How Does a Leader Protect Family Time?

Posted on by Dave Simiele

There is an incredible tension in ministry, multisite or not, on how we spend our time as leaders. The demands of ministry will always exceed our capacity to respond. We can’t do it all, no matter how hard we try. So many of us feel the pressure to accept every invitation and respond to every request, even at the expense of our families. Our desire to please people, or be liked, drives us towards an unhealthy pace and pattern, where ministry always overrides family. So what can we do? How can multisite leaders protect their family time and serve from a place of health, especially family health?

While I haven’t mastered the art of family-life balance in ministry, the following three practices have proven to be beneficial in honoring our family time:

1. Scheduling family time is necessary.

More than just protecting our Sabbath, we must protect our time with our families. Intentionally scheduling time for family ensures that vacations will be had, games will be attended, date nights will be a reality, and family time will be a priority. In multisite ministry, the calendar is key in protecting time with the family. Ministry is seasonal, and we can often predict when specific weeks will be busier than others. Effective multisite leaders forecast their ministry and family calendars 2-3 months in advance. This forecast allows for proper planning in both life and ministry. We all know that the Fall Festival and Christmas Eve services are coming soon, but do you know what your family is doing for fun in the next three months?

2. Explanations are necessary.

Some multisite leaders will disagree with me here, and that’s okay. I believe that it’s critical to model, and express the importance of our personal family values to those we lead and serve. If we want people to value our time with our family, we must share the value that our time with our family means to us. Our explanation is not an excuse but rather a model of family health. Our family also deserves an explanation from time to time, because we cannot make every family outing, and an explanation will go further than ignoring the situation altogether. Do the people you lead and serve know the value you place on your family time? Does your family know the value you place on your time together with them?

3. Creativity is necessary.

“Date Night” and “Family Movie Night” can become routine real quick. We need to be as creative with our family time as we are with our ministry programs. Sometimes we put more energy into a church service or outreach than we put into a family outing. Reserve some energy and get creative. Here are some ideas to get you thinking:

  • Pitch a tent in the living room, put a camp fire on the TV, and tell funny stories to your kids.
  • Ditch the restaurant and have a picnic.
  • Take a spontaneous road trip.
  • Play Wiffleball in the auditorium one night (trust me, this is a blast).
  • Cook with your kids.
  • Take a Sunday off but don’t tell your family, surprise them with breakfast in bed.
  • Take a food tour one night: appetizers at Chilis, dinner at Roadhouse, dessert at Cheesecake Factory and coffee at Starbucks.
  • Host a family talent show.
  • FaceTime the grandparents.
  • Book a hotel with an indoor pool during the winter and have a pool party.
  • And the list goes on.

How creative have you been with your family time recently?

Our family is our number responsibility as leaders, and at the end of the day, all we have is our family. And at the end of our ministry, let’s make it our goal to have them still. Get creative, schedule some time with them and model before the families you lead and serve what it’s like to have healthy time with your family. Again, I haven’t figured this whole thing out, but these three patterns are helping me protect my family time.

What practices have you found beneficial in protecting your time with your family?

One Thing a Campus Pastor Shouldn’t Say

Posted on by Dave Simiele

No senior pastor ever wants to hear: “I don’t have any stories of life-change from my campus this weekend.” You simply cannot have that response, ever. In fact, you should be the best storyteller in the church. As a campus pastor, one of your primary responsibilities each week, is to capture, celebrate and circle back on stories of radical transformation, because your senior pastor and executive leadership team are depending on you to celebrate more than just the weekend statistics from your campus.

Last year, I had the opportunity to interview Kevin Queen, a campus pastor at 12Stone Church in Atlanta, GA. I’ll never forget the statement he made regarding metrics: “I don’t measure the success of my campus in numbers, but in stories and seasons of life-change”. That statement totally convicted me, because capturing stories were not part of my weekly dashboard (I’ll write more about metrics & dashboards in the future). Following my conversation with Kevin, I became more intentional about listening to the stories in every conversation I had with church attendees. Everyone has a story, and every story matters to God. Sure, some stories sound larger than life but each and every story is worth sharing. When you’re only listening to drama-filled stories, you might miss the simple story of spiritual growth in someone’s life. By the way, any step in spiritual growth towards Jesus is radical growth worth recognizing.

