“20 Mile March”
As I mentioned in my last blog, I’ve recently finished reading Jim Collins’ latest book, Great by Choice. Collins likes to coin memorable phrases to illustrate his findings, and the one that struck me the most is the “20 Mile March.” The term is taken from an illustration of crossing the country by consistently walking 20 miles each day. The walker covers the same distance in beautiful and terrible weather, in mountains and flatlands. Collins makes a compelling case that this is ultimately a much quicker and better way to reach a destination than by pressing hard on good days, falling into exhaustion on subsequent days, and stopping completely when conditions are bad. The key, according to Collins, is discipline – discipline to push yourself through the hard times and to restrain yourself in good times.
As I read this chapter, I couldn’t help but wonder if it applies to many church plants and other fast-growing churches and ministries. I don’t know how many times I’ve been in conversations or heard about a church that grew rapidly, but then ran into problems because it didn’t have a good process for discipleship or lacked the leadership to support its needs. The end result of this explosive growth is often burn-out for leaders (sometimes exhaustion, sometimes much worse), shallow believers whose faith isn’t growing, or a huge back door through which people are exiting.
I realize that there are two big concerns with applying the concept of the “20 Mile March” in a spiritual organization. The first is that Collins writes from a secular perspective, and we know that the Holy Spirit moves in unpredictable ways. We may think of the explosive and “undisciplined” growth of the Church in Acts as the perfect counterexample to Collins. Second, apart from the theological issues, it’s hard to imagine that we’d want to do anything to slow growth when things are going well.
It’s this second concern that I want to challenge. If you knew that rapid growth was going to cause problems further down the road, would you be willing to take your foot off the accelerator, just a little? You might do that by raising the bar for membership and thereby pruning away some who are not committed to the mission of the church. Or you might cancel the catchy, attractional sermon series that was planned, and instead focus on deeper teaching for the existing flock.
Don’t get me wrong – I think every church should grow, and I never want to limit the work of the Holy Spirit in our midst. But I wonder if we’d be better stewards in the long run by taking the more disciplined approach of the 20 Mile March.
Great By Choice
I’m a big fan of all of Jim Collins’ work, and his newest book (co-authored with Morten Hansen), Great By Choice, didn’t disappoint me. The subtitle is “Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck – Why Some Thrive Despite Them All.” If the challenges of uncertainty and chaos aren’t on your mind as a ministry leader, perhaps you shouldn’t be in your role! No one will debate that the ministry environment has been turbulent for a number of years, but few offer the kind of in-depth, empirical analysis that Collins does in this book.
As in his other books, Collins’ analysis is based on pairs of companies in the same industry, with one company in the pair having experienced great success and the other having had the same potential to excel but producing much worse results. Collins is great at coining unique, memorable phrases that describe his findings, and this book is no exception with terms like “leading above the death line,” “productive paranoia,” and “return on luck.” Another very interesting term and concept is the “20 mile march,” which I’ll unpack in my next blog. Collins also loves to defy conventional wisdom. In Great by Choice, Collins concludes that innovation is not one of the characteristics that set the great companies apart from their less successful counterparts.
One theme that runs throughout the book is the importance of discipline and consistency. I believe this is one of the biggest stumbling blocks for ministry leaders. In struggling churches, they bounce from one program or strategy to another, in search of a silver bullet that will fix all their problems. Even in growing ministries, many leaders seem to get bored quickly and want to try something new, often causing convulsions and confusion in the organization.
If you’ve read and enjoyed any of Collins’ other books (and even if you’ve not), I recommend that you get a copy of Great by Choice. Of course, it’s your choice, but I believe it can help you and your organization thrive in an unpredictable world.
After Easter … After the Vision
Easter is always a high point on the church calendar, as it should be. We put our very best efforts and tremendous energy into preparing for the Sunday when the largest crowds will come in order to celebrate the most important event in the history of the world. And then 7 days later, we come to the Sunday after Easter … sparse attendance, depleted energy, and a worship service that may seem like an afterthought.
There are some striking similarities between this cycle on the church calendar and what happens when many organizations develop a vision. The leadership team invests incredible time and energy into discerning where God is leading their church or ministry. They craft a beautiful vision statement and celebrate its completion. And then … the letdown.
