Video Transcript: Lesson 30 Structure

Welcome back to Christian leaders Institute's John Kenny, and we are talking  about the most exciting and glamorous topic you could ever imagine. We're  talking about structure and organizational charts today. You know, and I say that  sarcastically how riveting this subject is. And yet, I will say this. It is so critically  important, it is so important that our, our ministries, our churches, are structured  in a way that really promotes and enhances ministry. Because your structure of  your organization is either helping you get to where you want to go, or it's  hindering you, and it's preventing you from where you want to go. So there's a  lot of good stuff here. So let's pray. Let's get into it. We'll talk about  organizational structure. Lord, thank you so much for this day. And God, you are  a God of order. And we ask that in this lecture, that you might speak to us and  reveal to us some things that would be very helpful and needed to help us Lord  fulfill our mission, and to reach our vision of a vision you've given to us. For Your honor, and your glory. Amen. Okay, so we talk about organization. Again, I think  it almost has like a bad connotation to it, because maybe we think of like the  government and like, or like big corporations and all the red tape, and it can  seem that organization and structures are very prohibitive, and there's lots of red tape and, it takes forever to kind of get something done. And it's needless and  and I've worked with different people in ministry, and not to single group out, but  I've worked with a number of church planters. And that's kind of like, they hate  all the structure and organization and like, let's just do ministry, let's just do stuff. But I've also seen people who are just so tied into in as long as the love  organization structure and, and as long as things are structured, well, they don't  even care if like, if any ministry is getting done, so we want to be somewhere in  the middle of that we just don't want to say like we have a pretty organizational  chart. Because that doesn't mean we're doing Church Health. We're reaching  Church Health and doing good ministry. But at the same time, we don't want to  just say, well, we don't need it, it's just gonna slow us down, it gets in the way,  this is dry, boring, dull, kind of a thing. And I'd like to start by saying that  organization and structure, it does not mean the opposite of life again, like, oh,  it's bureaucracy and red tape, and, you know, who wants to deal with  committees and, you know, meetings and we hate all that kind of stuff? Now,  certainly it can be. But I would say that's because that would be in organizations  that aren't structured. Well. In fact, I think organizations that are structured Well,  the structure actually provides a lot of life, it helps it be healthy, its supports it  and encourages it. And in fact that a good structure to any organization can  actually be the thing that maximizes its effectiveness, it makes it very efficient  and makes it be very powerful, very strong. And it's able to do what others of a  similar size cannot. So let's talk about just organization and structure. Because I  think there's some really good illustrations we have from life that tell us why it's  important. So let's think of the human body, right? Are our bodies organized, you better believe it, they're highly organized, I have a skeletal structure like you 

bones that form and give me shape. So I can get up and stand up and reach  and walk and move around. I have, you know, interior support. And I've got a  structure here of my ribs that protects all these vital organs inside. We have a  

vascular system. So the blood we have systems of arteries and veins and  capillaries that runs all through our bodies that deliver blood and oxygen and,  you know, throughout our whole being in this very, very important that we get,  you know, blood is moving through our whole system and we have our cardio  system, which is where, you know, we're breathing, we're taking in oxygen out of the air, and it goes into our lungs, and then it's exchanged into our blood. And all that sort of stuff. And we've got a nervous system that starts with our brain, and  we've got nerves. nerves that run through our whole body that go down our  spinal cord that control the words, I'm saying my finger motions, you know,  blinking my eyes, wiggling in my seat, these are very, very highly organized  systems, right? We are not just a lump of cells, just, you know, with no bones  and muscles all over the place, and nothing connected or tied together. The  human body is a highly complex, highly, highly organized system, right? So  aren't you like, aren't you glad you're organized that way, right. Rather than just  being a blob of, you know, human cells and DNA that just, you know, 150 pile  pound pile just laying on the floor, that can't do anything and can't go anywhere.  All right. It's not just our body, let's think of an organization let's think of a school. But think of a school that wants to teach children. So when we think of a school,  we would say, well, it's not just a bunch of kids who just randomly show up. And  nobody knows what's going on you, you have a principal who's in charge of the  school, you have teachers who are assigned a certain number of students and,  and there's classrooms where those students meet. And the classrooms are  divided by age, and each classroom has its own books that are specific for this.  And, you know, so we think of just like a school system. And then the day is, is  ordered very specifically that we we have time to study we have a lunchtime we  go to art, we you know, we do math, we do science, we follow an order. So we  can see that. How, how effective it is for a school to be well organized, right?  You just don't have 200 kids just show up. And nobody knows where they go,  what to do with them, how to teach them. We don't know, there's a pile of books  somewhere around here. I don't know, they can grab one. I don't know. You  know, we don't do it that way. Because we want schools to be effective, we want schools to be efficient. It's the same thing with churches, right? I mean, we want  to be organized and functioning in a way that we get the most out of what we're  trying to do. Uh, you know, we can have lots of energy. But if we're not very  organized, we're not going to go very far right? We don't want to just be this blob of, well, we've got all the right pieces, we have all the right parts. But we're kind  of just a blob and going nowhere, we want to be effective. We want to be doing  things we want to maximize what God has called us to do. And so we talk about  structure, and kind of maximizing it, we're, I want to bring you back to this image

