67 | Essential Year-End Questions

Summary

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GrowLeader Podcast with Chris Hodges

Episode 67: Essential Year-End Questions
Release Date: December 2, 2024
Host: Chris Hodges with co-host Matt

Episode Overview

In this episode, Chris Hodges and Matt discuss the art and importance of year-end reflection for leaders, focusing on the essential questions leaders should ask themselves and their organizations as they transition into a new year. The conversation moves beyond general reflection, providing practical steps and specific questions that help both individual leaders and church teams assess their vision, progress, energy levels, and growth opportunities. The tone is insightful, warm, and direct, mixing deep wisdom with approachable humor.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Embracing the Year-End Reflection Season

• December as a Season of Exhaustion and Opportunity:
  Chris opens up about the intensity of the holiday season—balancing large church outreaches, personal family traditions, and deep reflection.
  • "For 41 years now, I've approached the holidays... not thinking about the movies and the cookies... I just love serving the Lord in this season. It's his birthday, for heaven's sakes." (03:15)
• Making the Most Out of Christmas Outreach:
  The Christmas services at Church of the Highlands have become the primary way people find the church, emphasizing the spiritual focus and evangelistic opportunity.
• Balancing Ministry and Family:
  Chris emphasizes that while he invests heavily in ministry, he also prioritizes family health.
  • "I'm not sacrificing my family on the altar of ministry. We have very healthy family..." (03:55)

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2. The Power (and Practice) of Reflection

• Intentional Reflection:
  December is Chris’s biggest season for reflection—he meticulously reviews his year through his camera roll, calendar, and meetings with teams.
  • "I'll actually go through my entire camera roll and try to relive my year... look at every event and make notes about it." (05:57)
• Contemplative Life:
  Matt shares advice he received about the contemplative life, saying it’s an often missed piece in younger leaders’ lives. Chris affirms this and underscores slowing down and asking the right questions.
  • "Reflection is what contemplation is." (07:03, Matt)
  • "It all begins by not just having reflection time, but by asking the right questions." (07:17)

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3. Seven Essential Year-End Questions

Chris outlines the seven core questions he asks to spur meaningful reflection and improvement, both personally and organizationally. He encourages writing out answers for focus and depth.

[1] Why Do I Exist? (Vision & Values) [09:00]

• Ask both for yourself and your church/organization.
• Reaffirm your core purpose and guiding values.
  • "Was our church joyful this year? Was our church excellent this year? Did we really love people?" (10:20)

[2] What Are We Doing? (Programs & Calendar) [11:13]

• Inventory your actual activities and systems against the vision.
• Evaluate your weekly life; rewrite your daily schedule if needed.

[3] Is It Working? (Measuring Results) [12:47]

• Look objectively at results—review numbers and data, not just impressions.
• "Numbers are indicators of health... because you can't eyeball some of this stuff." (12:57)

[4] Where Am I Manufacturing Energy? (Energy Audit) [14:12]

• Identify areas where energy or enthusiasm is forced.
• Decide whether to reignite your passion or eliminate the task/program.
  • "Maybe they've run their course and this is not something, you know, something that we used to be in love with, but that really needs to change." (14:34)

[5] Do We Have the Right People in the Right Seats? (Team Evaluation) [16:01]

• Review who’s exceeding, meeting, or falling below expectations.
• Take responsibility as a leader for developing and positioning staff.
  • "They're not the problem. I am. I think it’s healthy leadership to say, well, it’s not their fault. I’m their leader." (17:35)

[6] What Would a Great Leader Do? (Perspective Shift) [18:15]

• Step out of your usual mindset—imagine what a respected leader would do in your position.
  • "What would Craig Groeschel do if all of a sudden, in just an instant, he became the pastor of Church of the Highlands?" (19:01)

[7] What’s Most Important Right Now? (Narrowing Focus) [19:35]

• Identify the "one thing" that, if improved, will make the biggest impact.
• This focus question drives alignment and accountability across the organization.

