5 Signs You Lack Integrity

By Carey | February 6, 2012 | 7 Comments

Integrity is something we all desire, but how do you know if
you have it? And what exactly is it anyway?

Sometimes it’s easiest to think about something out of its

immediate context. When something is well built, we say it
has structural integrity. So in an earthquake, the building with
excellent structural integrity survives. When something
physically collapses, we say it didn’t have the integrity to
withstand the impact.

All of this springs from the original latin root of integrity, which
means ‘intact’. Can you withstand the crisis intact?

Many people aren’t withstanding crises well these days. The

storm buffets and they collapse along with their family or their
organization.

The tension is that no one sees the problem until the storm
hits. ‘Normal’ doesn’t really test your integrity. Crises do. But
when a crisis comes, it’s often too late to fix what’s
wrong. The damage is happening in real time.

While there are many things that compromise our integrity,

here are five signs that show your integrity is in question:
1. It’s all about you. You can say it’s about God. You can
say it’s about others. But only you and God know your
heart. Selfish people harm their organizations, families and
friends. If it’s all about you, you won’t go the distance. Or you
will, but you’ll hurt a lot of people in the process and you’ll
never know what could have happened if you made it about
God and others.

2. Your self esteem rises and falls with the opinion of

others. A secure leader can see the right way and lead
people there through tough conditions. An insecure leader
will bend with every change in public opinion. Which means
you’re not actually leading anyone, not even yourself.

3. You’re hiding things. You shouldn’t be telling everyone

everything (that’s not healthy) – but someone needs to know
everything. If you’re keeping secrets, you’re heading for a
fall. Between my wife, elders, close friends and counselor, I
have an inner circle that knows everything about me. (By the
way, if you’re afraid to give your password on your computer
or phone to anyone in that circle, you’re hiding things.)

4. You fail to do what you said you were going to do. This
isn’t just about keeping promises; it’s about keeping your word
in everything. Better to say nothing and surprise someone by
delivering than blurt out an intention you can’t
fulfil. Ultimately, people lose confidence in you when you fail
to deliver. It’s a trust issue. A fairly easy way to address this
is to say less and deliver more. A great follow up system also
helps (sometimes a lack of integrity isn’t even a moral issue –
just an awareness and organization issue).

5. You make too many compromises. Leadership is not

about getting everyone to like you or about finding the easiest
path. It’s about discerning the best way forward. It’s about
getting people to go where they wouldn’t go if it wasn’t for
leadership. If you make too many decisional compromises or
even a handful of personal compromises, your effectiveness
will be–you guessed it– compromised.

Don’t just think of these things as character flaws, think of

what’s at stake: when the crises hit (and they will), you won’t
be left standing. Simple as that. When you attend to these
things, you integrity grows, and so does your ability to live and
lead through difficult times.

Fortunately, integrity can be built and rebuilt. In this separate

post, I outline 5 ways to build your integrity. You can read
it here.

What insights have you gained on integrity? What signs

would you add to this list?

http://careynieuwhof.com/2012/02/5-signs-you-lack-integrity/
5 Ways To Build Your Integrity
By Carey | February 8, 2012 | 9 Comments
Earlier this week we looked at five signs that show you lack
integrity. It’s one thing to know you might lack it in certain
areas, but the question is how do you build integrity? How do
you develop it?

Integrity is about more than just doing the right thing, It’s
about buidling the kind of character that can survive a crisis
intact. In the same way a building that has integrity can
survive a storm, a life that has integrity can do the same.

So how do you build integrity?

1. Be ruthlessly honest with yourself. Of all the lies we tell,

the ones we tell ourselves are the most deadly. Question your
motives. Stop justifying what you know to be wrong. Stop
excusing yourself.

2. Seek wise counsel. We all have blind spots. It’s one thing
to be honest with yourself, but sometimes you and I are just
blind to faults others can see. Find three or four people who
believe in you and ask them for feedback on your life.

