Plumblines

Work Ethic / Integrity

• If you say you are going to do something, move hell and high water to fulfill your word in the most expedient and excellent way possible. Your, and Grace’s, testimony and integrity are at stake.
• If you drop the ball, learn from it and move on BUT you’re highly expected not to make the same mistake again.
• If you drop the ball, make things right. In other words, go over the top to make amends.
• When commissioned to do something, agree on the deadline date/time, and then meet it.
• Always be prepared, and perhaps even over-prepared, for ministry responsibilities, as far as it depends on you. Never be suspected by anyone—the Grace family, the staff, the elders, and your senior pastor—that you “phoned it in”

Culture of Excellence

• Be a go-getter. Think outside the lines and shake things up.
• Seek to go beyond expectations in everything you do.
• Excellence is non-negotiable. Pursue it–-there is no other standard.
• Always seek to take your ministry, gifts, content, leadership, meetings, and everything to the next level.
• Live, lead, and serve with your ministry. Your ministry should look at least a little different year-to-year and drastically different from three years ago. If not, then it hints that there is no urgency, no vision, no risk-taking, and no growth, and that irrelevance and coasting is setting in.

Leave It All on the Field

• We won’t fear risk, even if it sounds crazy. If it’s spirit-led, we will trust the Holy Spirit, hold hands, and go for it.
• We will unashamedly, relevantly, audaciously, and passionately do what we can, within biblical lines, to reach the lost from God for Christ. Grace Community Church, and her ministries should reflect such as the norm, not the exception.
• We will not surrender to obstacles with the overly used “This must not be what God planned.” We will keep pressing in and looking for solutions. If it’s truly not what God wants, we will know beyond the shadow of a doubt in time.

Maximizing Our Impact

• We will be intentional about apprenticeship/discipleship (selecting, modeling, coaching) and mentoring to build up leaders and replace them. We should be looking for 1-to-3 people to mentor constantly.
• No sacred cows. In order to be a good steward of God’s resources, we will ruthlessly evaluate ministries and events (church-wide and individual ministries). If any ministry or event falls into a pattern of 1) no longer being Scripturally driven, gospel-centered, and transformation focused, 2) no longer fitting into Grace’s vision, 3) having little to no impact, 4) reflecting poor attendance, 5) lacking solid leadership, 6) lacking excellence; then we will end it, even if “it’s something Grace has always done” and even if it brings a backlash in response from few or many.
• Our ministries will not be silos. We will not stake our territory on anything or any place. We will seek to serve and help each other as needed even if it is outside of our job descriptions and budgets. We are a team.

Ministry Foundations

• The Gospel is central to serving, preaching, teaching, counseling, praying--EVERYTHING!
• Scripture is foundation. We will be known to love our Bibles.
• Character brings credibility. We will be known to live our Bibles.
• Prayer is the air we breathe. We are desperately dependent on the Holy Spirit.

The Truth

• Defend the truth at all costs (but in gentleness—2 Tim 2:24-26).
• Be gracious with the “open handed” issues (ex. speaking in tongues, End Times, Predestination), and lovingly steadfast and unmovable with the “close handed” issues (ex. exclusivity of Christ, Trinity, Virgin Birth, the reality of Hell).

Minister from a Place of Strength

• Personal intimacy with Christ is to be passionately pursued. People can’t go where you aren’t going. Love Christ more so that you might love your family and church the way they deserve… or don’t deserve.
• Seek personal growth in terms of time management, goal setting, health, leadership, parenting, marriage, etc., and in the skills needed for your area of ministry and work. Listen to applicable podcasts, read blogs, books, and articles that help you in these areas. Then pass along what you are learning.

Relationship With Others

We will love each other, our people, and the unloved, unlovable, and we will do so even if it sometimes might cost us comfort, time, and money. However…

• We won’t seek to be the Messiah to everyone, but love everyone like the Messiah did. Seek the balance.
• Be a peacemaker but do not avoid conflict.
• Be loving and authentic with each other and others.

Communication Essentials

• Don’t let things fester relationally. Do not vent to other staff about staff, or to volunteers, or to your Grace group, or any other member of the Grace family.  Go to the person(s) immediately and work it out. If there is a stalemate, bring it to a Lead Pastor, or ultimately the Senior Pastor.
• It is inevitable that there will be disagreement with teammates, direct leadership, and the senior leadership team. However, as leaders, it must be without being disagreeable. We must all be united as one leadership team to Grace. To do otherwise risks bringing division within the church body. The unbiblical and damaging move would be to vent with other leadership, teammates, and especially congregants or membership at large through “hallway conversations” about your disagreement or concern. If any leadership or member of a leadership team feels strongly opposed to the decisions or actions of the senior pastor, elders, staff, or lay leadership, then those persons should immediately share their disagreements personally and privately with the leadership in question.
• As senior pastor, I try never to make my requests petty or trivial. Therefore, if I request or commission something (on my behalf or on behalf of the elder board), I’ll expect a response or update within 24-36 hours unless specified or agreed upon otherwise.

Trusting Each Other

• Enough said.
• Confidentiality is a trust issue. There are certain issues, circumstances, and decisions that need to be made which cannot be fully explained or announced. The leadership and teams are entrusted with any confidentiality that applies.

Team Dynamics

• We treat, love, confront, and receive challenges from each other as such.
• Understand your role. Being a leadership “team-family” can lead to certain biblically ordained authoritative lines getting blurred. Don’t forget your role and place in communication, action, and decisions.

The Tough Conversations

• Resist allowing any “elephants in the room”. Do not sweep anything under the rug and look the other way for anyone or anything. Courageously, and gracefully, deal with it head on (but privately at first—Matt 18:15ff).
• Display humility, grace, and patience in response and tone when confronted and/or challenged by anyone (even if wrongly challenged).
• Avoid social media at all costs for the hard conversations. When in doubt, don’t!
• Be spiritually mature and deal with conflict or embrace confrontation in godliness. Don’t use Facebook, Twitter, and other social media to vent and make snide remarks, or drop innuendos regarding a situation, a person, or it reeks of cowardliness. And, at the end of the day, it reflects poorly on you and hurts you more than anything or anyone.

Attitude

• Don’t be offended by criticism or afraid to give it (even to your senior pastor and elders). We are cheering each other on and encouraging each other to excellence for the glory of God and reaching people for Christ. Keep in mind, however, that loving criticism is given and received when it is personal, private, and direct, not publicly, through social media, or through passive-aggressive innuendos.
• Don’t be sensitive and/or defensive. Prepare to be challenged, stretched, and held accountable by your leadership, and especially your senior pastor. And when challenged, never take it personally. It is for your good, and God’s glory, and the joy of Grace Community Church, and for the witness of unbelievers to see your, and Grace’s, excellence as a testimony to our worshipful love for and response to Christ.

Respect

• No cell phones, laptops, or digital notebooks in terms of texting, calling, taking calls, tweeting, emailing, Facebooking, internet surfing, and so forth during meetings. (Of course, they are welcome if used to access or record notes or information). If you need access due to agreed-upon reasons with your leader, the leader can explain the exception to the team before the
• Be on It shows respect for leadership and those in attendance.