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4. Growth Drivers: Turning Answers Into Initiatives

• Developing Strategic Focus
  Chris emphasizes not just identifying areas for improvement, but developing focused "growth drivers" for the coming year. This means directing resources, prayer, and team energy toward one or two critical areas at a time.
  • "I call them growth drivers. These are the initiatives that we're going to step into 2025 with..." (21:30)
• Examples from Church of the Highlands
  • Past focuses: Staff health, membership engagement, making church feel like a home (relational environment), strengthening student/children’s ministry.
  • Initiatives like the "two-minute mingle" and story-telling Sundays were practical responses to identified needs.

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5. Unwavering Priorities: Small Groups, Dream Teams, God’s Presence

• Small Groups & Dream Teams
  These remain foundational and must be actively maintained.
  • "Just because you have them, don’t think they’re going to be maintained... They come for one reason, but they stay for a different. They stay when they're needed and when they're known..." (27:05–27:55)
• God’s Presence as the Ultimate Growth Driver
  Chris stresses the need to never lose dependence on God—no matter what practical drivers are in focus.
  • "The last growth driver that you cannot forget... is just the presence of God... Truly the most important growth driver there is is God’s presence." (30:28–31:45)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Exhaustion and Commitment:
  "Nothing exhausts me more than these things because I go to every service. I just love it. I shake hands before and after... I love laying it all out on the field, so to speak, to honor God on his birthday." (03:30)
• On Honest Self-Assessment:
  "If you’re having reflection time and you’re not asking the right questions, you won’t get the right answers. You only get answers to the questions that you ask." (07:24)
• On the Dangers of Avoiding Hard Questions:
  "Wouldn't you love it if the federal government... would say, you know what, this program used to be important, but we don't need it anymore. Time has passed..." (14:48)
• On Team Leadership:
  "They're not the problem. I am... Maybe they needed more training, maybe they needed more budget, maybe they needed more meetings and mentoring time with me." (17:35)
• On Real Organizational Alignment:
  "When you don't do it... you're allowing the team to redefine it in their own terms. They’ll come up with what the vision should look like... that kind of misalignment creates havoc." (22:40)
• On What Makes People Stay:
  "...they come because of the preaching and the worship... but that's not why they stay. They stay when they're needed and when they're known and needed, they need to be on a team serving." (27:55)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 02:50 – Chris describes the spiritual focus of Highlands’ Christmas services
• 05:22 – Annual reflection practices and end-of-year lead team meetings
• 07:17 – The importance of asking the right questions
• 09:00 – The seven essential year-end questions (starts)
• 14:12 – On manufacturing energy and letting go of outdated programs
• 16:01 – Evaluating team members: “Right people, right seats”
• 19:35 – What’s most important now? The focus question
• 21:30 – Using “growth drivers” for organizational alignment
• 27:05–27:55 – The lasting importance of small groups and Dream Teams
• 30:28 – The irreplaceable value of God’s presence

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Actionable Takeaways

• Set aside intentional time for honest reflection and ask deep, focused questions.
• Evaluate both personal and organizational alignment with core vision and values.
• Be willing to change or let go of programs or methods that no longer serve the mission.
• Assess and reposition team members, investing in their development where needed.
• Narrow the organizational focus to one “growth driver” at a time for the coming year.
• Never lose sight of the indispensable place of God’s presence in all plans and efforts.

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Final Thought

“Let’s be generous. Let’s reach people and remind people that we have a King Jesus and He is here with us.” (31:45, Matt)

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For full notes, resources, and upcoming Grow One Day events, visit growleader.com/podcast.

Transcript

[A]

I just love all this reflection. But here's the key that I want to teach Matt and that it all begins by not just having reflection time, but by asking the right questions.

[B]

Hey, everybody, and welcome to the Grow Leader Podcast, where we grow leaders that grow churches by helping them reach their full potential. My name is Matt. So glad you're with us. Sitting right beside my pastor, Pastor Chris Hodges.

[A]

How are you?

[B]

I'm fat and chatty.

[A]

It's supposed to Thanksgiving before we even started the podcast. I think our whole convers conversation was about food and what food is we like. And so that's very dangerous.

[B]

We're very opinionated about desserts. We'll throw this out there. Pastor Chris does not like any kind of cooked fruit.

[A]

No, I have two. I have two food rules. Cook. Cook my vegetables, don't cook my fruit. So it's that it's simple. I mean, it's not. Not hard.

[B]

And after an apple pie, thinking like.