3. Decide to honour God, not please people. Doing the

right thing is almost never the easy thing, and sometimes it’s
not the popular thing. Honouring God is not the same as
believing you are always right and everyone else is wrong – it
simply means you are going to live with a long view of what to
do, informed by scripture. It means enduring short term pain
for longer term gain. To avoid becoming arrogant or deluded,
make sure you test what obedience looks like for you not only
against scripture and prayer, but also with your circle of wise
counsel (see above). They will see things you can’t see.

4. Be appropriately transparent. We’d all like to be

something we’re not. Admit your shortcomings. You don’t
have to tell everyone what you’re struggling with, but you
need to tell someone. Part of being honest with yourself is
being honest with others. And as much as you might be afraid
that everyone will think less of you, living transparently and
not pretending to be someone you aren’t actually makes
people think more of you. It’s counter-intuitive. It’s also
transformative.

5. Put yourself first when it comes to personal growth. I

know that sounds selfish, even unbibilical, but I’m not sure it
is. Jesus prepared for thirty years before ministering for three.
And during those three years he often disappeared to pray.
You can only give what you’ve got. And he spent whole
seasons of his life receiving from God what he needed to give
to the world. Cancel some appointments. Tell the kids to wait.
You need to build a solid spiritual, emotional and relational
foundation for your life. Pray. Open the Bible (for you – not for
anyone else pastors). Go for a run. Eat something healthy. Go
for dinner with a friend who gives you life. If your cup is empty,
how are you going to fill anyone else’s?

These are five practices I’ve found helpful in my life.

What have you discovered helps you build integrity?

http://careynieuwhof.com/2012/02/5-ways-to-build-your-integrity/

5 Wrong Motives For Church

Growth
By Carey | June 22, 2016 | 4 Comments
So you want your church to grow. Wonderful.

Here’s a challenging question: why?

Your motivation for wanting your church to grow is important

for several reasons.

First, it’s the church. It’s not your church, it’s God’s. And one
day you’ll give an account to God for what you did with what
he entrusted you and why you did it.

Second, ultimately, I think people can tell. Eventually, people

can tell whether you care about them or whether you’re using
them.
Third, it’s an integrity issue. Integrity ultimately determines
whether what you build stands, in the same way that a house
with structural integrity will stand over the years.

Wanting your church to grow isn’t a bad thing. Passion for the
mission means passion for growth. And the purest motive in
leadership will be simply that you want people to come to
know the love, forgiveness and fullness of life in Jesus Christ.

Yet not everyone wants their church to grow for noble

reasons.

How do you know where you stand? Here are 5 false motives
to watch for.

Just because you struggle with them doesn’t mean you’ll

succumb to them. But if you recognize them for what they are,
you can identify them, confess them, and kill them before they
ruin a good thing.

People can tell whether you care about them or

whether you’re using them.
CLICK TO TWEET
1. Pride
Is pride driving your desire to see your church grow? That can
be tough to answer accurately.

Pride is like greed; it rarely shows itself in the mirror.

How would you know if pride is driving your desire to grow?

Just watch what happens when you grow or don’t grow. As
Tim Keller says, if growth has become an idol to you, success
will go to your head and failure will go to your heart.
Pride is like greed; it rarely shows itself in the
mirror.
CLICK TO TWEET

Proud leaders do great as long as everything is moving up

and to the right, but if things turn, they almost can’t stand the
outcome because it crushes them.

A humble leader can lead in time of failure, stagnation and

success.

Humility separates what you do from who you are. Pride never
does.

Humility separates what you do from who you are.

Pride never does.
CLICK TO TWEET

2. Competition
Some leaders want their church to grow because they need to
be the best—to be the brightest, fastest or on top.

There’s a world of difference between wanting to do your best

and wanting to be the best.

Competition is an inferior motive for growth not just because

it’s linked to pride, but because it diminishes the contribution
of all others as ‘inferior’. Leaders who always want to be first
usually take delight in the fact that others are second.

And that stinks. Especially for a Christian.

Competitive leaders feel they have to be the best.

Healthy leaders simply want to do their best. (Sometimes, that

even lands them at Number One.)

Competitive leaders feel they have to be the best.

Healthy leaders simply want to do their best.
CLICK TO TWEET

3. Insecurity
Sometimes insecure people want their church or organization
to grow because it makes them feel better about themselves.

