over time and through doing the small things well.  So, what type of reputation is your church building?

I was wrong.  Please forgive me.  I’m sorry.  I love you.

I was wrong. Many people today have a hard time ever admitting they were wrong.  Sometimes they may have a blind spot to their faults, others walk through their whole life with a victim mentality believing every wrong they’ve ever experienced has been due to someone else, but when we are able to admit we’ve messed up it begins the mending process in a fractured relationship.

Please forgive me.  It is not enough to simply note that we’ve done something wrong though, we also have to ask for forgiveness.  When we ask for forgiveness we are saying we understand that our mistake had consequences beyond ourselves and affected other people as well.  It is a recognition that we hurt others and need them to be a part of the process of making this situation right again.

I’m sorry.  Saying one is sorry goes beyond saying we were wrong and asking forgiveness for the damage done, it is saying we are repentant and that we will not do it again.  Saying we are sorry shows remorse.  Most people are forgiving people, but after a while even the most forgiving person has a hard time forgiving someone over and over again for the exact same mistake.  Eventually, for the relationship to be right someone has to say “I’m sorry and I will not do this again.”

I love you. Saying I love you takes things even further.  It is saying not only have a messed up, caused damaged, and do not want to repeat the same mistake again, but also  lets the person know that you value them and the relationship.  Saying I love you says that we want to move past the mistake and want to move forward again.

I was wrong.  Please forgive me.  I’m sorry.  I love you.   Eleven short, but very powerful words.  When was the last time you said these eleven words?  Perhaps there is there someone in your life right now that you need to go and say them to.

As a pastor, here are some of my current favorites…

• The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast: Lead Like Never Before – This podcast is designed to help you develop as a leader in your church or business.
• The ChurchLeaders Podcast – This podcast features all sorts of church leaders speaking on a wide range of topics of interest to those involved in church ministry.
• Vanderbloemen Leadership Podcast – This podcast focuses on building and leading great teams.
• Perry Noble Leadership Podcast – This podcast will stretch you as a leader and force you to think more like Christ.
• unSeminary Podcast – This podcast gives practical, tangible and easy to use ideas for ministry.
• Rainer on Leadership – Great easily applicable advice for local church ministry.
• The Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast – This podcast, obviously put out by Andy Stanley, is designed to help you go further as a leader.
• The Productivity Show – Getting Things Done – This is a great podcast full of amazing ways to save time and increase productivity.

These are some of my favorites.  What about you?  What do you listen to?  If nothing, maybe consider subscribing to one of the ones above, or something you are interested in, this week.

Upward Mentoring – Upward mentoring is what most people think of when they picture mentoring. An upward mentor is someone you look up to.  Many times they are older, been around the block a time or two, and they are able to mentor you because they have been there and done that before.  This could be a boss, a parent, a pastor or a good older friend.  Upward mentors have learned some lessons in life and want to pass them off to others who are coming after them.

Downward Mentoring – Downward mentoring is you being the mentor to someone else.  It is taking the time to pour into the life of someone who perceives you as being ahead of them in age, experience or effectiveness.  When we take the time to pour into the lives of others we insure that the lessons we’ve learned won’t get lost on just us.  Also, when we take the time to teach something to someone else it has a way of solidifying that lesson in our own life even more, and also allows us to grow as leaders.

Inside Mentoring – Inside mentors are mentors from within your own organizations.  This could be a co-worker, a friend or even someone with a similar hobby.  This relationship is usually about mutual growth and accountability.  For me, the other pastors I co-labor at my church are my inside mentors.  We encourage other, read books together, challenge each other, and hold one another accountable.

Outside Mentoring – Outside mentors are mentors from outside your own organization. As a pastor for me this would be other pastors from outside my own church and denomination.  We have a lot in common to talk about and to learn from one another, because we are in the same field doing the same types of things, but we don’t interact as often as I do those from inside my own church.

Distance Mentoring – A fifth category of mentors is distance mentors.  Most often the mentoring that happens in the first four categories above, happens in personal relationships.  Distance mentoring is different though.  Distance mentoring happens when someone is a mentor by learning through the books they write, the blogs they post, the podcasts they produce, the sermons they preach and put online.  Oftentimes one may never even meet their distance mentors, but those mentoring relationships have a huge impact on the life of the person being mentored.

