A Leaders Constant Companion - Pt. 2

2. Embrace your pain threshold for making difficult decisions

• If you are a leader, you have to make difficult, painful and often times unpopular decisions
• Perhaps it's killing a ministry that is no longer effective at accomplishing the vision of the organization but still enjoyed by only a few.
• Or maybe it's confronting, rebuking or even removing someone in a leadership position and you will have to deal with major flack and even risk the possibility of them leaving the church and taking people with them.
• Sometimes it requires the leader to even change an employees portfolio that is in the wrong position.
• One of the most painful decisions is having to fire someone for insubordination, character issues, or flat out laziness.
• When you are unwilling to make the tough call you always end up causing more damage to people and the church in the long run.
• Sometimes leaders wait to pull the trigger on painful decisions until the pain of the present situation becomes greater than the pain of making the decision. That's been my achilles heel for far too long. You always end up in more pain.
• The key to making painful decision is to always do what's right in the eyes of God and trust him with the outcome.

Decisions That Define Your Church #2

Decision #2 - What's the vision?

Every church has to decide why they exist and how they are going to accomplish the God-given mission. The mission has already been decided in Matthew 28 when Jesus said "Go ... and make disciples." But how a church does that is up to the local leadership ... that's called vision.

The great thing about Christianity is that it can be contextualized. God built this into the fabric of our faith. Yes, there are certain non-negotiable beliefs and practices but there is enough flexibility for the faith to thrive in any culture or generation.

While there are a million different ways to "do" church, there is only "one" way to do it at PCC. Whenever you have more than one vision - that's called division. Churches that don't stand in unity around the vision will eventually implode and crumble.

Decisions That Define Your Church

Decisions determine our destiny. Like it our not, our lives are the sum total of the decisions that we make. Every day we live in the wake of the consequences of our choices.

I want to share some thoughts about decisions that define our church.

Decision #1 - Deciding Who Decides

There are hundreds of decisions that are made in a church every week: financial decisions, strategy decisions, staffing decisions, ministry decisions, facility decisions and the list goes on.

At PCC, we understand that God is the leader and that God has chosen to lead through leaders. That's the Scriptural pattern. As the leader of PCC, I have chosen to lead through two teams of people: the Staff and the Elders.

In my opinion and experience, collaborative-team leadership is more effective than unilateral-dictatorial leadership. It allows you to get the perspective of other leaders and than filter that information before making the decision. Sure, not everyone is going to agree with every decision that is made. But then again, that's why God raises up spiritually mature leaders that make decisions based not on what is popular or easy, but on what is honoring to God and His Word.

If you want to help make decisions in the church - become a leader. If you want to lead - the first requirement is being willing to follow.