My first though was “Ministry Machine” but wise people talked me out of that.  It was too specific, too long of a name for twitter, and just kind of dumb to be honest.

A friend of mine asked me this question.

“What is your favorite title ever?”

About that time we had an intern who had been a swimmer for me years before.  While everyone else called me “Shef”…she still called me “Coach.”

The staff thought it was funny and cute.  I loved it.

It took me back to summer mornings on the pool deck watching the kids work hard and get better.  It took me back to swim meets where our work was put to the test.  It took me back to putting my arm around a kid who had a bad day and celebrating with others who had just done what they never thought they could do.

Her “nickname” for me made me realize the answer to my friends question.

I loved the idea of being the “Coach.”

And the name for the blog was available.  So, that’s what we did.

Since then I have been under some pressure to start a Coaching Group.

I started last summer with 6 guys and I’ve got to tell you…I love it.  I looked forward to our Fridays together and catching up with our 1-on-1 phone calls.

I will be starting the last CoachShef Coaching Group this June.

After this Coaching Group, all of my coaching will take place under my new site, www.uthmin.net

If you’re interested in joining this CoachShef Coaching Group, please click HERE

Thanks so much for all your support and encouragement.

I’ll be back Thursday with some more content.

I just kinda disappeared without a lot of explanation.

I appreciate the emails, texts, and tweets over the past few months and I just wanted to give you a heads up about what has been going on.

Here are the three explanations to my “break.”

1.  I’ve been busy!

We launched a couple more campuses in the North Point Family over the last year or so.   Gwinnett Church and Watermarke are up and rolling and doing great.  That process has brought up some issues though.  My old job of being the North Point Community Church Transit Director and the North Point Ministries Transit Director had become impossible to do!  At least impossible to do if I wanted to be a great husband and a great dad…and write a blog every few days.

I want to be a great husband and a great dad.

So I dropped the blog for a while.  Sorry I didn’t explain better at the time.

And…I dropped the job at North Point Community Church.  (actually a gut wrenching decision!…I’ll blog about it someday)

But…they let me keep my job as the North Point Ministries Transit Director!

After several months of searching, we found a great Director for NPCC Transit.  He’s killing it and doing a great job.  He’s actually an upgrade from the old guy in my opinion!

Not to mention three kids under 8, flag football coaching,  my coaching group, and some speaking here and there.

I’ve simply been busy!

2.  I’ve been writing!

I’m really excited about this project.  I’m finishing up a book with Reggie Joiner that is scheduled to come out by The Orange Conference!  Top Secret for right now but…Stay tuned to twitter…I’ll keep you posted on the details as I get them figured out.

3.  I not a big fan of the brand “Coach Shef”

It’s not that I don’t like the title.  It is one of my favorite all time titles.  It’s just that I got some advice as I launched this thing to make it very much personal and about me.

I wish I hadn’t taken that advice.

It might be good blogging advice…but…It’s just not me.

So, we (I’ll tell you about the “We” some other time) are working on another option.

We are going to make a few changes so that we can be more helpful, less about me, and allow more voices to speak into this thing.

I’m really excited…but I’ll have to wait to tell you more.

Stay tuned…thanks for your patience.

Shef

What would I do in that situation?

Last week I was completely obsessed with the story out of Zainesville, Ohio.  If you’ve been living in a cave..HERE’s a link.

Here’s the basic set-up.

You’re the Sheriff in a small town and a call comes across the radio that many exotic animals are running lose from a local piece of property you’ve been to before.

You know there are over 50 wild animals in that “zoo.”  You know there are MANY Lions…MANY Tigers….Wolves….and Grizzly Bears.

You know…when you were on the property before that the animals were aggressive…

It’s getting to be dusk….

It’s raining…

The next call over the radio is asking permission to “Shoot to Kill.”

What do you do?

You can read the article if you want to know what was decided.

I just think the whole situation illustrates some pretty amazing things about decision making when there is no clear way to make it all go away.

Here are some thoughts.

1.  You have to know your priorities!  Can you imagine if this Sheriff stopped to look at his old Police Leadership books in order to figure out what to do in this situation.  We will all face decisions in which there is no precedence.  I’m guessing the little plaque on his desk that says “To Protect and Serve” came in handy as the Sheriff was weighing his options.