[A]

When I like apples, I like pie. I'm not, don't cook my vegetables, don't cook my fruit.

[B]

I get it.

[A]

It's very simple.

[B]

I get it. Cobbler is gross. Leave your comments below.

[A]

Raw broccoli. What? What?

[B]

This is what you came here to this podcast for today? No, seriously, it's. It's hard to believe we're already moving towards the. The end of a year. And what a year. It's been a crazy.

[A]

It's been an amazing year.

[B]

And what do you. What do you love most about. December is kind of this time of year that we're moving into.

[A]

Oh, man. Everything about it. It's. Honestly, I'm. I'm. I'm the most exhausted, to be very honest with you, because we work so hard on our Thanksgiving outreaches, Christmas outreaches. We work very hard on communicating to the people of our church about our vision. So I write a letter every year to talk about our legacy. Offering the offering. The only over and above offering that we have all year long where we accelerate our vision and we give to things that places that are just opportunities that are not currently in the budget. And so very excited about that. That's coming up this coming Sunday. I can't wait. Truly believe the people at Highlands are once again going to surprise us by their generosity so that we can in turn be generous to our communities on their behalf. I love the Christmas services. I love. I very much love because I'm a musician a lot. Some people may not know this, but before I was a senior pastor, I was on staff at a church doing. Doing students of course, every. Every new pastor does students, I think, when they first get on a team. But. But I was classically trained, so I brought the very first Christmas Eve service to my home church in Louisiana when I came to Birmingham. It'd be 24 years now. Coming up soon. I built this Christmas Eve experience that has now grown to 145 services that we do over the 19th through the 24th at all of our campuses. And I love it. I just love everything about this. Very spiritual. We don't do secular music in ours, so there's no really winter wonderland Santa stuff. We just really focus on the spiritual. Beautiful spiritual music, congregational worship, these. These videos that inspire these special performance moments. And then, of course, that candlelighting moment. And, Matt, it's. It's become. Over the 24 years, it is by far, probably more than 50%, by far, the number one way people find our church is through our Christmas services. If you ask people what was your first experience, they would say it was Christmas at Highlands. And so I love it. We'll see a lot of people show up and we'll present the gospel. Loads of people will give their life to Jesus. Always give people a chance to make a decision to follow Jesus. And I just absolutely adore it. And nothing exhausts me more than these things because I go to every service. I just love it. I shake hands before and after. And so what do I love? I love that, honestly, that for 41 years now, I've approached the holidays. And don't think too much of me when I say this, okay? So it's gonna sound a little bit prideful, and I'm not meaning it that way, but I've never. Since I've been in ministry, I've never approached the holidays thinking about, oh, I get to play cards with my family. We do. Or I'm not thinking about the movies and the cookies and the things for us. We do all of that. By the way, we find time for our family. I'm not sacrificing my family on the altar of ministry. I'm not doing that. We have very healthy family. I just love serving the Lord in this season. It's his birthday, for heaven's sakes. I love it to be all about him. And I love laying it all out on the field, so to speak, to honor God on his birthday. And I take adequate time afterwards between from December 25 to the beginning of the fast that happens in January. I take lots of time and get plenty of rest and. But, man, I just love doing it. There's you asked me what I love. I'm trying to show you my heart right now. I love this season. I love serving God in it. And I think the holidays gives us an incredible opportunity that we ought to make the most of.

[B]

And that's the potential of having, I think, to make Christmas a focus in your church. Christmas services is, it becomes, it's become a tradition for families in the cities that we have campuses. It's obviously, it's a season of generosity. We've been talking about generosity for two months. Evangelism. So you're training the church. Hey, don't just focus on you. Focus on outside of you and still make space for games with your family. And fruit.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Fruit free desserts.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. We have a, we have a whole night with the whole family comes over just to decorate sugar cookies and decorate the tree. So we have those moments. But I just love it. One of the things I love the most about it though, Matt, is this is my, this is my biggest reflection season of the year. So this is where I am spending more time alone in prayer and in reflection. I love reflecting back. I'll actually go through my entire camera roll and try to relive my year. I'm gonna go back through my calendar and look at every event and make mental notes and physical notes about it. I'm gonna go back through and ask a bunch of questions. I've already met with my lead team for an entire day. We had an all day lead team meeting just to reflect on the year. How did we do, what worked, what needs to be better? We kept asking these questions. We had the most amazing day. Getting ready to have the same day with the whole staff. Going to have an all day with the staff and just reflect. I'm going to actually report to our staff on what went well in 2024, what could have been a lot better. What. What are some weak areas? What are some areas that we need to maybe not do anymore that just, it just shouldn't be there? And, and I, I don't know why I enjoy it so much. I love, I'm kind of, you know, I geek out on church. Yeah, I'm a, I'm a church nerd. I love turning the screw and, and, and, and trying to, you know, get, so to speak, more horsepower out of the engine and just do better. I love, I love trying to do better.