Pursuing these five types of mentoring relationships will help anyone grow.  But what about you.  What kind of mentoring relationships do you currently have in your life?  What do you need to add?  Whatever our field, to truly be the best we can be, we need various people speaking into our lives.

There is tremendous power in going somewhere private to study, rehearse, or practice in solitude.   Susan Cain, in her book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, describes a study conducted on violinists.  Researchers broke the violinists into three groups: world class career violinists that solo on the international stage, great players that may play in an orchestra or professionally in some capacity, and those that were okay but ultimately would most likely end up teachers rather than actual performers.  Then they studied the three groups practice routines, and what they found was truly amazing.  All three groups practiced a lot, spending more than 50 hours a week on music related activities, but what they discovered was that the two best groups practiced in solitude an average of 24.3 hours a week.  This compared to violinists that were not as good, who only practiced 9.3 hours a week in solitude.  Read that again, all the groups practiced the same amount of time, the only difference was that the world class violinists practiced alone far more than those who were only mediocre performers. They followed this study up with interviews and when they asked these best violinist what the most important part of their practice was, they nearly all mentioned solo practice as most important, as that is where the “real work gets done.”

The power of practicing in solitude doesn’t just apply to music.  A grandmaster in chess typically puts in over 5,000 hours of practice alone.  Like me, studies show that college students that study alone typically do better than those that study with others.  Research has shown that the best computer programers work in private, not on teams.  Elite athletes, even those that participate in team sports, often practice different drills in solitude to improve.  Why? Clark gives three reasons.  First, practicing alone allows you to have intense concentration.  When others are around people tend to get distracted.  Other people move you off topic, you don’t accomplish as much practice.  Second, to practice in solitude requires deep motivation.  The desire has to be self generated, which means when you are there, you are there to truly get work done.  Finally, and perhaps most importantly, practicing in solitude allows you to work on task that is most challenging to you personally.   No studying questions you already know, doing drills you already have down cold, and no practicing things you’ve already mastered.  When you practice in solitude you can work on what what is challenging to you, and improve in that without being held back by the group.

Thankfully, I don’t have to study for many exams these days, but the power of solitude is still something I practice every day.  Daily, I try to block time off to get alone and work on the most important tasks that I am supposed to be accomplishing.  Truthfully, when I don’t get this alone time to work on things (usually because I am caught in meetings all day), I feel frustrated as I likely didn’t make the progress I needed to in certain areas.  Daily I also schedule time alone focusing on praying, reading and memorizing.  Skipping this daily quiet time keeps me from growing consistently.  Currently I am enrolled in Doctor of Ministry program, which requires me to spend time regularly alone reading, studying, writing.  If I skipped these daily times in solitude, I have no doubt that my work, personal life and studies would all suffer.  I may not be studying for an exam, or learning to play an instrument, but improving at my work and life requires me to find time for solitude every day. It’s a time I try to never miss.

What about you though, what could you improve in or accomplish today if you just set aside one hour to work on something in solitude?

Some teams thrive and tragically some teams do not.  There are many reasons why one team fails and another succeeds, but one of the biggest factors is the amount of trust among team members.  Simon Sinek writes, “If certain conditions are met and the people inside an organization feel safe among each other, they will work together to achieve things none of them could have ever achieved alone. The result is that their organization towers over their competitors.”

Thankfully, I have been blessed to work on several good teams where I felt this type of safety.  In my current assignment, I work with a team of people that strive to help, empower and love one another.  We often donâ€t do it perfectly, but we aim to do it better every day.  On this team, I have been given a measure of responsibility, and so I try to facilitate team member care in at least three ways.

Investing.  The first way to establish trust is by investing in someone and showing you care about them growing in their role and growing as an individual.  There are many ways to do this, one way is through the sharing of resources.  Whether it is as simple as passing along a good blog or podcast, or finding a great conference that would be beneficial to them, passing along resources to help, empower, and set others up for success, lets them know you care about them growing.   When people feel like others are trying to help them do better, and be better, they feel valued.