2.  You’re not going to make everyone happy.  Here’s a little piece of wisdom I picked up from my last boss.  He said, “if everyone understands a tough decision you made…you waited too long to make it.”  He went on to say that a leader has to make decisions before people have enough information to understand it.  Can you imagine if this Sheriff was worried about keeping everybody happy?

3.  If you don’t have to hurry…don’t rush the decision.  If you have to hurry…don’t be too proud to change your mind.  The point is to solve the problem…not to be right.   I heard, though I can’t confirm, that there was an attempt to tranquilize and one of the animals just freaked out.

4.  We live in a broken world.  Some problems don’t have a perfect solution.  As a leader you will often have to chose between two or three options that all have their downsides.  When in this situation…see #1.

 What do you think?  How do you decide when there is no clear winner?

Basically for you to understand it you need to know a few things.  It starts a few weeks ago when I was asked to sit on the leadership team for North Point Ministries.

To me, that was a very humbling, flattering, and exciting opportunity.

And so, for the last few weeks, on Tuesday mornings, I have prayed myself up and walked into a room full of very talented people to intimidate the FOOL out of me!

So…last week was supposed to be my fourth time in that meeting…BUT…the challenges of raising a young family had other plans!

For those of you who have multiple little ones…you know how this goes!

EARLY in the morning someone throws up…and then the chain reaction begins…until the sun rises on one exhausted momma.  (It’s not that I can’t help…it’s the fact that no one wants Daddy when they’re sick!)

But that wasn’t it.  As the morning came…so came the requirements of a new day.

And…as I looked at my wife…I could tell.  This was just one of those days that comes along every once in a while.  A day when my family needed me.

And I was faced with this decision.

Do I stay with my wife and family?…OR…Do I go to my fourth leadership team meeting?

Or…maybe a better way to put it…my choice was this.

Do I let down my wife and family?…OR…Do I let down the members of the Leadership Team and possibly look like a flake four weeks in?

Here’s the deal.

Even though I work in the church that is famous for the term “Choosing to Cheat“….

Even though, during my first month at work, my boss looked me in the eyes and told me to choose my family over him every time…

It was still a very hard decision to choose to stay home.

But I did.  I cheated on the Leadership Team!

And…then…the most amazing thing happened.

Over the next two days, as I ran into 2 high ranking members of that leadership team and they asked me where I was…So I told them.

And…they congratulated me on a good decision!

Here are a couple of observations about that whole experience.

• Choosing the Cheat is hard.  Especially when you really want to do the thing you’re skipping.  But it’s still the right thing to do.  This philosophy is more than an excuse to get me out of work I don’t really want to do.
• Choosing to Cheat may cost you your reputation.  I can’t control how people perceived my decision.  Being valiant is not always seen as that.
• Choosing to Cheat as a corporate value is a very fragile thing.  Those members of the leadership team could have easily brought it all down with one judgmental look.
• As a leader, If you believe in the concept of Choosing to Cheat, you need to make it a point to celebrate when someone chooses correctly…even if it’s your meeting they skip.

So, where are you in this whole thing?  Is Choosing to Cheat a nifty idea?

…idea you use to get out of things  you don’t want to do anyway?

…or a belief that goes beyond your reputation and pride?

So…a week or so ago we launched THIS competition.

A couple of  quick comments before we announce the winners.

I wish I could give 10 sets of tickets away…you guys (ladies included) are awesome.

I picked this winner because of a few of things…

1.  I love that this pastor spent time in Family Ministry and I don’t want him to forget!

2.  I want to help rejuvenate a church.

3.  I love that the board of the church is concerned for families.

4.  I want to give a husband and wife time away!

That being said…here is the winning letter.

My Wife and I – Crystal Patey, Youth & Children’s Pastor at Trinity Pentecostal Church, Baie Verte – have spent the last number of years in Youth & Children’s Ministry.  Now, we have taken up the challenge of being the Senior Pastors in a small church of about 100 people, in the community of Baie Verte, NL., Canada, pop. approx. 1250.  She serves as the part time youth & children’s pastor, and I serve as the Senior Pastor!

We have been given a mandate by our board to reach this community and engage young families in our church and community, in an assembly that is aging and desperately needs new life, fresh energy and renewed vision.  The Think Orange conference will be a great benefit to us, as a place where we can get new ideas, learn to think creatively, and impact the families of this community that is set to explode with new work opportunities and the possibility of many young families moving back home or moving into town to work in the area’s mining industry.