[B]

Sorry, I have a question. So I met with a friend of mine, I would call him a mentor. And he asked me this question about two weeks ago and said, hey, how's your contemplative life.

[A]

And that's a good word.

[B]

I was like, wait, what? He said, how's your contemplative life? And I thought, I don't know if I have one. Yeah, a reflection is what contemplation is.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And I feel like the more guys I talk to my age, younger than me, it's probably the piece where we miss it the most. 100, not enough time.

[A]

Slow down, think.

[B]

How do you do that? Get some practical steps for how you're doing.

[A]

Yeah. And that's what I want to talk about today. You know, we. We don't. We bring. We were talking about this. We're kind of a hybrid podcast. We're not just conversation, we're also content. We're not all content. We're not all conversation. We're conversation with content. And I have content today because I actually sat down just for the Grow Leader podcast audience and just made a list of the questions that I'm going to be asking myself. Already been asking, and will ask myself, in fact, that during that period of time after Christmas is when I spend the most time alone. And I'm going to get my word for the year. For the next year, I'm going to sit down and write down my eight goals. I always write down eight goals, personal goals. These are not organizational goals, just things I want to see happen in my personal life as I enter into a brand new year. So I just love all this reflection. But here's the key that I want to teach Matt and that it all begins by not just having reflection time, but by asking the right questions. That's good. So if you're having reflection time and you're not asking the right questions, you won't get the right answers. You only get answers to the questions that you ask. And you got to make sure you're asking the right questions. And I want to propose some questions today to our audience and we'll talk about them a little bit. So I want to give you this first list. And this is just a handful of the ones that I ask myself. These are actually written down. I go to this file. I regularly pull it out and actually write these. And in some cases, I even physically write out the answer because I think sometimes you actually retain more and reflect better when you're not just thinking. Because if you're just thinking, distractions can happen. An email pops up. But when you're having to write it down, you have to stay a bit more focused. And I really believe in focused questions. But these are six of Them that I would love for you to answer. And when I ask you to ask these questions of yourself, ask them of yourself and the organization. So I do it twice. So forget that I'm a pastor of a church. I need to ask these questions just for me as a Christian and as a father and a husband. And then I need to flip it and say, okay, no, no. What is the answer to this question as it relates just to our organization? The first one is, why do I exist? Or in the church world, why do we exist? And this is where. And you probably already know the answer to this question, hopefully you do. But this is where I want you to reaffirm your life's purpose. Why you exist in two areas, your vision and values. Vision is what you feel like you're supposed to accomplish with your life. For us at Highlands, we know what that is. We want lost people saved, saved people pastored, pastored, people discipled, discipled, people mobilized. That is really, truly the only thing we're measuring. We do a lot of things that we count, but at the end of the day, the thing that matters the most is, are those four things happening? But then what are those answers for yourself? Why do I exist? Once you have that, throw in there your values too. Because to me, values is what guides it. We love God. I'm in love with God, man. I love people, man. I want to be a person who said man when they put it, when Chris put his hand on it, it was done right. It was done with excellence. And then I want to be known as a person who had an infectious, joyful attitude. I think all those are important. So you ask those, write those, reflect on those, and make sure we have to ask ourselves, was our church joyful this year? Was our church excellent this year? Did we really love people? Did we love people well? Were we good pastors? Did we write notes? Did we make visits? Did we. You know what I'm saying? I really want to make sure we're not just like casually going by these vision and values, like, okay, we got those. What's the next question? No, no, no. Really reflect on man. Were we in love with God? Did God show up this year? Was there genuine authentic faith and worship and anointing in every service?

