Values-Driven Leadership

Aubrey Malphurs

Description

What are the core values of your ministry?Values-Driven Leadership is a pioneering work designed to help church and parachurch leaders understand the cutting-edge concept of organizational core values. Every ministry organization has a set of core values that guides what the ministry seeks to accomplish. Understanding and implementing these core values is key to a high-performing ministry.In this revised edition, Aubrey Malphurs offers important insights on new research in the field of leadership and delineates techniques for implementing those insights in practical ways. After exploring the concepts in Values-Driven Leadership, you'll be able to take concrete steps to write your ministry's values in a credo or values statement and focus in on your mission. This edition includes - Helpful discussion questions- Core values audits - A readiness-for-change inventory to help you and your ministry identify areas in need of attention - The latest research on values- New insights into the differences between values and beliefs.This is a useful book for individuals, boards, committees, and leadership teams.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 août 2004
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781585580828
• Langue: English

Extrait

© 1996, 2004 by Aubrey Malphurs

Published by Baker Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakerbooks.com

Ebook edition created 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-1-58558-082-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked GNT is taken from the Good News Translation Second Edition Copyright © 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by permission.

Scripture marked JB is taken from THE JERUSALEM BIBLE, copyright © 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd. and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. Reprinted by permission.

Scripture marked NASB is taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture marked PHILLIPS is taken from The New Testament in Modern English, revised edition J. B. Phillips, translator. © J. B. Phillips 1958, 1960, 1972. Used by permission of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.

Scripture marked TLB is taken from The Living Bible , copyright © 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence.
C ONTENTS

Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction

1. You Can’t Live without Them
The Importance of Core Values

2. What Are We Talking About?
The Definition of Core Values

3. What Drives You?
The Discovery of Core Values

4. Writing Your Values Credo
The Development of Core Values

5. Moving Your Values from Paper to People
The Communication of Core Values

6. Weaving New Values into the Congregational Fabric
The Implementation of Core Values

7. How Not to Drop the Ball
The Preservation of Core Values

Appendix A-C removed because of rights restrictions
Appendix D: Core Values Audits
Appendix E: Readiness for Change Inventory
Notes
Index
About the Author
Other Books by Author
Back Ads
I NTRODUCTION

S ome fifty years ago a small core of committed Christians planted Hope Community Church in Little Hope, Texas, a rural town due west of a large burgeoning city in north-central Texas. Over time the city doubled in size and intruded into what was once the quiet community of Little Hope. The growth caught the locals by surprise, as evidenced by a staccato mix of one-acre farms and older, in-need-of-repair houses located practically next door to fresh new tract homes with landscaped yards and freshly manicured Bermuda-grass lawns.
The aging local historian, a lifelong member of the church and the proprietor of a local feed store, was quick to share with anyone willing to listen how the church had seen better days. The founding pastor, Brother Fred, led the new, robust congregation, consisting mostly of farmers, ranchers, and local small-business types and their families, to a membership of 250 people. Initially some of the folks wanted to name the church after the town Little Hope Community Church but the wise, respected, older pastor managed to talk them out of it. Then he retired, and over the next ten to fifteen years five pastors came and went while the church membership plummeted to eighty to one hundred faithful old-timers, mixed with a slim assortment of children and grandchildren. Brother Fred cast a long shadow that none of the following pastors seemed to escape.
David Johnson, with his wife and two small children, arrived on the scene as the sixth pastor. David grew up in the Northeast, where he obtained a degree in marketing from a prestigious Ivy League school. More important, during his third year, he came to faith in Christ through an active parachurch ministry on campus. His conversion turned his life upside down. David decided to pursue ministry and met his wife, Mary, who was also active in the campus ministry. On graduation, he enrolled at a seminary in preparation for church ministry. During the seminary years, David and Mary attended a new, contemporary, urban church that ministered to a predominantly professional and college community. The church had a national reputation for its creativity and innovation, and it attracted and reached numerous unchurched, lost people. Fresh out of seminary, David would cut his teeth on Hope Community Church. Though a bit naïve, he came with a vision a Great Commission vision to see lost people in the community embrace the Savior and grow to maturity in Christ.
With the intrusion of the city, new people moved to the Little Hope area and began to visit and eventually join the church. Some were Christians, but a significant number came to faith through the ministry of the church. In particular they were attracted to the unconventional ministry style of David Johnson. The membership began to swell, and soon the newcomers outnumbered the church’s old-timers, which caused quite a stir. To complicate matters, new people were unknowingly occupying spaces in pews traditionally reserved for those who had contributed the funds to purchase the pews.
More important, the younger newcomers were also pressing for a more contemporary style of worship and better educational facilities for their kids. Tempers flared when a group of young mothers asked the board to renovate the nursery. As one elderly board member shared with another patriarch, “Our nursery was good enough for our kids; it should be good enough for theirs!” The old guard found little consolation from Brother David, who sided with the new people. Though he had not discussed it with the board, all this was a part of his vision for Hope Community Church.
Pastor David lasted another year before the church asked him to leave. It was not a pleasant experience. If it were not for the fact that he had such a strong vision, he would have dropped out of the ministry and pursued a career in the marketplace. The church suffered as well. Within a year most of the new people had left, and the attendance had plummeted back to eighty to one hundred people. Most of the newcomers transferred to several recently planted new paradigm churches in the area. Within another five to ten years Hope Community Church would be no more.
What went wrong? Numerous things, and we could place much blame on both sides. However, a primary missing ingredient in the candidating recipe was a discussion of core ministry values.
What David Johnson and other leaders like him must realize is that joining a ministry, any ministry, has much in common with taking a wife it’s a marriage. A wise potential husband discovers his fiancée’s values before saying, “I do.” He realizes that their values will shape and drive their marriage. If they begin the relationship with few common values, they are destined for much heartache and suffering and the likelihood of the painful dissolution of their relationship. Had David taken the time before the candidating process to identify and articulate his core ministry values, and had the church done the same, all would have realized during the candidating engagement that without certain major adjustments the intended marriage was going to end in a painful divorce.
Realistically, however, not many seminarians and practicing pastors have taken time to unearth and articulate their ministry values. And not many churches have busied themselves with the same. When I wrote the first edition of this book in 1996, only a few companies, which tend to be ten to twenty years ahead of the typical American church, had captured the importance of organizational core values. Tom Peters and Robert Waterman wrote, “Surprisingly . . . only a few brave business writers have taken the plunge and written about values.” [1] Much has changed in the corporate context. There is much more material available on values especially since the fall of Enron in 2000. However, little information from a Christian perspective is available for pastors or churches on this concept that is so vital to a significant ministry in the twenty-first century. [2]
At a major event in the 1990s for church leaders throughout North America, Bill Hybels, founder and senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, and Ken Blanchard, an author, speaker, and international business consultant, stated that twenty-first-century leaders will not lead by the authority of their position but by an ability to articulate a vision and core values of their organization or congregation. In 1992 I wrote a pioneering work, Developing a Vision for Ministry in the 21st Century , to provide information to help Christian leaders with the vision concept. [3] Since so little was available in the 1990s, I wrote this book to introduce and help Christian leaders with the cutting-edge concept of organizational core values. While ministry vision has been a key concern for Christian organizations in the 1990s and beyond, ministry values will be a key issue for the twenty-first century.
Organizational values exist on two levels. One is the individual level. People in general and leaders in particular have a set of core ministry values that influences much if not all that they do. The other level is the corporate or congregational level. Every ministry organization, whether chur