Staff Meetings
Who should attend your church staff meeting? Tony Morgan shares some great advice on making this tough call as your church grows. When your church is small, it’s a logical choice: everyone on staff should attend your church staff meeting. But when your church begins to grow, you’ll quickly find that having ALL staff… read more
1. Have a definite time and place for each meeting. Be sure to schedule at convenient times for those participating. 2. Give lots of advance notice. Send reminder e-mails the day prior. Encourage participants to pray ahead of time for God’s direction and wisdom in the meeting. 3. Have the room in order, with everything… read more
That’s something you rarely hear: “I love meetings.” But I genuinely do. At least, I love the ones at the church where I’m a pastor. And especially, I love the ones we’re having lately. Let me explain. At the beginning of September, I introduced and implemented a new plan for church staff meetings. The structure… read more
The start of the meeting generally sets the tone of the meeting. If people trickle in slowly, engage in extended small talk, and don’t have a plan, you’ve just set the tone for a bad meeting. Today, we’ll talk about how to set the tone for an effective meeting. Assign a start time and honor… read more
Earlier this week, I attended a very productive meeting. It was long, but we accomplished what we set out to do. We made significant decisions, established accountabilities, and left the meeting knowing exactly what was expected of us. I think everyone left feeling that it was a good use of time. Unfortunately, too many corporate… read more
As we’ve been tackling improving our “meeting culture” around here at Liquid . . . one of realities that we’ve had to face up to is that often meetings are places that people go to hide from making decisions. They should function as places where conflict is worked out . . .where we fight for… read more
An on-purpose staff meeting strategy includes four different kinds of meetings, each designed to keep your ministry team on course. Have you ever come to the end of a staff meeting and wondered what was accomplished? Most of us have. For staff meetings to be productive, they must first be on purpose. Don’t try to… read more
A skilled leader will effectively moderate and guide a meeting toward productive decisions and action. Here are a few tips I’ve learned. Keep the discussion moving. You’ll want to maintain a sense of polite urgency. You want to push hard enough to keep the meeting moving but not too hard that you don’t allow time… read more
Church leadership is important. Incredibly important. It only follows that church leadership meetings—whether it be the meetings of elders, church staff, deacons, or committees—are also highly important. There is no formula, code, or secret for holding amazing church leadership meetings. The success of a meeting, a leadership team, or a church is dependent upon God.… read more
I know some churches don’t have staff meetings, but People’s Church wouldn’t function well without them. I want to give you some reasons why we have a weekly staff meeting. 1. It allows me to keep the vision in front of the team. I want the vision of People’s Church to be HOT HOT HOT… read more
I recently spoke with a friend of mine after a long absence. Both our families had attended church together in the 1990s but had lost touch after we both moved on to new congregations. I recognized the church he said he was now attending as one with a great reputation in the community. I asked… read more
I hate church staff meetings. As a pastor, I hate church staff meetings that are consistently mired in the details of making events happen. I know some of you like to check your task list boxes and meet in church leadership teams to go over excel spreadsheets…but I am not that guy. Though I enjoy… read more
I’m not sure what it says about me or my ability to lead my church or our meetings, but I was eager to read this book as soon as I heard about it. Death by Meeting(2004) is the work of Patrick Lencioni, a business consulting guru with a number of top-selling books to his credit.… read more
If you lead a team of staff or volunteer leaders in a church, good meetings are essential to the health of your organization. Good meetings lead to better communication, coordination, alignment, encouragement, and accountability. One of my main responsibilities in my role as Pastor for Vision and Purpose is to schedule and lead meetings. Until… read more
Staff meetings, in my opinion, are one of the many ways that the Fall has corrupted life on God’s good earth. Just to give you a picture, this is how I feel during probably 90% of staff meetings. (Let it be known that I make up statistics at random.) Now, don’t get me wrong. I… read more
Many churches struggle to find a staff meeting structure that can accomplish their primary goals of communication, planning and connecting. Our current structure allows for all three. Here’s how it breaks down: Community and prayer time: We gather at 9 a.m. for coffee/donuts/bagels and for about 30 minutes, the entire staff of admins, support personnel,… read more
Your weekly church staff meeting is the most important meeting of the week. It is an opportunity to gather key staff leaders to celebrate victories, identify missed opportunities, communicate dates and plans, and keep focused on your stated vision and purpose. Consider adopting a covenant with your staff about how you will handle your staff… read more
There are two major kinds of work in modern organizations: one is taking phone messages for people who are in meetings; the other is going to meetings. Most of us aspire to the second category until we have attended two or three meetings, then we beg to get back on phone duty. The modern church… read more
Are staff meetings really necessary? Some pastors have told us that they consider them a waste of time (“There’s only the three of us, and the other two are part-time. Aren’t hallway conversations enough?”). Others confess that they consider staff meetings a burden (“It feels like one more event I have to plan”) or even… read more
Every Wednesday, our entire staff meets together for 60 minutes. All 75 of us, from the interns to the pastors, from the worship team to the children’s staff, from the senior pastor to the accounting team. We all stop by the Connection Café on our way and pick up a free beverage of choice from… read more