Insecurity and pride are closely linked. Why? Insecurity can

lead to an obsession with self the same way narcissism can.
The insecure person thinks about themselves constantly and
will use others to make them feel better, which of course, is
always a mistake.

Pride, competition and insecurity should drive you to God (and

perhaps to a Christian counsellor), not to more.
Insecurity can lead to an obsession with self the same way
narcissism can.

Insecurity can lead to an obsession with self the

same way narcissism can.
CLICK TO TWEET

4. Organizational Preservation
Too many churches want to grow simply so they can stay
afloat.

You’ve heard it more often than anyone would like to admit:

We need some people to help pay the bills.

We just need more butts in the seats if this is going to work.

We are so short on volunteers that we really need to get some

new people in the doors.

People who join your church will soon see that you value them
for what they can do, not for who they are. As a result, they
won’t stick.

Cruel as it sounds, churches that want to grow simply to keep

themselves alive probably should die. They’ve lost the
mission.
Churches that want to grow simply to keep
themselves alive probably should die.
CLICK TO TWEET

5. Because You Simply Want To Grow

Other churches don’t need to grow to stay afloat, but instead,
they want to grow simply because, well, they want to grow.

The logic goes like this: Healthy things grow, right?

So we should add a campus, or add a service or embark on a

building campaign to make more space. Well, maybe.

But that healthy ‘thing’ should already be growing, to the point

where you need to make a move or it just makes sense to
make a move.

Expanding so you’ll start growing is like saying you want to

get married so you’ll fall in love. No, you get married because
you’ve fallen in love.

Usually, a church should expand because one of two things is

happening:

There’s not enough room for people who are already coming.
You’ve got a thriving ministry in one location and you want to
bring it to a new location.

Expanding for the sake of expansion is not a growth strategy;

it’s actually an implosion strategy.

What often happens when you expand because you want to

expand is that you will end up with more debt, more
complexity, more stagnation and more confusion.

http://careynieuwhof.com/2016/06/5-wrong-motives-church-growth/

What Do You Think?

So those are false motives I’ve had to wrestle with and I’ve
seen many other leaders struggle with.

The truth is, I do want the church to grow. Why?

The best and perhaps the only great motivation for growing a
church is that we want to see people move into a life-giving
relationship with Jesus.

That’s exactly what we all should be doing.

Do you see any other false motives?

Let me know in the comments below!

5 Reasons Churches That Start
Small Stay Small
By Carey | September 8, 2014 | 27 Comments
So…you want your church to grow, right?

When I ask ministry leaders whether they want to see growth,

almost every leader I’ve ever talked to says yes.

Sure…there are some house church movements that want to

stay small. And some long time or xenophobic churches have
lost their appetite for growth. And there are always a few
people who think big=evil.

But most leaders want their churches to grow…and

for good reasons most of the time. They want to reach people
with the life changing love and forgiveness of Christ.

That is awesome.

But most churches don’t grow.

And most churches that start small stay small.

Why?
Almost Nobody Starts Big
Well first of all, almost no church starts big. There are a few
exceptions, like North Point.

But that’s the rare exception—almost all of churches start

small. Even mega churches most often start with 5 people
meeting in a living room and grow from there.

Big doesn’t have to be the destination for everyone.

But clearly, if you want to reach your community, growth is a
natural by product of a mission being fulfilled.

I Don’t Want To Start Another Debate

Before we get to the main point, a qualifier. The last thing I
want to do with this post is to start a debate on small church v.
large church. We’ve had them before on other posts and
keyboards have been set on fire on other blogs over this
issue. No more, okay?

So, for the record:

There are lots of great small churches.

There are lots of great large churches.

There are some bad small churches.

There are some bad big churches.

There is no perfect or biblical number for church size.

No one can claim moral high ground in this discussion.

Can we agree on that? And even if you have different views,
can we please not be disagreeable?

Once and for all, size doesn’t determine how significant

your ministry is.

Rather, size becomes relevant only for those who are

attempting to reach their community.