we've had a number of times over this class, which is the vitality paradigm. And  if you recall, it starts with the roots of a tree, the image of a tree, and it is  spiritual disciplines. It's the word of the gospel, that that nourishes the soul. I  mean, worship prayer. You know, all those kinds of disciplines that nourish us.  And then the, that's the beginning. And the end is then there's fruit, there's,  there's statistical growth, there's numerical growth, there's all kinds of, you know, transformation being made in Christ and all those kinds of things. That's the fruit. But there's this middle piece, the trunk, which is functional effectiveness, that  somehow it's organized in a way, right, just like the tree, there's roots, there's a  trunk, and there's branches, and there's leaves, and there's flowers. And there's  fruit. And you know, it's a it's a highly organized system, and within the trunk,  you know, there's this phylum, phloem and xylem. You know, the leaves are  processing chlorophyll and making the, you know, the, all the nutrients and stuff. I mean, there's it's a highly complex system. So we want to be able to have that  trunk in here, this this effective structure that really can support what we're trying to do, right. We need to have structure that we need to be organized in a way  that's going to help us get there. So let me ask you a question I asked with  vision. We talked about organizational charts and structure and all that is it  biblical? Well, let's think about this, the story of creation is is that an organized  structured account? Obviously, it is. I mean, it's, you know, it goes from a  formless void, to form a highly organized form, the way that the Earth was  created, and then the how it was filled, and how the universe is set up in a way  and the moon and the stars and the seasons we have, it's an incredibly  organized account. So God is very orderly God is very organized, we see that,  certainly throughout creation. We also see it in Israel, as this nation is growing  and developing, divided into tribes. It's not just one people, there are 12 tribes,  in each tribe, when they get into the Promised Land, it's like, Okay, you go, here  you go, here, you go. Here, you do this, you do that, like, we can also think of,  within one of those tribes, like the Levites, the Levitical words, and people who  are the priests, they were very organized, they had really detailed  responsibilities, depending on the tribe and the clans, they were in, in the  families that they were a part of. We didn't we already talked a number of  lectures ago about Nehemiah, when he visits Jerusalem, after coming back from Babylon, and he goes around the city and he figures out what needs to be done  and the plan of attack and how they'll rebuild it, and who's going to do what and  where they're going to do. It isn't just people just show up and just, okay, let's do it. Like, we have these wonderful examples in scripture of very organized, very  good structure to make things happen. Certainly, I think a great example, from  the Old Testament is with Moses and Jethro, if you recall, Moses was like the  judge, and he had a line of like, hundreds of people. And nobody was getting  their case heard. And Moses was worn out, and the people were getting  frustrated. And his father in law, Jethro comes in because Oh, no, you're doing 

