Two words: Prayer. Leadership.

From this article (thanks to Phil Bryant from the BUWA for sending it through).

"Pastors must decide whether they are pastors only of church members, or if they also pastor a town or neighborhood where the church exists."

Karr and Bergquist

Who do you pastor? Who gets your best time? Where do you put your best energy? What is most important to you as a pastor?

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Found this article (by John Ortberg) challenging in relation to denominations, churches, movements and on a personal level too. The best people don't want to be a part of something that's in decline but they do want to be in on something that's on the up. The hardest task is being a part of something in decline and working to turn it around. I love that challenge.

Decline Is Never the Only Option | LeadershipJournal.net

Highly skilled people are a fantastic asset to the church, but if they don't carry that skill with humility they can be a real headache too. Thankfully I haven't encountered people with this problem for a while. This article from Joanna Krotz has some helpful insights into how to handle the prima donna ...

We've all encountered them. Prima donnas are those employees who swagger into meetings, convinced that rules are made for everyone else.

They dispense tons of advice and ideas, but when it's time to jump into the trenches to dig, they're otherwise engaged.

"They are often visionaries, highly creative and they don't have good interpersonal skills," says Linda Finkle, a Potomac, Md.-based executive coach for small businesses. "The prima donna is often the person who is very good at his job and holds his employer hostage by this."

That's the rub, of course. Prima donnas are typically star performers. She's the salesperson who racks up monthly records. He's the IT hero who pulls off on-time delivery.

What's a boss to do?

It's tricky. You want to support the peak performance, offering challenges that sharpen the prima donna's stellar skills. Simultaneously, you must rein in hurtful or inappropriate behavior and be careful that the prima donna doesn't outrage customers or alienate other workers.

To retain the best traits and lose the rest, check out these five ways to manage a prima donna's performance. Included are guidelines to help figure out when there is an arrogant so-and-so who crosses the line and should be sent packing.

1. Feed the need. First, acknowledge the obvious and make a considered choice. This is an employee who requires extra handling. Too many business owners ignore that. "As an executive, you need to make a strategic decision that will make everything else fall into place: Are you willing to make them feel special? Or, do you have a sense of 'fairness' and want to treat this person the 'same' as everyone else?" says Kristin J. Arnold, a Fairfax, Va., management consultant who specializes in high-performance teams.Upfront, be ready to invest the individual time and attention that will yield the business benefits you want. If you've sidestepped the issue, or made a choice by default, you have only yourself to blame — not the employee — for the frustrations or lost customers that may follow.

2. Find the key. Outwardly, prima donnas tend to behave in similar ways, but their internal motivations differ. Management experts suggest that you look for what makes such employees tick. Some may crave more recognition for their higher achievements or creativity. Others will respond to compensation or flexibility, such as a bonus, time off or work-at-home privileges. Rewards can be geared accordingly, but ought to be conditioned, of course, on ongoing respect for co-workers and on an acceptance of any other rules or policies you set.

3. Build fences. There are a couple of ways to do this. One idea is to isolate the prima donna, assigning him or her to some crucial lone-ranger project that will boost his ego and keep him from disrupting other employees. For many such high-energy workers, this is just the ticket. For instance, one Phoenix, Ariz., programmer, a self-confessed "rehabilitated" prima donna has this to say:"Prima donnas are a different breed. We're good and we know it.... And as far as management goes, you can keep it. I may have learned how to contain myself, but I have no desire to learn politics, deal with idiots or hear how someone has a better cube than someone else. Just give me work and leave me alone."Another kind of fence keeps the prima donna corralled rather than walled off. Make him work within a team. Because prima donnas always think they know the best solution and because they prefer ideas to implementation, they tend to wander off the path. If you put the prima donna on a project that requires a team, you can focus his efforts, basically herding him or her into moving in the right direction.

4. Check the heart. Arrogance or rough edges is one thing. Actively working against the business is quite another. The most important thing in managing creative types that have "prima donna characteristics" is to "determine where their heart is," says Tim O'Brien, who runs his own communications company in Pittsburgh. Does the prima donna want the organization to succeed? Does he want you, the boss, to fail? "I managed a couple who actively worked to undermine my authority, including end runs and efforts to sabotage my position. I fired them because their actions were so blatant and none of the management guru stuff applied," O'Brien says.

5. Make them accountable. There's no room for high performers with faulty ethics or a disregard for policies central to the company's mission. If customer service is your watchword, and the prima donna makes customers feel bad, he's got to clean up his act, no matter what his level of genius. Otherwise, you'll develop a companywide problem."Integrity is the root from which morale, teamwork, customer satisfaction, sales and profits spring," says Joanne Cini, author of "Kingmaker: Be the One Your Company Wants to Keep... On Your Terms."