If you’re going to reach your community, you’re going to grow.

And if you’re going to grow, you have to figure out why certain
things make a church grow and why certain
things curtail growth.

If you’re going to reach your community, you’ve got

to plan to grow.
CLICK TO TWEET

5 Reasons Churches That Start Small Stay

Small
For sure there are more than 5 reasons (I outline 8 related but
different reasons why churches never grow past 200 here).

But just know there is no silver bullet.

Doing these 5 things is no guarantee your church will grow.

But the opposite is true.

If you don’t pay attention to these 5 factors, there is a very

good chance your church won’t grow. At least not
substantially or sustainably.

1. Big Hopes…But Small Strategy

There isn’t a single leader who’s planted a church (or started
anything) who hasn’t had big hopes.

The challenge is that often those hopes have no strategy to

back them up.

Or if they have a strategy, it’s a strategy that isn’t designed to

take the community past 100 or 200 people.

You can’t operate as though you were a church of 500 when

there are 50 in the room, but you have to plan for the day
when there will be 500, not 50, in the room.

Some questions:

What’s your strategy to reach your community?

What’s your organizational chart look like at 50 people, 100,
200, 500, 1000?

How will your role change as your church grows?

How will your team change and develop as you grow?

How will your structure change and adapt?

What will you NOT do as you get bigger?

What will you DO as you get bigger?

Those are all strategy questions. And many leaders haven’t

sat down with their team to answer them.

As a result, you start small and often stay small.

It doesn’t matter how big your dreams are.

Strategy trumps intention. And hope is not a strategy.

If you want to read more on the relationship between mission,

vision and strategy, read this.

It doesn’t matter how big your dreams are. Strategy

trumps intention. And hope is not a strategy.
CLICK TO TWEET
2. Underfunding
I understand poorly funded ministries.

One of the churches I started at had a $4000 annual budget.

And no, I’m not making that up.

I also completely understand that vision always precedes

resources and people. That’s a great thing. You should
always have more vision than you have money and people.

But here’s what’s true: I’ve seen well funded church plants
flop and shoe-string plants thrive.

You can start on a shoe string, but often churches never make
it pastthat.

Ultimately, if your church is going to thrive, it’s going to need

the resources to accomplish all it can.

And that’s where most ministries languish.

You need to figure out how to raise money that goes beyond
just paying the light bill.

I’ll share the single resource that has helped us the most.
If you want to develop a strategy to raise more money for
everyday ministry, you might want to check out The Giving
Rocket program. We’ve’ve used it at Connexus we saw a 25%
growth in regular giving in one year.

If you struggle with the idea that ministry should be

adequately funded, take 18 minutes and watch this Ted talk
by Dan Pallotta if you haven’t already. Although Dan doesn’t
come at it from a Christian perspective, his angle is a huge
paradigm shift for just about everyone. So good.

Regardless of how you tackle it, adequately funding your

mission is critical for long term health.

You can start a church on a shoe-string budget, but

you’ll never thrive if you stay there.
CLICK TO TWEET

3. Pastors Who Do Everything

For three years, I was the only staff member at our church.

Then we brought on two very part time people, and I still ran
nearly solo for 4 more years (7 in total) until we hired our first
other full time staff member.
There is a season in which the pastor does ‘everything’. But
that season will rarely get you past 200 people.

It got us to 300 people but I almost burned out. And it’s

completely unsustainable.

To get sustainably past 200-300 people, I had to:

Stop most pastoral visitation, except for a small circle of

people within my care.

Restrict the number of weddings and funerals I did.

Pull myself off of almost every team in the church.

Stop leading Bible studies.

Stop doing much except communication, vision casting and

leading leaders.

Who did all the other ministry? People. Some staff, but mainly
volunteers.

Delegating and empowering people around a common

mission, vision and strategy releases the ministry to people
who are gifted, called and equipped to lead that ministry.
When you release ministry, it’s liberating for everyone. It’s the
way the church is designed to run.

And remember this: Pastors who do everything eventually end

up leading no one. While that may be a bit of an exaggeration,
it’s a good wake up call.