Passing along a few resources and sending people to a few conferences are not enough, however, to make them feel genuinely safe and cared for.  The greatest investment you can make in someone is to give them your time and attention.  To slow down enough to simply check in and see how they are doing.  To ask about their life and family.  To take a moment and grab a cup of coffee to find out about the biggest challenge they are facing, and then offer them some advice.  Investing your most valuable resource, your time, goes a long way to building the trust that is needed in successful teams.

Listening.  This leads to a second way to make people feel safe, by genuinely listening to them.  Note the word genuinely.  Many people are horrible listeners.  Some are good at pretending to listen.  Other people are actually good at listening for comprehension, but even that is not enough for developing trust on a team.  The type of listeners that are good team builders are empathetic listeners.

Empathetic listeners not only listen and comprehend what is being said, but they make the effort to feel what the other person is feeling.  They seek to understand why a person is saying what they are saying.  They ask clarifying questions.  They give them their undivided attention.   They quietly listen rather than speak, seeking to “understand before being understood.”  This is the type of listening that builds team member trust.

Many times, however, we are so busy doing our own thing that we never slow down to really listen to what is going on in the life of a team member.  They may be stuck, or confused, or hurt, but we wouldnâ€t know because we never actually listen to what is going on in their world.   People feel safe when they feel like that have someone to talk to, and someone that will listen to them and care.

Loving.  Perhaps the greatest way to grow trust on a team is when people make a mistake and they still feel loved after making it.  This doesnâ€t mean we let mistakes go unaddressed.  An “anything goes” culture will kill a team just as quickly as a lack of trust.  Also, not addressing things with people is an unloving thing to do, as it doesnâ€t give them the opportunity to learn and grow like they should.  Trust is established, however, when mistakes are made and the conversation is more along the lines of “what are we going to learn from this” rather than “how could you be so stupid to do this.”

Unfortunately, many people donâ€t serve in environments where mistakes are tolerated, so when they inevitability happen, an opportunity for growth is missed.  Whether someone fails due to a lack of attention or because they tried something new that just didnâ€t go quite as planned (which are two very different kinds of failure), there is an opportunity to learn and grow.  Great teams grow when someone messes up, because they help that person become a better person learning from their failure, rather than beating them down because of it.

These are three ways that I strive to develop a culture of trust and safety on my team.  I strive to do these because I want us to achieve things none of us “could have ever achieved alone.”

What other ways do you see to build safety among teams?

First, positional leaders should be invited.  This is the people your church that lead various ministries, whether that be men’s or women’s ministry, ushers, greeters, children’s, youth or other ministries.  This also includes the staff, board members and perhaps even their spouses.  Anyone who has a position of leadership in the church should be invited.

Second, influential leaders should be invited.  Some people are leaders in the church despite the fact they do not have a title to go with their name.  They may not be leading the men’s or women’s ministry but they may be a man or woman of great influence. Perhaps they don’t lead the Christian education ministry but everyone knows they are the best teacher in the church. Or, maybe they have just been attending the church longer than most.  Whatever the reason, despite the fact they do not have a position of leadership, they still have influence and they should be invited.

Next, leaders in training should be invited.  This could be Bible college or seminary students doing a formal internship.  It could be people in the congregation that have simply expressed an interest in going to the next level in their commitment to the church or have even said they are interested in exploring the possibility of vocational ministry.  The bottom line is that they are people who may not be leading a ministry now, but likely will be in the future.

Finally, those you see potential in should be invited.  From time-to-time, you will no doubt have those in your church that just show tremendous potential.  They may not be leading a ministry now, they may not have much influence in the church, they may not even say that they what to be trained to lead, but when you look at them you just know that there is something special there.  Inviting them to be a part of what God is doing at the leadership level in your church just might be the spark that they need to take that next step in their walk with God.

Positional leaders, influential leaders, leaders in training and those you see potential in are all people that should be invited to your church leadership meetings.  Getting these four groups together to pray, cast vision, share stories of what God is doing and for leadership training has the potential to greatly impact your church.

What do you think, though?  Are there other people who should be invited to be a part of these inner circle meetings?