[B]

Just a great reminder because I think that the natural muscle memories. We go to calendar instantly for next year. But if you don't have vision and values right, the calendar is going to be all messed up to start with.

[A]

Vision, values. Exactly. Once you have vision and values, question number two is you have to Ask ourselves, what are we doing? Go through now this is the calendar and this is the program, so to speak. Like, this is our Sunday services. This is small groups. This is for us. It's growtrack Dream. For me, it's how I live my weekly life. It's like, what am I doing to pull off my vision? I look at my personal schedule. I actually rewrite my own personal daily schedule at this time of year every year because I'm always especially trying to move around my time for physical activity and exercise because I kept waffling back from man, should I just knock it out first thing in the morning or do I wait in the afternoon? Because my brain's so good in the morning and my time with God is precious to me. I hate giving it away to the treadmill or something like that. But then when I try to get to the afternoon, I don't feel like doing it anymore. So I'm always evaluating that. But you have to ask yourself, what. What are we doing? And the third question, is it working? How are we doing? And this is where pastors leaders, I'm encouraging you to know your numbers because we don't worship numbers. I know some people are so anti numbers. I don't get it personally because numbers are indicators of health. If you passed out right now, paramedics come in this room, we hook you up to all kinds of things and it's going to produce numbers. The heart rate, temperature, blood pressure, all these things. And we don't worship the blood pressure cuff. We're trying to find out how you're doing. We want you alive, but you have to get numbers to know that because you can't listen to me, you can't eyeball some of this stuff.

[B]

That's great.

[A]

Some things you can say, oh, that's going great. Oh, is it really? Is it really? Because the numbers really, in my opinion, they don't lie and you need to know your numbers. So I will spend hours and hours and hours going over the numbers. Now here's the caveat. I like it. So for the pastors who are thinking, my God, that sounds like the worst day ever, then you may need to get someone to do it for you in this, interpret the numbers and bring you the results. But I love pouring over man, how full of our nurseries. How do we have enough parking spaces? Are our service times the best service times? I'm poring over the numbers. Which services are the weakest? Which services are the strongest? Where do we need to encourage people to move to a different service I love pouring over the numbers in all of these areas, and I've taught this. In fact, you can go back to last year's December podcast, and I cover all that, so I won't do it in this one. But here's another question I'm going to ask myself, Matt. Number four is, where am I manufacturing energy? So this is where I'm pretending to be excited, but I'm really not excited. Such a great question, like, what are you doing that you're starting to not like to do? And this is important to ask yourself personally, like, what do I. I'm doing it, but I really. This is getting old and I don't like it anymore. And by the way, there are two answers to that question. Two potential answers. One is, you've got to refine the passion because you can't stop doing it.

[B]

Right?

[A]

So you can't say, well, I'm tired of being married. Well, I'm so sorry, you are married and you made a covenant, so let's light that fire again. Okay? But some of these things were manufacturing energy. Maybe the answer is we need to not do them anymore. Maybe they've run their course and this is not something, you know, something that we used to be in love with, but that really needs to change. And I love asking this question. I love asking the question, is there something that we're promoting, something that we're doing that just, you know what, it's run its course, and I think it's so healthy for an organization. Wouldn't you love it if the federal government and government offices would say, you know what, this program used to be important, but we don't need it anymore. Time has passed and. But they. We never end up killing some of those. We just keep feeding something that's not working.

[B]

Can you speak to a little bit? Because I think that there are. There's probably a leader out there who's a little scared to ask that question to the people that are closest to them because they're scared of what they might get. And you're not. You'll. You'll ask this question. There's kind of no, no, no. Holy cows. Like, hey, we're going to protect the sacred cows of, like, let's not mess with this one. Outside of the vision things, we know we're doing this.

[A]

Yeah. That's the only off. You can't keep your hands off is the vision. You can't change what we're going to do. You can change how, though, right? And I love hearing, you know, what we've Even asked the question. I'll give you an example. 1. I'm not even sure if I should share this on the podcast, but I'm going to.

[B]

I'm so ready for this.