Before throwing in the towel, try to adjust the prima donna's behavior. "Handle it like a performance problem by first meeting with the prima donna to discuss the problem and offer coaching," suggests Joe Santana, co-author of "Manage I.T." Set a deadline for change, define the changes you want, and then make the prima donna responsible for making those changes within the time frame.

Peer evaluations or 360-degree performance reviews (always anonymously collected) can also help. Sometimes stars are unaware of the negative impact of their behavior.

Give it time and make sure to offer feedback and rewards for small victories. It will take several weeks and, for some, a few months before prima donnas change their behavior. If you see sincere efforts under way, be tolerant.But when that deadline rolls around, if the same old "I'm special" performance takes center stage, get rid of the prima donna.

How often do you check the email that comes through your church web site? Much of mine is spam from overseas, but every now and then there's an important message. This week it came from a person looking for a Bible Study group to join. I replied within a few hours, with a quick, polite message and I now have a new friend whom I met for the first time at Church this-morning. He said to me, "I have emailed a dozen churches in the last few months and you are the only one who has replied." It pays to check and answer your web site emails. Most churches would have someone who is willing to do this once a day. That's all it takes.

I know that, by and large, we're over counting bums on seats. Pastors today don't live or die by attendance figures (unless numbers are going up or down, but that's another story). However, numbers are still useful and if you're going to count something, people are what we're about, right?

Which raises the question: what numbers do you count? On Sunday we had a low attendance (I'm over it, the therapy helped), but then in preparing to move our database to a new service I discovered a whole bunch of people who are a part of our church that weren't there on Sunday. They were there the week before, or maybe the week before that, and might be next week. Just not this Sunday (or Sunday fortnight, probably). When I count how many people 'regularly' attend in a given month, it looks a little different to a given day.

This is nothing new - every pastor knows this phenomenon. I'm just wondering how it applies when we're talking to colleagues and get past the point of polite avoidance about numbers and start sharing our good news, or crying into our coffee, with them.

How many people are we actually leading, as opposed to preaching to on a given Sunday? If you're a struggling pastor (like me), it might be cause for a little more encouragement.

Not that I care about that kind of thing, of course. Just talking hypothetically.

Its a very basic product, and not one I use often...but....

If you are stuck, it will rerender Flash (think Youtube format) and Quicktime products into a more useable WMV format....

It will also allow you to rerender large MP3 files into more manageable smaller ones for uploading to the web. For example if you record your messages on Sunday, and they come out at about 40 megs, then get Windows Movie Maker can rerender them into a smaller size, say 3-4 megs for a 30 minute message.

I post this because I know many pastors don't use high end video and audio software, and sometimes need to get little jobs like this done. (And almost everyone who uses a PC will have a free copy of Windows Movie Maker on their PC)

Through someone's generosity I unexpectedly attended GLS in Perth again this past weekend (second year in a row I haven't had to pay). People's reactions are fairly predictable when they find out the presentations are video taped, but you have to attend to appreciate how well it works. It's not just the speakers, it's the process. Anyway, this isn't meant to be a defence of the GLS format except to say, once again, it was excellent. What struck me this year was the variety, not just '10 points to becoming a great leaders'.

Two stand-outs for me were: Tim Keller (author and pastor) on Leading People to the Prodigal God (OK, now I have to buy the book, drat it) - pure gospel, wonderful, wonderful call to spiritual renewal without any gimmicks. Your Reformed friends will love it. Then Wes Stafford (CEO of Compassion Intl) on Leveraging Your Past. Now there is a man who speaks with a passion I doubt I will ever know born of pain I hope I never have to experience, he's the real deal.

And yes, lots of great teaching on leading through changing times.

So, if you've been wondering, give it a go. I'm booking in now.

They really are the Pastors Friday night....
does that make Mondays our Saturdays??

Get the blokes from your church along, it will change them...and your church, families and community will appreciate it!

Production of the All About Life commercial is complete and it will go to air on prime time TV as of this Sunday 27th September. Here's a preview.

Get ready to show your congregation the JAAL TV adverts

We will be sending the exclusive Jesus. All about life TV advert to participating churches via email next Wednesday 23rd September. Churches are asked to share the preview footage with their congregation and celebrate the message of Jesus we are spreading.

About the adverts
The advert looks to change the tone of the campaign to a little more challenging and talk about some of the paradoxes of life - We chose to communicate the paradoxes of everyday life to communicate Jesus relevance in today’s community. The aim of the adverts is to get the audience to ask why these things happen and explore the answers Jesus has through the www.allaboutlife.com.au website, the current website will change on September 27th in line with the TVC going live on prime time tv, once on the website respondents will be able to order a Gospel of Mark or find out what’s on in their area. Ultimately we hope to create a platform where people can invite their friends to attend an event that will be run by churches in their local communities. Please continue to pray for people to be open to Jesus and for Christians to feel encouraged to share their faith.