Welcome to this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking to Lance Witt, the founder of Replenish Ministries.
Lance founded Replenish Ministries as a way to come alongside leaders and help them live great lives, both personally and in ministry. A former Executive/Teaching pastor at Saddleback Church, Lance has been coaching ministry teams and pastors for the last decade.
Today Lance talks with us about establishing a healthy rhythm of soul care in your own life in order to help both your family life and ministry life thrive.
Healthy & High Performing Teams with Lance Witt
- Pay attention to your internal life. // Many pastors become so focused on the externals of building the church that they lose sight of their interior life and how to manage their souls. When a ministry leader loses his way internally, it’s easy for him to begin to make compromises and stop paying attention to his interior life. Ultimately that leads to a shipwreck of his ministry.
- Establish a healthy rhythm of life. // Lance tells us that each of us has to own the responsibility of internal health for ourselves. If all you do is work, then your family and life will pay the price. Whenever you’re unhealthy internally, it never stays there. It always leaks out on the people that are around you. Establishing a healthy rhythm will keep your family and life healthy while keeping your ministry healthy too. Be willing to look inward to identify unhealthy rhythms and how to course correct in order to protect the most important relationships.
- Have a bifocal perspective. // Believe there is the possibility of experiencing the synergy between both health and high performance in ministry—it’s not an either/or proposition. The result can be that we have great work environments where people love to serve, but also accomplish a lot in Jesus name in the ministry where we’ve been called. As a leader, you have to realize everyone has a tilt toward one side of the health and high performance equation or the other. Go hard after both sides and make sure you aren’t focusing on only one.
- Get to know your team. // Take the time to get to know the story of everyone on your team. When you understand the important parts of their lives it humanizes them beyond their role in the church and helps explain why they care about the things they do.
- Show you care. // The development, nurturing and investment into your team is the greatest thing that you might do as a church leader. Demonstrate personal care for the people on your team by paying attention to what’s happening in their lives. When their anniversary comes up, send them a card. Know their birthday and who their kids are. Similarly, bring spiritual formation into the rhythm of your team. Don’t assume that people on the team are doing well spiritually. The truth may be that their ministry life could have replaced their personal life with Jesus. Up the spiritual vibrancy of your team with things such as opening the Word together and talking about what God is doing in your lives.
- Healthy high performance. // Lance’s book High Impact Teams: Where Healthy Meets High Performanceis for those who struggle not only with the health part of ministry, but also from a stewardship standpoint, doing a better job when it comes to high performance. It explains how to be kind and clear in coaching your team in expectations of performance and what to say when someone is underperforming.
You can learn more about Lance and his book at www.replenish.net.
This article originally appeared here