about this all wrong, you need to have better structure, you need to get  organized, you need to appoint judges and, and each tribe will go to this, and  the families can handle this way. And if they can't handle it, then they can come  to you. And, and it solves the problem was the problem of Moses was having  early on was there was no structure, Jethro comes in, they have structure,  everybody's happy and happy. And then also, don't we see this in the New  Testament in Acts 6, where the apostles are getting complaints about the  feeding program, the feeding distribution program for, for the widows, and that  the Greek Jews were not getting fed, only the Hebrew Jews, the Greek Jew  widows were not getting fed, only the Hebrew widows were getting fed. And so  the apostles gathered together, and they say, it's, we shouldn't give up the  prayer, prayer in the word, but we need to feed this. So they come up with this  plan, we will find men who are full of the Holy Spirit and full of wisdom. And we  will point them over this and then. So they come up with structure because they  needed to be efficient in preaching the gospel, but they only needed to be  efficient and effective in distributing food. So they they, okay, we need to  reorganize differently, we need to add people here, we need to focus on this,  they need to focus on that. So the idea I'm really trying to get at here, is is, is  organizing is biblical, like God is a God of order. And his church is to be ordered, right? Like, God is not a God of chaos. He's a God of order. And so if we want  ministry to be effective, there has to be a good order about it. So my goal for you is that you will have you can develop a structure that will effectively drive the  vision in order for to fulfill your mission. Okay. So you know, what your vision is,  we talked about that, and you've discerned that you know, where you're going,  you know, what the mission, you know, the vision is going to help you uniquely  fulfill God's mission. Okay? And so you know, that and so the ideas then build a  structure that will help you accomplish that, and achieve that end. So, when I  talk about structure, I'm really just talking about committees or teams, whatever  you want to call them, you know, kind of your organizational chart, how do they  relate to each other? who's doing what, who's accountable to who? Where are  the lines of responsibility and authority drawn? Who's tasked to what you You  know, areas, those kinds of things, you know, how do we do what we're going to  do, right. So, as I said, at the very beginning, structure can either help you really be effective in doing what you want to do, or it can really hurt you. You can, if  you're not set up well, for what you want to do, it can really slow you down. So  let's say you have a vision, about reaching your community with the gospel, but  you don't have there's no place in your organizational chart or your structure.  There's no place now where anybody is specifically tasked to do evangelism.  And there's no group over it, there's no group who's supervising it, or there's no  leader for it, well, you can have the greatest vision in the world. But if you're not  structured for like, it's never going to happen. It's like a company that is, like,  let's say, a company that sells you know, flash drives, okay, you've got a 

company that makes hardware, and they're, they're gonna sell flash drives, but  they don't have any sales department. They just make them they don't, there's  nobody though, who's in charge of selling them? How, how well organized, is  that company terribly, right? Because they need people who are going to end up like going out and selling these, they need people who are going to market  these and sell them online. And sell them in computer stores and all those kinds  of things. So we need to be thinking kind of in those terms, like, Okay, if we have a mission, and we have a vision, do we have all the pieces in place and in the  right place to help us do that? Right. Okay. So my question is, think about this  for a minute. And you can kind of put me on pause here after asked a question,  which is that, uh, do you have the structure right now in place to accomplish  what God is calling you to do? Do you have the structure right now in place to  accomplish, to do what God has called you to do? I'm going to take a wild stab  here, give you a minute to think about again, you can put me on pause, put me  back on when you're ready. My guess is? I'm going to say for almost everybody,  the answer is no. I don't think so. Because whatever results you're getting in  ministry, they are the byproduct of the structure you have in place. So you're  getting the exact results that your structure is designed to give. It's not like you  have this great structure in place, and it's giving not so good results. In the same way. It's not like a church that has terrible organization and terrible structure,  and yet is getting these fantastic things. You know, however we build the  system, the organization of our church, or ministry, that you're getting exactly  what you're structured for. Okay, so let me tell you about our, my, my journey  with kind of restructuring. And in figuring all this out. When I first got to the  church I'm at, we had one leadership team. And there's about a dozen people.  And they were in charge of everything. I mean, everything they had oversight  over the building, the budget, personnel, every ministry in the church, any kind  of planning, long range planning, any kind of discipline issues. I mean, if if they  had every task assigned to them in a, as you can imagine, that didn't go well.  Well, that's that's kind of the history of our denomination, though, that it's kind of  set up like this. And what I found out was, even as we started to try to do some  revitalization, whenever we met as a leadership team 90% of what we talked  about tended to be administrative. We were talking about the budget, we were  talking about the building and our leaky roof, and we had to replace carpeting  here and we wanted to maybe a new staff person and this other ministry, you  know, we needed to find a leader for them. And so we spent an obscene amount of time doing like administrative kind of conversations in detail. Now  administrative stuff is important. We had to do it. But that's all we did. So one of  the first moves we said is, you know, we're never gonna get anywhere with  revitalization. If we're never talking about, like, hands on ministry stuff, and, and  long range planning, like, when all we're talking about is paying the electric bill  and, you know, again, you know, the carpeting in the children's area, we're, 