Statements that tell me I might hear a story of life-change often begin like this:
– “I’m new here and…”
– “I never thought I would have…”
– “This is my first time in church and…”
– “My friend or coworker said I should visit here because…”
– “I just started a new…”
– “Something told me to…”
– “I’ve got to tell you something…”
– “I’ve been praying and…”

These are just a few of the statements people make when they’re trying to tell you a part of their story. Following those statements could be the words that will reveal how their life has been impacted by you, your church or the Holy Spirit.

To track and share the stories that I hear each weekend, I:

  • write down their name. I keep a small Moleskine journal in my back pocket and actually write down people’s name and basic info. I don’t want to be seen as the pastor who is always on his phone in those settings. I learned this concept from Rich Birch over at unSeminary.com in his post on 8 Habits of a Highly Effective Campus Pastor. Getting their information also allows me to follow up later in the week on their progress and possible next steps.
  • ask if we can grab a photo. I typically ask them if I can share their story publicly and most people don’t have a problem with that (especially if you let them approve the photo).
  • post to Instagram or Twitter. The more stories you share, the more you inspire your volunteers and leadership with what is happening at your campus. See my example below.
  • include their story in my weekend report to my supervisor. You will be surprised how well your leader connects to the story when the image is attached. As a bonus, these stories become compelling illustrations for your senior pastor to use in their upcoming messages.

As you begin to listen more critically to stories of transformation at your campus, get the details no matter how much or how little. Don’t just measure the attendance and the amount in the offering, measure and share the stories of life-change you a’rre hearing. At Christ Fellowship we say: “Every number has a name, every name has a story, and every story matters to God.”


How are you celebrating the stories of transformation at your campus?

3 Ways to Grow as a Leader in Your Organization

Posted on by Dave Simiele

Are you wondering if someone is ever going to tap you on the shoulder to start leading at a higher level in your organization? Maybe it’s that new project at the office or the next major job for your department? Stop waiting for someone to ask for your help, start leading today. Too many leaders lay in waiting for someone to tap them on the shoulder, but growing leaders are quick to offer assistance. Consider this your shoulder tap, stop waiting and start leading today.

Growing leaders see problems as opportunities and desire to help offer solutions to obstacles before ever being asked. If your manager or department leader hasn’t tapped you on the shoulder yet, it doesn’t mean they don’t think you can lead. Trust me.

Here are three ways to grow as a leader in your church or business:

1. Write Down Your Ideas
The ideas in your head are only ideas until you write them down. Write down everything that comes to mind and flesh them out as much as possible. Remember to start with the original project in mind so that your end result is a helpful concept. Keep writing until there is nothing left and then edit your thoughts carefully. Review and clarify your notes, consider if you have any truly valuable ideas. Don’t be surprised if after writing all your thoughts down, you realize that you have nothing valuable to offer, it happens. More often than not, you’ll discover one or two major solutions that could help your team. Develop your ideas into measurable action steps with clear targets. Take the additional effort to craft a draft an outline, budget or timeline to implement the concepts you plan on presenting to your boss. If time allows, share your thoughts with a coworker for constructive feedback or additional ideas before you make your presentation. Once you have your final thoughts ready, take the next step and set up a meeting with your supervisor.

2. Schedule a Meeting
Now that you’ve got those helpful ideas clearly defined, schedule a brief meeting with your director. In your request for a meeting, make sure you explicitly tell them why you want to meet and what you would like to discuss. Let them know what you’ve been thinking about and that you might have some ideas that could help. Leaders are not looking for more meetings, but every leader is looking to hear from someone with initiative and drive to help strengthen the organization. Put all your cards on the table in the meeting and ask more questions. The quality of questions will reveal the depth of your understanding around the project. A simple rule to keep in mind is this – ask more questions and make fewer statements. Remember, you don’t know everything your leader knows about the issues at hand. It is your job to share ideas, explore possible solutions, and trust your leadership to make the best decision possible. Once you have shared your thoughts, take it one step further.