Despite the parallels, there are also some important differences between post-Easter and post-vision. The slump after Easter is expected, so most congregations plan accordingly. They give themselves a chance to catch their collective breaths, and then they launch into the next emphasis, whether that’s a new sermon series, a busy summer of children’s and youth programming, or some other initiative.
But post-vision, many ministries look more like the Hebrew people after leaving Egypt. They’re not resting and reloading – they’re wandering. Discerning a clear and compelling vision isn’t easy, but I find that most ministries aren’t suffering from a lack of vision. They’re suffering from a lack of follow-through. Perhaps it’s because the vision wasn’t clear enough or didn’t produce enough ownership. More likely it’s because they didn’t take the next step of developing concrete plans that would turn the vision into results.
Don’t let your church or ministry get stuck in the post-vision doldrums. Just like Easter, catch your breath, but then be prepared to move forward. Otherwise, all that work will be for naught.
Bad Words in the Church: “Succession”
This is the seventh and final in a series on “Bad Words in the Church.”
It seems only appropriate to conclude this series with the word “succession.” Whether you want to think about it or not, your tenure as senior pastor or executive director (or the tenure of your organization’s leader) will come to an end some day. The problem is that many first chair leaders and leadership teams choose not to think about it or don’t know how to think about it.
In business, succession planning is an accepted practice. The board knows that they must put someone into the first chair when the CEO retires. They also know that they must be prepared for the unexpected – a sudden resignation or a health issue that incapacitates the leader. They have the advantage of developing their bench, internal candidates who could potentially step into the top role.
Many churches (and other ministries) are not large enough to have someone on staff who could step into the first chair role but that shouldn’t keep them from having the right conversations. The pastor (or executive director) should be willing to talk openly about his or her time frame to retirement. The board should periodically discuss how the organization will operate if its leader departs suddenly. And whenever possible, they should all come together to plan for an orderly transition.
I’ve written this blog in my typical, matter-of-fact, unemotional style. And yet, as I’ve seen in a number of situations, this issue is rarely straightforward or unemotional. Whether you think of a congregation’s attachment to a pastor or a leader’s reluctance to turn over the reins to the ministry he or she helped to build, the transition is packed with feelings that defy logic. We should acknowledge this reality, but it’s no excuse for avoiding the conversation. The root word of succession is “success.” That’s what we all want, but if we treat “succession” as a bad word and refuse to discuss it, we’ll never reach that goal.
Bad Words in the Church: “Evaluation”
This is the sixth in a series on “Bad Words in the Church.”
As a supervisor, how do you practice Ephesians 4:15 and 4:29? (“Speaking the truth in love” and “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs.”) When it comes to managing staff, I’m afraid that most ministry leaders focus exclusively on “speaking love” and “building others up” with words of encouragement. Don’t get me wrong – encouragement is extremely important. But if this is the only feedback being given, then it’s not very likely that the staff member’s performance will improve. That is why evaluation is so important.
The problem is that evaluation involves some level of confrontation, and that makes it a bad word in many ministry settings. In the church, we emphasize compassion and mercy as we should. But we mistakenly think this means that there will always be peace. We equate conflict with sin. Of course, it’s hard to support that belief if you read the gospels or the epistles.
The challenge of doing evaluation also highlights the mistakes assumption that negative feedback means someone is a “bad” person. Since “good” people receive positive evaluations, then any suggestions for improvement get blown out of proportion. Shouldn’t it be possible to discuss an area of concern without it being seen as a deep character flaw? (This is also the reason that programs are rarely evaluated.)
The issue is compounded because most ministry leaders have little training in how to conduct an evaluation, and they often have inadequate tools for assessing performance. When this happens, the evaluation process rarely accomplishes the desired outcome. A person may be crushed by a negative message or simply clueless because the intended message was delivered in a confusing way.
For all these reasons, ministry leaders often try to avoid the dirty word of evaluation. But there is one compelling reason to press into it. God deserves our best, individually and collectively. If we turn our head rather than addressing poor performance, our ministries will never realize their full potential. I’d rather have a hard conversation with someone today than face my Master at the end of my life and try to explain why I didn’t.