Pastor Greg Patey
Senior Pastor

Congratulations Greg and Crystal…can’t wait to meet in person.  I’ll be in touch soon.

Last year I gave away two tickets to the Orange Conference.  You can read about that HERE.  I loved it!

And I got to meet a couple of great guys, Steve and Chris who have been working hard at improving their family ministry programs at their church in Kansas.  You can read their letter HERE.

In fact…I loved it so much that we’re doing it again.

What do you say?  You in?

Here’s the official prize.

• 2 Registrations to the Orange Conference (one must be for your head pastor)
• a 2 hour consulting lunch during Orange to talk systems and volunteer recruitment with me. (I’m buying)
• 2 copies of Think Orange for you and your Head Pastor.

Here’s how you get it.

1. Must be a follower of @coachshef on Twitter.
2. Retweet this post and/or share it on Facebook (or whatever)
3. Comment on this post “I’m in!”…include your name and church….And whatever else you want to say.
4. Get your head pastor to email me telling me why they want to come to Orange with you.  (the winning email will be part of the post announcing the winner).  You can send your emails to info@coachshef.com.  Make sure the pastor mentions your church and your name.

All entries are due by September 28th The winner will be announced on September 29th.

So…Who’s in?

He then said…”You would love it!  They basically take an overwhelmed and under performing restaurant and apply some of your systems…and the make it work again!  And all in 60 minutes!”

So I watched it…and I loved it.  So I watched a few more episodes.

A theme is really starting to emerge.

On the front end…when the restaurant isn’t running well and on the brink of going out of business.

• There is usually a proud man in charge…with proud man disease.
• They have a huge menu that is complicated and almost impossible to pull off.
• They have no idea what their top sellers are or where the are making or losing money.  They don’t measure and they don’t have systems in place for the daily normal stuff that goes down.
• There is tension and backstabbing going on amongst the leadership and staff.

During the show, Robert takes them through pretty much the same processes.

• He breaks the proud man and gets him to focus on what he is good at.
• He studies what sells and doesn’t sell (Usually the data is there and nobody has ever looked at it).
• He simplifies the menu with quality, but simple items that can be replicated.
• He takes on the tensions within the staff directly (often connected to the proud man above) and they move forward.
• He gives the place a quick, inexpensive (relatively) facelift.

The show winds down as they open for a large crowed gathered to see if they can get their faces on TV.

So…the question is.  What can we learn from a show like this in ministry?

I think that many of our ministries are in very similar situations.

• The ministry is built around a personality.
• The ministry offers so many programs that the staff and volunteers can’t work on any of it because they are so quickly onto the next thing.
• Quantity of experiences is valued more than quality of experience.
• No one in the ministry could tell you if or how they are winning.  It hasn’t been specifically defined.
• The “Blame Game” is in full effect.  Strong leaders are doing what they want to do and weaker ones are frustrations for everyone else.
• And, if they were businesses, would be on the brink of going out of business.

What do you think?  Do you need a makeover?  Do you need a restart?  Do you work in a Ministry Impossible?

I’ll be back to talk about the restart soon.

I love sitting and looking out the back of the boat. You can see our trail weaving through the calm water. Waves emanating from each side of the boat…further and further out from their original position. There is no mistaking where we have been as we cruise through the calm water. You can see every turn, and, if you know what you’re looking at, you can also tell how fast or slow the boat was going at different points. You can tell a lot about the trip of the boat simply from it’s wake.

The same is true of us.

We can tell a ton about our journey as a leader by our wake.

Before you read on…stop and think about it.

Who is in your wake?

What would people say about you who are in your wake?

This is a concept that I was introduced to in the book Integrityby Henry Cloud.  In it, Cloud says there are two sides of the wake.

On one side of the wake are our tasks.  What did we accomplish?

On the other side are our relationships.  How did we deal with the people we encountered?

As I think about this I think it’s a good idea to set some goals.

Here are some things I hope to see in my wake in the future.

