Carey Nieuwhof is a leader you need to follow, and I count him as a friend. This week he released his latest book and I’m honored to have him guest post here today at unSeminary. Carey has led through some incredible change at his church … he’s not talking about theory but reality! Pick up a copy of his book for your entire team and work through it together.
Five Tips on How to Have That Critical Conversation You’re Too Afraid to Have
By Carey Nieuwhof
Pastor, Connexus Church and author of Lasting Impact: 7 Powerful Conversations That Will Help Your Church Grow
There are always conversations you need to have but you don’t know how to have. It’s true in life and it’s very true in leadership.
How do you tell the person who’s not working out that they’re not working out?
How do you talk about the fact that so much needs to change in your church?
How do you get your somewhat resistant board to open their minds to new possibilities?
As a leader, you’ve probably already flagged more than a few issues you would love to talk about with your team. Issues such as:
Why is our church not growing faster?
Why do people seem to be attending church less often?
How healthy is our team (really)?
Why is it so hard to attract and keep high capacity volunteers?
Why are young adults walking away from the church in record numbers?
What’s happening in our culture that we might not be responding to?
What are we actually prepared to change around here?
In my time in leadership at Connexus, we’ve had every one of those conversations. And they’ve resulted in our church growing from a handful of churched people to over 1,000 people each weekend, 60 percent of whom had no previous church background—all in a region where 96 percent of the population don’t attend church.
I believe:
• Having the right conversations can change your trajectory.
• There is more hope than you realized.
• The potential to grow is greater than the potential to decline.
• Your community is waiting for a church to offer the hope they’re looking for.
• Your best days as a church are ahead of you.
Maybe the future belongs to the churches that are willing to have the most honest conversations at a critical time. That’s what my new book, Lasting Impact, is designed to facilitate.
So how do you have the conversations that will lead to real breakthrough for your church?
How do you get started? What do you say? And what happens if people disagree or things get heated?