we're going to be sunk. So one of the first things we did was we just sliced out a  group of people and said, You're in charge of anything, building budget  personnel, and the rest of us, we're going to be freed up to think about ministry,  you know, how are we sharing the gospel? How are people maturing? How can  we better build relationships? What is our worship ministry look like? How does  that need to develop those sorts of things. And that was a big move. For us, that was really helpful. Then, as I mentioned, during the lecture on mission, we  reorganized into five areas and said, Okay, instead of just, here's 10, or 12,  people just sitting around a room, and nobody's really responsible for anything  kind of. And here's the thing, if everybody's responsible, nobody's responsible.  So we need it to tack a name and to different areas instead, okay, you folks,  you're dealing with worship you folks, gospel sharing, and so on. And so  everything in every ministry fell under that every expense fell under those things. And so we were really focused on our mission and what we were going to do  and kind of the, you'd say, like daily ministry operations, and that was a really  important thing. One of the problems though, we had with our group was, in our  bylaws of our leadership, we had changing leaders every three years, you'd  serve for three years, you'd have to be off for three years. And so we've kind of  tweaked that a little bit. And finally, we just said, this is just killing us that just as  soon as people are getting things going and moving in a good direction. They're  off, and they want to stay on. And sometimes we didn't have a qualified or ready  person to take their place. And so we were replacing gifted people with people  who didn't have that same gift, willing, unwilling people were replacing very  willing people, there was very little continuity. So we just said, Okay, we need to  create a new group of people who are our vision keepers. And so our leadership team said, we're going to appoint a group of people. And they're going to help  discern the vision, and where we want to be in three years and five years. And  they're going to be appointed by our leadership team. And they don't have term  limits. They're just going to keep working forward in this direction, and helping us stay on track. And we're not going to have all the turnover. And they were our  best strategic thinkers, it was the most trusted people in our congregation. And  they got elevated to this, like, highest level of like giving direction, and oversight  to the whole church. And we've made a bunch of other kinds of thing, changes,  but that was really our big, you know, some of the big shifts we have made, and  then we started incorporating things like we have annual planning sessions, into  our calendar, we began to think, structurally, how do we communicate? How  does one team communicate with another team? How does the vision team  communicate with our big our main leadership team? How does the admin team communicate with them? How do we communicate all this stuff to the  congregation? What are the effective channels? How often do we need to be  speaking to each other? How often do we need to meet? How often can we just  do it by email? How often can we do this? Like just phone, you know, 

teleconferencing? You know, just calling in and meeting on the phones for 10 or  15 minutes instead of everybody driving into the church. So we restructured just  a lot of things. And instead of just everybody getting minutes and things printed  

out and agendas, we did everything, we moved everything on to Google Drive.  And so all shared folder. So now everything is done digitally. So we can access  things and we can collaborate on documents. I mean, because now we had  different teams. So all this key part of like structural change, and every change  was like, How can we do this better? How will this help us stay on our on task  with our mission? How will this help us achieve our vision? How can we do this  effectively and efficiently as possible. So we've had over the years, like a  number of like, changes, and in some ways, it's sort of stayed the same. But in  some ways, we're constantly changing. And we're thinking, it would be better if  we did it this way. Just last month, when we had a kind of an all church  leadership meeting, we set out a new kind of schedule for the whole year. And  these are the months when these people need to meet and when these groups  need to meet, and these are when they need to come together. And, you know,  so was it's always a work in progress, but we're always getting better. And I can  say, we're always getting better and better at this whole thing of like organizing  effectively. So that our energy is focused on fulfilling our mission by achieving  our vision. Okay. So, a couple of just big takeaways for you here, just kind of  where would I encourage you to start Okay. With your understanding of your  mission, and understanding of the vision, or going back to the conversations of  what are the first things, what's the first thing you want to do in revitalization?  Those different areas of Church Health and all that kind of stuff? We talked  about, you know, what's the most tense? What's the areas of greatest need? All  that kind of stuff? You know, factoring all that in? And what? How you want to  handle it and what you want to approach? Then, if you're doing that, how would  you organize it? How would you organize your church, your ministry, if you could start from scratch? If you said, if we could just start with a blank piece of paper?  And just go from there? How would we do this, in order to most effectively  accomplish this? Like, Well, I would set it up like this, with this two, with this  team with two teams under it. And I'd have, I'd be on this one. And I have two  key leaders here. And, and I'd meet with them. So, start thinking like that, and  then thinking about how can you transition your current structure to do to do  something more like that, like, you know, obviously, you want to have some kind  of a biblical model of church leadership. We don't want to abandon this idea of  pastors and elders and deacons, and all those kinds of things. But there's no  reason to say that we can't, you know, be creative and how that's organized and how we how and that we can't add other pieces into that. Okay, so I would just  say, if you could start from scratch, what would be the most effective way. And  so you can see that in this revitalization process, effective structures is going to  come more towards the end, the end of the beginning, kind of once you move 