Pastors who do everything eventually end up

leading no one.
CLICK TO TWEET

4. No Plans For Anything Bigger

Many leaders are currently leading the biggest church they’ve
ever attended been a part of, right now. So how do you plan
for anything bigger when you haven’t experienced anything
bigger?

That’s true if you’re part of a church of 100 people or 1000.

Even when I led a church of 6 people, I had not actually led a

church that was bigger than that (it was my first assignment
as a student).

But just because you haven’t led more doesn’t mean you
shouldn’t plan for more.
Here are some keys to crossing the 200, 400 and 800
barriers.

Plan today for what you want to be a part of tomorrow.

Plan today for what you want to be part of

tomorrow.
CLICK TO TWEET

5. A Selfish Drift Inward

This is actually an issue for a large number of churches, both
church plants and existing churches.

Even when you start a church from scratch, it tends to be led,

populated and funded by members.

And so it’s completely easy and natural to lose focus on the

people you’re trying to reach.

And because self-centeredness is a natural pull for all of us

(at least it is for me), unless we have a white hot searing
mission in front of us, church can quickly become about
satisfying our needs, our wants, our preferences and our
desires.
And that fuels a spiral in which congregational or
organizational life can become about satisfying the competing
preferences of members.

Some want it this way. Some want it that way. And people
threaten to leave.

Let that go unchecked and soon you find yourself focused on

the people you’re trying to keep, not the people you’re trying
to reach.

The casualty in all of this? The very people you were hoping
to reach.

The only way to check this that I know of is to prayerfully keep

the unreached front and center in all your discussions and
your actions.

In your off time (and maybe in your work hours) hang out with
the people you’re trying to reach.

Invite them. Regularly.

Speak for them when they’re not in the room and you’re trying
to make a decision.

Budget and staff with them in mind.

Plan every Sunday like it’s someone’s first Sunday, even if
right now, it might not be.

If you keep this front and center, you will resist the trap that so
many churches and organizations fall into; the selfish drift
inward.

Plan every Sunday like it will be someone’s first

Sunday.
CLICK TO TWEET

These are some reasons I’ve noticed why some churches that
start small stay small, despite intentions that would move
them elsewhere.

What have you seen?

Leave a comment!

http://careynieuwhof.com/2014/09/5-reasons-churches-that-start-small-stay-small/

8 Reasons Most Churches Never

Break The 200 Attendance Mark
By Carey | September 30, 2013 | 393 Comments
While social media and even traditional media are still
preoccupied with mega churches and multi-site churches, the
reality is that most churches in North America are quite small.
The Barna group pegs the average Protestant church size in
America at 89 adults. 60% of protestant churches have less
than 100 adults in attendance. Only 2% have over 1000 adults
attending.

Please understand, there’s nothing wrong with being a

small church. I just know that almost every small church
leader I speak to wants his or her church to grow.

I get that. That’s the mission of the church. Every single day, I
want our church to become more effective in reaching one
more person with the hope that’s in Christ.

So why is it that most churches never break the 200

attendance mark?
It’s not:

Desire. Most leaders I know want their church to reach more

people.

A lack of prayer. Many small church leaders are incredibly

faithful in prayer.

Love. Some of the people in smaller churches love people as

authentically as anyone I know.

Facility. Growth can start in the most unlikely places.

Let’s just assume you have a solid mission, theology and heart to reach people.

You know why most churches still don’t push past the 200
mark in attendance?

You ready?

They organize, behave, lead and manage like

a small organization.

Think about it.

There’s a world of difference between how you organize a

corner store and how you organize a larger supermarket.
In a corner store, Mom and Pop run everything, Want to talk
to the CEO? She’s stocking shelves. Want to see the Director
of Marketing? He’s at the cash register.

Mom and Pop do everything, and they organize their business

to stay small. Which is fine if you’re Mom and Pop and don’t
want to grow.

But you can’t run a supermarket that way. You organize

differently. You govern differently. There’s a produce
manager, and people who only stock shelves. There’s a floor
manager, shift manager, general manager and so much more.

So what’s the translation to church world?