[A]

Okay. We've been doing at the movies for 15 years. Every church does that. The movies. Now, I've asked myself, is that an old idea? Was that great in its day? But do we need to still do this series that has movie clips in it? I don't know. I've asked the question.

[B]

Cafes and churches, do we need. Is that a thing anymore?

[A]

We ought to ask the question, where are we manufacturing energy? Is there something that used to work, used to have some effectiveness that maybe hasn't? The fifth question is a very important question. It's a dangerous one because it involves people, and that is, do we have the right people in the right seats on the bus? So one of the things we're going to do this year is I'm actually evaluating the performance reviews that all of the direct reports have done on the entire staff. And these performance reviews basically spit out one of three results, Matt, and that is this is a staff member who's exceeded our expectations. In that case, if they've exceeded our expectations, maybe they can handle more. Maybe they should be leading more. Maybe they shouldn't be in that position. They should be one that is in a different place in organization. Then we have this middle category. They met expectations. Chances are they're in the right seat on the bus. But then we have this third one, they're below expectations. And again, this is determined by their own assessment of themselves and their direct reports. Assessment of themselves. It's just not working, this. They're not able to keep up with the rest of us. And so we asked the question, like, who needs to be sitting at the table and who needs to give up their seat and let somebody else sit in that seat?

[B]

And that might be a whole episode one day to talk about how we do that, because we are an instant feedback culture. If there's something happening in a staff member, you're going to know about it, good or bad in that moment. But we do use an annual review process, which really is looking more at heart and motivation and desire and no, it's both.

[A]

It's vision and values. It's are you moving the ball down the field? But hey, how's your attitude in all this, too? We're looking at both, but there's always somebody. I think chances are there's going to be someone who's not keeping up. And that is what are you going to do with that? And I always like to think, by the way, they're not the problem. I am. I think it's healthy leadership to say, well, it's not their fault. I'm their leader. Maybe they needed more training, Maybe they needed more budget. Maybe they needed more meetings and mentoring time with me. I don't know. So we want to evaluate how do I get them back into the productive category and where they at least meet expectations. But if it's not that, then perhaps the second thing that we do is think of what I call a lateral shift. They're a great staff member. I want them on the team. That's just not the best spot for them. They would be way more productive if they were over here. And then, of course, the third option is maybe we need to, as we call it around here, empower their future. You know, maybe. Maybe there's something in a different ministry or in a different place that they need to be involved in. But we don't need to be shy of asking the questions. That's great. Of do we have the right people in the right seat of the bus? Number six is. I always think this question. This is. May shock some of the people that are listening. When I told you I was going to ask this question, it kind of like, I saw your face. And that is, what would a great leader do if they were leading this? Like always, I sit in my seat some things. Like, what would Craig Groeschel do if all of a sudden, in just an instant, he became the pastor of Church of the Highlands?

[B]

He'd get all the candy out of the building.

[A]

I would be right. We have candy everywhere. All the green rooms. Craig. Craig looks better, but we're a lot happier. No, I'm just kidding. Because. Yeah, so we have definitely a full Gospel ministry. So anyway. Right. But I do think about. I think about different leaders that I have great respect for and in their different fields of expertise and say, you know, what would they do? And again, I just think it's a healthy question to ask. The most important one, though, is number seven. And I want to take the last few minutes of our time together and beg every person that's listening to me to ask this question. I call it my favorite question in the whole world. I love this question. And that is what's most important right now. And this is a timing question. This is a reducing it down to one thing question. This is the beauty of the Philippians 4. This one thing I do. Paul said, in order for me to achieve the goal to get the prize, which God has called me heavenward, Paul reduced it down to this one thing I do. Do you know the one thing you need to do? So every year, actually, for us, we do it twice a year now. But we ask ourselves, what one thing, if it got better, makes the biggest difference? And I think that's a great question for your marriage. I think it's a great question for your personal life. I mean, if you're listening in your car right now or you're working out or wherever you are listening to this podcast, answer it in your head right now. What one thing, if it got better in your life, would make the biggest difference in your life? It's just a great question. When you can narrow the focus down to man, this is where the water's running out of the bucket, so to speak. This is the lowest slat of my bucket. And so it doesn't matter how tall the other slats are. This is where I'm losing water. And it can be in a variety of areas. Here's the kicker, though. The reason why you have to keep asking it. Because if you ask it and you answer it and you fix it, it's no longer the lowest slat. Then you have to find what it is. And for us as a church, that answer has changed every single year we've asked the question. So every year we get together at this time of the year, we're reflecting, we're looking at not only our personal lives, but we're looking at the church, and we're trying to answer the question of what do we need to focus on now? I put a label on it. Now, you may or may not like it. I like it. I call them growth drivers. So these are the initiatives that we're going to step into 2025 with that are basically the answer to this question that we've evaluated our whole church, and we can't really do everything. We can't focus intensely on everything. We have to do everything. We can't. We still have to have a ministry that keeps everything running. Children's ministry, you know, nurseries and parking lots and volunteers and preaching and worship. You know, the list. But I also believe that there are some things that just need intense focus. I call it narrowed focus, where we're going to put a lot of energy, attention, maybe even funding prayer effort, get the whole staff saying, hey, hey, this is the word of the day, so to speak. This is the word of the month. This is the, you know, and we're going to make sure that we move this One the biggest.

