In May of 2017, I started my tenure as Executive Pastor at Immanuel Baptist Church. Less than 60 days later I found myself coordinating the church’s first adoption. Both the Immanuel staff and myself were in uncharted territory. A couple of our pastors had worked for a multi-site congregation, but none of us had adopted another congregation.
Fast forward to February of 2018. The Immanuel staff had done an incredible job of adopting the previous congregation and re-launching the site as Immanuel Baptist Church at Armstrong Mill. Yet, I could sense some tension building amongst the staff. Dan Russell, a seasoned minister of 40+ years, pulled me aside and said, “Communication can always be better.”
Most of my failures would have been mitigated if I had just communicated better. When you are not the primary leader the need to communicate becomes twice as important.
Two arenas in which I could have improved my communication are frequency and channel.
When you are communicating with others you have to discern the frequency needed for communication. There are three levels of frequency:
Often – I needed to communicate more often with my lead pastor and with my peers. I don’t want to be prescriptive, but if you only talk once a week, then you aren’t communicating enough. Sometimes a text is all you need, for others a 5 minute drive-by to their office will be extremely productive.
Regularly – A team needs regular communication. This may or may not be a group of peers and could be…
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