Meetings are an unavoidable part of ministry leadership. If you want to move the ball forward in ministry, you have to have meetings.
But, what’s the difference between a productive and effective meeting, and one that sucks the life out of everyone in the room?
Here are some tips from Lance Witt’s upcoming MinistryU class, Building Healthy and High Performance Ministry Teams, to ensure your next meeting is a great one.
To have a great meeting, answer these four questions:
- Determine if a meeting is even necessary?
Many times, a meeting isn’t even needed. Whatever needs to be accomplished can be done so via a simple email or phone call.
- Are you thinking of your meetings like an airline flight?
Good meetings are like a great flight—there’s a takeoff, the time in air, and a landing.
If you come into a meeting with no clear agenda and no clear outcomes for the meeting, your takeoff is off to a rocky start. Make sure you know the purpose of the meeting before you set it.
3. Do you have a clear path to get from point a to point b?
Agenda items will help you stay on track and avoid getting derailed and off topic during the meeting.
4. Lastly, can you land the plane?
Remember, it doesn’t matter how clear the agenda was, or how good the snacks were, or how much discourse there was without a clear action plan for what was discussed.
Answer these three questions to effectively “land the plane”:
What did we decide?
We have an amazing ability to interpret things differently. Write down on a whiteboard or flipchart the decisions that were made so there’s no ambiguity around those decisions.
Who needs to know what we decided?
Write down the decisions that were made in the team meetings. This minimizes the chances of decisions being reinterpreted between the team meeting and the time a decision gets communicated.
Communication not only shares information, it also demonstrates value.
Who is responsible?
As important as it is to have clear decisions and clear communications, it’s just as important to know who is responsible for certain actions. Ultimately, all those decisions boil down to hard work.
Write down the action items related to the decisions that have been made and who is responsible for those action items by what date.
Following these tips will help move good decisions toward great outcomes.
This article is a small sampling of what you can learn in MinistryU, an online learning platform featuring video tutorials, downloadable resources, and actionable tools to give pastors and church leaders practical skills to lead thriving churches.
Although MinistryU isn’t live yet, you can join our launch team now to be part of this new movement by ChurchLeaders.com and Outreach, Inc.
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