[B]

And we. When I say, trust me, we do this, we do this to see the way this causes so much organizational alignment, which means everybody's on the same page. And also accountability. Hey, you're not working on the thing that we've decided. That person decided is the thing. It helps everything.

[A]

Yeah, because when you don't do it. Let's talk about that now. You're allowing the team to redefine it in their own terms. They're actually. They'll come up. If you don't provide vision and focus. They will because they're leaders and they're not bad people. That's right. You're making them guess what the vision should look like. And I don't want that kind of misalignment because it creates havoc in an organization. So what do we do? We narrow the focus. And I'll give an example of some. And then I want to appeal to the audience today on some that I might suggest. But here's some examples. We had an entire year. We thought our staff's not as healthy as it needs to be. And it was healthy. But it could be a lot better. Our communication needed to improve our. Our ministry to our own staff. We were expecting so much of them without not getting into their marriages and their family life and their training and their personal development, allowing them to go to churches, their conferences or seminars where they can become better in their craft. And we spent an entire year. It was several years ago. It was coming right out of COVID We said, man, we're gonna. This is the lowest slide of the bucket. Healthy staff. Here's another one. This one was our lowest slat two years ago, and that was membership engagement that we had lost connection when everybody started going online or just. They were still part of your church, but kind of more of in a disconnected way. And that's when we got connected with Studio C and started working on our app. Spent a bunch of money, hired a bunch of staff, and even to this day, we're still, like, pushing people to this. But you know, it's true, Matt. Our membership engagement has gone through the roof. It's amazing. People feel more connected, more informed, and the information they're getting is. Is personal to them, so they're not hearing information that's not relevant to them. Because of this unique app experience, now everybody's only getting the information that they need. We had. We had. One of our focuses was that we felt like, man, we're such an organized on time, systematic, well produced, excellent church that it needed a whole Lot more feels. Relationship, hallways, food, fellowship, you know, what can we do? What can we do to bring the community aspect. This is a great one for some of you listening to me, your church would grow if you just spent a year focusing on the relational environment.

[B]

Well, now every single Sunday that comes up to this day, we're talking about how did we make this feel like a home for somebody? And you would tell campus pastors, hey, instead of just hitting Highlands news and growth track and this man, it'd be a lot better if you picked out somebody you love in your campus saying happy birthday.

[A]

And we started telling stories like, so when I say answer these questions, don't say, oh, yeah, we're going to get better in this. No, no, I'm saying now create some initiatives like the two minute mingle at first Wednesday. That was one of the things that came out of, you know what, why don't we actually, between worship and the word, why don't we put a two minute clock on and then just have people go visit people, not turn to your neighbor and sit down. Two minutes, the two minute. And it created this relational environment. We tried so many things like that just to, you know, we found out we weren't telling enough stories. We were so factual about everything that we weren't telling the heartwarming story. We were too quick to tell the number of prisons we were in instead of telling the story of a prisoner, someone who was actually. And so we got better. With all that, you create these initiatives, focus on student and children's ministry has been on our lowest slide of the bucket that we were trying to make taller for the last two years. And I'm very passionate about it because we got a long way to go, Matt. But we're very good at this. Now.