through all these kinds of things, you're going to start to figure out, okay, I know  what we want to do. We're all in agreement. Now let's, let's set ourselves up for  success. How can we do this? Well, okay. And my guess is, if your people have  been along with you in the journey, they're gonna go along with organizational  

change. My folks have very easily very well, because they were part of  discerning discovering the mission, right, and discerning a vision. They've seen  all the assessments, they know what we need to do, what our challenges are.  So as we talked about these things, and changing structure, it's not like this  sacred cow that it's like, well, we can't not have this, you know? Well, sure we  can, because this is what we're trying to do. Okay. And then finally, this is really  important is matching responsibility with authority. So, for example, when we  gave, when we split out the administrative team, there wasn't just you're in  charge of this, like oversight of it, but it was like, We they were empowered to  make decisions. Under a certain framework, you can do you know, and then,  when they only had a really kind of report back quarterly, or if something really  out of the ordinary happened, something unusual, that really required everybody else's attention. And so he said, you are empowered to do this. And then they  went and they did it. When we set aside that vision team, that really kind of the  highest level leadership team for the direction and the guidance. They were  given a lot of authority, but they were also given some boundaries of like, they  couldn't put the church in debt without asking our leadership team. You know,  our main governing body. They couldn't hire staff without first coming back. But  in terms of daily operations and starting ministries and stopping ministries, it was like they could do that because there's nothing worse than giving somebody or a team or a committee a task to do, but no authority to do it, where they feel like  their hands are tied up. And this happens in church all the time where a  committee will say something, and then they're just told no by somebody else.  And it's like, well, why did you ask me to do this, or and it really stifles creativity,  it stifles risk taking. So if people have a responsibility to do something within  your organizational charts, they need to have the authority to do it. And so they  need to be empowered and, and given that, but I would say also within a within  a healthy framework, not just hey, blank, check, do whatever you want. But  you're you are empowered to do this. within these boundaries in our church, we  talked about a sandbox, like, you have a really big sandbox, and you can do  anything you want in that sandbox, you don't have to ask permission, you don't  have to get the okay. If you want to do something outside the sandbox, then you  need to ask, then we need to talk about it. And maybe we'll do it, maybe that's a  great thing, but maybe not. But you can't just wander off on your own. So  anyway, that's a little bit about structure. And I really hope that this is going to  just help you think a little differently about how you're organized, and maybe  you're like we're not even organized at all. Maybe this will help you take the first  steps or if you're just organized maybe poorly or ineffectively, this will help you 

think about reorganizing in a way that's going to help you be more productive  and efficient. Okay, that's it for this lecture and the series on developing a model  for ministry. And I'm gonna pray for you, and hope that God's going to work  through you in wonderful and meaningful ways. Lord, we do thank you for this  lecture. And, Lord, I thank you for all the ways that you've worked through our  church through structure, and through changing things. So we would be not  stuck in the past and not stuck to the forms of tradition. But we could think  creatively, Lord, and we could organize around your purposes. And Lord, I pray  for all my brothers and sisters who are going to be trying to do the same thing  and for Lord, just give them wisdom and what this should look like and wisdom  for their leaders who will be working through these systems. Lord, you are just  so wonderful, and we just praise your name for all things and your faithfulness to us. Lord, we love you. Amen.