3. Offer to Help
Close the meeting by offering to assist, but be prepared to help in a different way than you suggested. Your willingness to think critically and provide assistance will reveal your heart to serve. Remember, your leader knows variables about the project that are beyond your scope of knowledge, and that’s okay. Of course, they may need time to process your concepts, or worse; they may reject every idea you presented but don’t take that response personally. As a growing leader, it’s your job to seek ways to offer help and to develop your critical thinking skills. It’s not your job to make every decision in your organization, but it’s your responsibility to offer assistance where you think you can help.

Don’t wait to be shoulder-tapped, start growing as a leader today. Develop your critical thinking skills, learn to ask great questions, and don’t be afraid to offer your assistance. Your ideas just might change the trajectory of the entire project or your seat on the bus.

“Everything rises and falls on leadership.” John C. Maxwell

4 Apps Every Multisite Pastor Needs

Posted on by Dave Simiele

Whenever I connect with a multisite pastor, I like to ask them a series of questions. The one question I always ask is: “What app are you using that makes you more successful?”, because I’m always on the hunt for tools to help me do my job more effectively and efficiently.

Here’re my four favorite productivity apps:

1. Nozbe
Nozbe is my to-do list; it helps me complete all my tasks, and is user-friendly. I’ve tried all the others: Clear, Wunderlist, Remember the Milk, and Reminders on iPhone, but for me, no task management tool compares to Nozbe. I’ve been able to reduce email, increase collaboration with my assistant, and get more done by creating several categories that help me batch tasks which results in more productivity and higher efficiency. My categories include: calls, planning, email, thank you notes, books to read, etc., and you can set a reminder for each task which ensures you don’t forget about it. I like that I can use Nozbe on all my Apple devices, and even though it’s not free, it will save you a significant amount of time.

2. Evernote
Everyone I know in ministry uses Evernote in some fashion or another, but not everyone uses the robust sharing feature. I share multiple notebooks and notes in Evernote with my wife, staff team and high capacity volunteers. Most importantly, I share individual notebooks with my direct reports that track and determine our one-on-one agenda items. These notes contain three priorities: their items, my items, and our action steps coming out of the meeting. A meeting that ends without action steps is a waste of time in my opinion. Since the notebook is shared, both you and the attendee can edit the file and populate it with future agenda items. I often use one-word list descriptions as a launching pad for the items I would like to discuss further in person. Michael Hyatt has a lot to share about Evernote; you can listen here. Don’t just use Evernote, share it.

3. Pocket
I’ll never forget the day I learned about Pocket from my friend Brian Taylor. Pocket has become my favorite app for saving, storing and tagging articles and social media posts of interest. I don’t have time to read everything I see on Twitter, but I always have time to put it in Pocket and read it later. My favorite feature within Pocket is the ability to tag and archive fabulous content for future reference. Like Evernote, I have Pocket on all my devices. It has become a massive storage drive of invaluable information that is literally in my pocket every day.

4. Asana
While Evernote is a great collaborative app, it hasn’t proven itself to beat Asana as my project management tool of choice. Asana allows our team to decrease email, share our progress with the team, and organize our work around a large project. It has changed the way we delegate tasks, communicate progress and administrate events. I no longer have to text or email a team member to see where he or she stands with a project, I can quickly check Asana for a status update. My favorite feature within this app is the ability to archive projects and campaigns that repeat seasonally. Year-after-year, we do a lot of the same things in ministry, and Asana allows us to unarchive those projects and reassign tasks. It takes a little training and follow-through to use Asana, but the investment is well worth it. Read and send less email, use Asana.

Those are four of my favorite productivity apps. What productivity tools you are using?