Here’s one of the most frequent questions we get from church planters:
What position should I hire first in my church?

It’s taken me almost 4 years of reflection, but I think I’ve finally formulated my answer.  Any guesses?  I’ll bet some of you immediately thought: Worship Leader.  Nope.  Important, but not most important.  You can pray and preach your way into the presence of God without any music for a while if you have to.  Children’s Pastor?  Again, it’s definitely a priority.  But not the first priority.  At least, not in my experience.

The very first position any church planter needs to fill is the Minister of GCD.  That’s short for Getting Crap Done.

Notice I didn’t advocate a Minister of GTT (Getting Thoughts Thunk) or HLM (Having Lunch Meetings).  The most important thing a senior pastor needs in the earliest days of starting a church is a support person that will enable him to fly at a high altitude.  A good GCD Pastor is willing to be your children’s pastor, administrative assistant, executive director, and custodian.  In the same day.  A natural born CGD (Crap Getter Done) will learn to live for the thrill of freeing up the leader to do what only the leader can do.  And the vision will flourish.

Over time, your needs will become much more sophisticated.  You’ll want to hire specialists and people who deal in big ideas.  But in the first year or so, you don’t need theorists.  There’s no room for that on the payroll.

The more limited the budget, the more important it is to fire the show horses and hire folks who know how to execute.  Someone who specializes in follow through.  Someone who’s not afraid to get his/her hands dirty, and can morph into whatever is needed from moment to moment.

This post is dedicated to my GCD Team at Elevation.  You know who you are.

I suffer from A.I.O.  Acute Idea Overload.  At this stage in my ministry, I’m rarely at a loss for initiatives, concepts, and experiments.  My dilemma is in discerning which ideas to keep on the bench, and which ones to send into the game.  They’re all screaming: put me in coach. But only so many players are allowed on the field at a time.

Hence, a new terminology that has been helping me lately.  Some ideas need to be cut from the team.  They just suck.  Eliminate them.  Ruthlessly.  They’re taking up valuable space on your roster and sapping your scholarship funds.

But other ideas are great.  Just not now.  Don’t cut these ideas.
Redshirt them.

When a college coach redshirts a player, it’s usually to give the player an extra year to develop so that his 4 years of eligibility will make the most impact.  It’s not because the player doesn’t have potential.  Quite the opposite.  He has so much potential that the coach doesn’t want to waste a single year of it by playing the athlete prematurely.

Introduce this terminology into the meetings and decisions you’re a part of.  When an idea comes up that’s a good idea, just not right now, make the suggestion:
Let’s redshirt that.

But don’t put it in the basement where you’ll never see it again.  Make a plan to revisit it in the near future.

There are some Heisman ideas that just need a little more time to mature.
Give them space and opportunity to make the starting lineup.

Guest Blogger: Josh Blackson, Operations Pastor

Pastor Steven asked me to share with everyone about a great resource we have made available to business owners and executives, managers, family leaders, coaches, professors, and anybody else who leads.  It is called Elevation Leader and can be found at www.elevationleader.org.

3 to 5 times a year we want to invest in you by allowing you to rip off some of the great leadership teaching here at Elevation.  The website equips you with discussion questions, leader reflections, PowerPoint templates, and even short video clips from our very own Pastor Steven.   We have made the content appropriate for any workplace.

This past winter we launched the website to the church and it has been really successful.  Our people have loved sharing it with their teams so we thought we would let you in on the action too.  All you have to do is send $5 via PayPal to…just kidding…it is free because our desire is to invest in you, because we believe that leadership is within you and we’re here to help let it out!  Enjoy!

…He overlaid (the ark) with pure gold, both inside and out, and made a gold molding around it…
-Exodus 37:1-2

The ark of the covenant represented the presence of God.  It served as the storage center for the Ten Commandments, and was Israel’s most sacred possession.

It makes perfect sense to overlay the ark with gold on the outside.  Everybody’s going to see that part every time it makes a public appearance.  Obviously, we want to do everything we can to make God look good, and to represent him well in front of others.

But why bother overlaying the inside of the ark with gold?  Wouldn’t silver suffice?  Is that really necessary?  Isn’t it a bit opulent?  Extravagant?  Wasteful?  Secondary?  Unproductive?

Not for a purpose as important as the presence of God.  Only the best is acceptable.

I recently challenged our staff to find as many ways as possible to overlay the inside of the ark-the part of our ministry that no one sees-with gold.  To give great effort to the hidden details.  This doesn’t come naturally.

We’re good at getting our crap together in the high traffic areas of our ministry:
Music, lighting, production, videos.
But do we overlay the ark with gold in the places no one sees?
Are we prompt?  Do we keep our spaces clean and organized?  Is our communication timely and clear?

Let’s make it more personal.  Do I overlay the inside parts of my personal life with gold?  Do I speak well of others at all times?  Do I monitor my private thoughts…even though they aren’t projected on the big screen?  Do I wear the SuperPastor cape on weekends only, or am I a loving, kind, thoughtful husband and father Monday through Friday?

It’s important to give our best to the seen and unseen places in our lives and ministries.  Here’s an axiom for reflection:
When we honor God in the places no one sees
He will honor us in the places everyone sees.

Excellence is an inside job.