• A ministry that outlasts me and is not dependent on me.
• A bunch of new ideas that I said “no” to.  This will tell me if I stayed focused.
• A few new ideas and programs that worked.  This will tell me I had the guts to try new things.
• A few new ideas programs that failed (and that I had to guts to stop).  If I didn’t fail at something I’m was being too conservative.
• Good ideas that I had us stop doing before it was obvious that it was over.  This w0uld tell me I had the courage to make the hard call.
• Most of the people who would say I’m a man of character and deep conviction.  This would tell me I treated people well.
• Some people who are angry with me but respect me.  This would tell me that I made tough decisions before it was obvious.
• A few people that hate my guts.  I wasn’t called to make everyone happy.  Unhealthy people wouldn’t understand healthy decisions and probably “act” unhealthy.  This would tell me I didn’t let unhealthy people sway me and my leadership.
• A family that didn’t hate my job.

How about you?  What do you want to see in your wake.

I think it’s best to close with a few practical examples of how these help.  Here are three common “great ideas” that a youth pastor faces and the logic I would use when deciding if this distracts us or keeps us on target.

We should have a student band!

This is one of my favorites.  I love the idea of the kids getting to lead the music.  BUT…before I say “yes” we need to run it through the filter.

1.  Find great people and give them a healthy culture in which to grow and connect with students. – NO CHECK – This does nothing for helping us systematically find great small group leaders.

2.  Create shared quality experiences built around Biblical truth for the students and the small group leaders. - NO CHECK – Again, this may provide quality experiences for the four or five kids, but that is between the kids and whoever is directing the band.  Have you ever calculated how many hours it takes to direct a good student band?  I personally believe it will eat up 10-20 hours a week.

3.  Give parents access to #1 and #2.  NO CHECK – If #1 and #2 aren’t satisfied…no way this one is.

Verdict:  I won’t pursue a student band until my room is full of great small group leaders and my program is refined to giving students and small group leaders shared quality experiences around biblical truth while giving parents access to both.  Until I’m doing that well and consistently, I won’t commit the time and resources to developing a student band.

We should have a sports program at our church!

1.  Find great people and give them a healthy culture in which to grow and connect with students. – NO CHECK – This does nothing for helping us systematically find great small group leaders.

2.  Create shared quality experiences built around Biblical truth for the students and the small group leaders. - POSSIBLE CHECK – Sports do provide great experiences…there is no doubt about that.  I would have to create teams by small groups and ask my small group leaders to come another night of the week.  OR…I’d have to spend some of the time I’ve allotted to finding and feeding great small group leaders to finding new coaches.

3.  Give parents access to #1 and #2.  POSSIBLE CHECK – Coaches are often one of the most influential positions in a kids life.  This can be a huge help for a parent to have a great coach in their kids life.  Games would also provide a shared experience for everybody.

Verdict:  I won’t pursue a sports program that is managed out of the youth department.  I simply don’t have time to find another group of volunteers, create schedules, reserve fields, and communicate with parents.  If the church would like to hire someone to do that I would recommend that person NOT be a part of the student team staff as I don’t have the margin to manage another staff member at this point.  If the decision goes through from the church than I would find ways to partner with that department.

We should offer Starting Point for students!

*Starting Point is an environment for beginners and returners to the Christian Faith at our church.

1.  Find great people and give them a healthy culture in which to grow and connect with students. – NO CHECK – This does nothing for helping us systematically find great small group leaders.

2.  Create shared quality experiences built around Biblical truth for the students and the small group leaders. - DEFINITE CHECK – IF we make sure to include small group leaders in this idea we will be squarely within strategy.  Foundational Biblical truth is appropriate, relevant, and important.

3.  Give parents access to #1 and #2.  POSSIBLE CHECK – IF we make sure to include parents in this process somehow we could use this to help parents raise their children up.

Verdict:  I think there is something to explore here.  Let’s have a group of small groups leaders (those interested in this) go through starting point.  We can buy them lunch on Sunday as they work through the curriculum.  We could then use the last 30 minutes to talk about how each truth applies to middle schoolers.  Once we have that information we can move to the next step if we feel it is relevant.  I can see several iterations of this program.

• A video curriculum that parents and small group leaders use for a student who needs it.
• A curriculum that a small group leader may chose to use instead of the normal Sunday curriculum for a season.
• Integrating it into our current curriculum to make sure we are covering these foundational principles every year through our  normal pipelines.
• Something I’m not thinking of yet!

So…What do you think?  What are some other ideas that need to be run through the filter?