LEADERSHIP COMMUNICATION

Leadership

I don’t know about you but I’m feeling rather stressed these days by the constant barrage of high volume political ads, obnoxious car commercials, screaming Oxiclean infomercials and so on. Reflecting on this, it occurred to me that church leaders often make similar communication mistakes. I can probably illustrate it more effectively with current headlines:

 

From the Presidential Election

• “We will end this war!” Biden said.
  
• “Your plan is a white flag of surrender in Iraq!” Palin said.
  
• Why Joe won the debate!
  
• Palin won by beating expectations!
  

From the Economic Crisis

• We all deserve blame in economic crisis!
  
• Democrat fingerprints are all over the financial crisis!
  
• Blame Congress for the financial crisis!
  
• Blame “lefties” for the U.S. economic crisis!
  
• Bush is to blame for economic crisis!
  
• The economic crisis is failure to regulate!
  
• The economic crisis the fault of wall street!
  

From the Church Bulletin

• DON’T MISS THE WOMEN’S MINISTRY MEETING ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON!
  
• ATTEND THE FIREPROOF DISCUSSION GROUP ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON!
  
• SMALL GROUPS MEET ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON—SIGN UP!
  
• DISCIPLESHIP CLASSES FOR ALL AGES MEET ON SUNDAY EVENINGS!
  

A Leadership Communication Lesson

On all of these points, the noise from all directions tends to cancel out the message of each position. It is a fallacy to believe that the loudest message will win over all the rest. When the volume is equal from all positions, people don’t hear anything. Can you say “white noise?” It fails to change any minds other than to alienate people leading them to decide to turn it all off and disengage. Some political strategists may plan their loud counter campaign message more to cancel out the opponent’s message and less to convince people to vote for their candidate or position. This is instructive for ministry leaders. Here is an example:

I began serving as pastor in my current ministry in 2000. To learn more about my new church I read bulletins and newsletters from the previous two years. To my surprise, they were formatted with all caps with headings underlined. It was confusing to follow and figure out. Looking at these documents, I could not identify the priorities of the church. It appeared that everything was equally important. All programs were given equal weight. The message to the congregation was, “To be a growing Christian, you have to do it all with equal passion. You’re expected to be at every meeting even if we plan them for the same time slot.”

This is a failure to align and focus ministry priorities. Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger identified four characteristics of a vital ministry in Simple Church.

1. Clarity- the ability of the vision and discipleship process to be easily communicated and understood by the congregation.
   
2. Movement- the intentional process of moving Christians to greater spiritual maturity.
   
3. Alignment- the arranging of church ministries around the disciples-making process.
   
4. Focus- the intentional decision to limit, align, or eliminate activities that are not part of the disciple-making process.
   

Each of the four characteristics functions together as gears, pulleys, and belts to transmit energy throughout the organization. When friction builds up, the various parts may disengage or break. Could it be that some withdraw from the church for the same reason? Alignment and focus are the most difficult. Ministry leaders must decide what is most important, align those activities around the disciple-making process, and limit competing events no matter how good they might be. A failure to align and focus reflects a lack of leadership or laziness.

Leaders must think at a new level in order to distinguish their message from all others. Volume simply will not accomplish the job. Modern comedy is often not really funny, since a comedian often takes one funny idea and laces it with profanity. It is crude, insulting, not funny, and it takes little true creativity. On the other hand, comediens such as Lucille Ball, Bob Hope, and Jackie Gleason were funny and they really worked hard at it. They partnered creativity with humor to really be funny, and we still laugh. Likewise, the effective leader must be a wordsmith injected with communication creativity.

The election will soon pass, praise God, but we will still have the Oxiclean rep screaming over the big screen TV in high-def. You cannot change that, but you can be more effective and intentional about communication in your ministry.

SD Blessings!

Dr. Tom Cocklereece