My wife Angie wrote this blog post on Friday and I liked it so much I want to share it with you.

When I walk into a meeting, I know exactly what to expect. It doesn’t matter what the meeting is about…if I know who is in the room, I know how its going to go. Meetings create this context where everyone seems to take on a certain role – the talker, the interrupter, the pouter, the nay-sayer, the comic. It can easily become the place where we live out our most destructive roles. Old habits die hard, but here are two ideas to prevent this:

1. Lay down ground rules.
Ultimately, teams can tend to treat each other poorly in meetings. So talk about what it means to be a team player in a meeting; listening takes priority over talking, and all input is valuable. Also, deal with the problem of tangents before they start. Tangents can bring death to a meeting, and drain the vision right out of a team. Start meetings by asking permission from the team to be able to say “tangent” every time they get lost. It will signify an end to that particular discussion and signify a change in direction.

2. Change up the meeting structure.
One of the reasons that teams fall into the same roles during meetings, is that meetings are run the same way. So, change up how you run meetings. Meet in a different place. Bring someone in to tell their story about the effect your ministry is having, rather than reminding the team of the mission. Use a resource – a chapter of a book, or a movie clip – to focus your team on a topic, rather than simply stating it. Changing the meeting structure will help your team break out of bad patterns and encourage creative thinking.

Getting your adult volunteers to be on time can sometimes be harder than getting your students to be on time. When adult volunteers don’t see a need to be on time they are communicating a ton to the students and it’s not good. I know they are busy and they are coming as soon as they can but when they aren’t there when youth group starts, students are learning that the youth ministry is a second priority to them. Remind your adults that:

Being late communicates a negative

Being early gives you time to connect with students

Being early allows you to focus your thoughts on students

I have a passion to develop leaders overseas. There are lots of leadership development resources in this country but so little outside of the US. The church overseas is desperate for help in developing leaders. My wife and I have been working with organizations outside the US to help in this effort. To be honest it’s been the best part of my ministry the past few years. We have developed leadership training programs in Latin America, Africa and China. We feel very strongly that God is calling us to spend more resources overseas so we have created LeaderTreks International. We are going to be using part of the revenue generated here at LeaderTreks to provide leaders and organizations with the tools they need to develop leaders. We hope to learn a great deal about leadership development in the developing world and we want to use that knowledge to help the Kingdom of Christ grow.

Check out LeaderTreks International’s blog at http://leadertreksinternational.com/

Ever been at a church meeting where a large group of people are trying to make a decision? I was in a meeting like this just the past week. A group of us were trying to help our church move forward. Many people had good ideas but it was clear just about everyone had a different expectation on what they wanted from the church. In this situation it’s impossible to make a decision. So frustration grows because no sees a way forward. This is why decision by committee doesn’t work, and it’s also why leaders are so important. The disciples were facing the same problem in the book of Acts. Some of the poorer women needed help and lots of people were trying to figure out the best way to help them. The disciples wisely chose a few good men to take over the problem and get it solved. When large groups try and make decisions people will get hurt. Stop and give decision making power to a few good people and follow them.