Here are 8 reasons churches who want to grow end up

staying small:

1. The pastor is the primary caregiver. Honestly, if you just

push past this one issue, you will have made a ton of
progress. When the pastor has to visit every sick person, do
every wedding, funeral and make regular house calls, he or
she becomes incapable of doing other things. That model just
doesn’t scale. If you’re good at it, you’ll grow the church to
200 people and then disappoint people when you can’t get to
every event any more. Or you’ll just burn out. It creates false
expectations and so many people get hurt in the
process. Although it’s 20 years old, this is still the best book I
know on the subject. The answer, by the way, is to teach
people to care for each other in groups.

2. The leaders lacks a strategy. Many churches today are

clear on mission and vision. What most lack is a widely
shared and agreed-upon strategy. You vision and mission
answers the why and what of your organization. Your strategy
answers how. And how is critical. Spend time working through
you strategy. Be clear on how you will accomplish your
mission and don’t rest until the mission, vision and strategy
reside in every single volunteer and leader.

3. True leaders aren’t leading. In every church, there are

people who hold the position of leadership and then there are
people who are truly leaders (who may not hold any position
in your church). Release people who hold titles but aren’t
advancing the mission and hand the job over to real leaders.
Look for people who have a track record of handling
responsibility in other areas of life and give them the job of
leading the church into the future with you. If you actually
have leaders leading, it will make a huge difference.

4. Volunteers are unempowered. Sure, small churches may

not have the budget to hire other staff, but you have people.
Once you have identified true leaders, and once you’re clear
on your mission vision and strategy, you need to release
people to accomplish it. Try to do it all yourself and you will
burn out, leave or simply be ineffective. Empower volunteers
around an aligned strategy and you will likely begin to see
progress.

5. The governance team micromanages. If you need

permission every time you need to buy paper towels or repaint
an office, you have a governance issue. Most boards who
micromanage do so because that’s where most people simply
default. You need a board who guards the mission and vision
and empowers the team to accomplish it and then gets out of
the way. This post on governance from Jeff Brodie is gold.

6. Too many meetings. I led a church with a grand total of 50

people in attendance. We had 16 elders. Overall, the church
was in evening meetings 2-3 times a week. Why on earth
would a church that small need to meet that often? I
eventually repurposed most of those meetings to become
meetings about vision and reorganization. We also cut the
number of elders down. Now, although we have a much
bigger church, I’m only out one or two nights a week (and then
mostly for small group). If you’re going to meet, meet on
purpose for the future. Free up your time so you and your
team can accomplish something significant.

7. Too many events and programs that lead

nowhere. Activity does not equal accomplishment. Just
because you’re busy doesn’t mean you’re being effective. If
you check into most small churches (remember, I was
there…I’m not judging, just being honest), there are a lot of
programs that accomplish little and lead nowhere. Stop them.
Yes people will be mad. Even have the courage to cut some
good programs. Good is the enemy of great. Then go out and
do a few great things.

8. The pastor suffers from a desire to please

everybody. Many pastors I know are people-pleasers by
nature. Go see a counselor. Get on your knees. Do whatever
you need to do to get over the fear of disappointing people.
Courageous leadership is like courageous parenting. Don’t do
what your kids want you to do; do what you believe is best for
them in the end. Eventually, many of them will thank you. And
the rest? Honestly, they’ll probably go to another church that
isn’t reaching many people either.

I realize the diagnosis can sound a little harsh, but we have a

pretty deep problem on our hands. And radical problems
demand radical solutions.

If you want more, listen in on the conversation I had with Jenni

Catron who talks about the challenges and changes she
helped make as Cross Point Church in Nashville grew from a
few families to thousands of people today.
Jenni’s interview is just one of many conversations I have with
top church leaders on my leadership podcast.

Get a fresh leadership podcast episode delivered to your

devices every week by subscribing for free.

You can subscribe to my podcast for free here on

iTunes, Stitcher or Tune In Radio.

What have you seen that helps churches push past

attendance barriers? Scroll down and leave a comment!

http://careynieuwhof.com/2013/09/8-reasons-most-churches-never-break-the-200-attendance-
mark/