[B]

I feel like that is such a. Like, I feel like that's going to be on your growth driver list.

[A]

It may be.

[B]

It's still a passion. It's something we're talking about all the time.

[A]

And all the areas of church life are important. I'm not trying to make one better than another. I'm just saying which ones, which one. If we improved, it improves the whole the most. And I'm convinced that's one of them. Listen to me, pastors, there's two of them also that you cannot take your hand off of that if you ever just let it just be one of many ministries and functions, it will ultimately begin to wane. And that slat gets lower and lower and the water is running out two areas and that's small Groups, dream team. Just because you have them, don't think they're going to be maintained. This is something. Well, you know it to be true. We put so much effort every semester into building small group leaders and starting small groups. This doesn't happen automatically. And in my opinion, they come on Sundays for one reason, but they stay for a different. They come because of the preaching and the worship and the life of a local church and maybe how God's spoken to them, but that's not why they stay. They stay when they're needed and when they're known and needed, they need to be on a. They need to be on a team serving. That's why they stay. And when they're known, when they're in relationship with somebody in an accountable way. And for some of you that are listening to me, this is what needs to be your focus in 2025. You have small groups, but if you're honest, it's the lowest slat of the bucket. It's not as healthy as it should be. Maybe even the dream team and involving your church in those areas. By the way, Matt, I'm announcing here on the podcast today that next year instead of doing GROW regionals, we're doing Grow one days here in Birmingham. An entire Grow conference on one topic.

[B]

It's massive.

[A]

So we'll not change the subject the whole day. We're doing our first one on just the Sunday Experience. We're going to talk about sermon prep, we're going to talk about service flow. We're going to talk about worship, what it means, how to do it, how to create excellence. We're going to talk about sound lights, every part production, every part of Sunday Experience. And I can't hardly wait. I'm telling you, it's going to be one of the best things we ever did. And then we're doing a second one on student and children's ministry. An entire GROW conference on just that one topic of how can we engage our children better, train them better and how can we have world class student ministry that students actually are attracted to. I'm convinced you get those two things right. I'm convinced for a lot of churches, if I may say, it is the. Is the lowest slats of the bucket.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Because you know, we, it's. I just, let me just leave it at that. I think it's very, very important.

[B]

You've even said, I've heard you tell people this, hey, you can preach. Just. Okay. But if you're killing it in kids ministry and student ministry, you'll grow Your church, absolutely. If you're teaching is amazing.

[A]

Oh my goodness.

[B]

And your kids and students, they get.

[A]

In the car saying, I don't ever want to come back. You can't preach good enough. Right. And so, and what we want to do is we want to get both right. And then we're going to do some others. I want to do an entire one day just on the topic of small groups because it's become now that we've been doing grow for a number of years, we've realized, Matt, that of all the systems that we deliver to churches and help them with, this is the ones they're having, this is the one area that they're having the most difficulty figuring it out. And so these days are designed to bring your staff, your volunteers and the people who lead these areas. You're going to meet with all my teams. You're going to actually sit in the sound booth, you're going to go in the production booth, you're going to get the general teaching, but also the breakout sessions. I'm telling you, I'm so excited. It's going to happen in March. Just follow us on Instagram. You'll get the dates in March on the Sunday service and then on April 1st with the Student and Children's Ministry. And these one days are going to really, really help us with these, these, these growth drivers.

[B]

Yeah. And I just want to use this as a chance to say your feedback matters, you guys. I get probably two emails a week asking about freedom small groups and how we do freedom small groups. And it's hard to get all that information to you in a regional type context. But to have you here with access to our full team, we can help you out.

[A]

Well, even in the three day conference, I always think, my goodness, there was so much more I wanted to say to them if I was really going to help them. They needed more than we were able to give them. And let me just close, because I know we're close to running out of time. The last growth driver that you cannot forget and honestly, it needs to stay on the list every year is just the presence of God. And honestly, Matt, you can't take your foot off that accelerator. You cannot say, and we're going to keep getting better what we do. But no, no, no, we need God. God. God needs to show up. We need the anointing and the presence of almighty God. And my friends that are listening to me, we're coming into this prayer and fasting season very, very soon for our church. It's January 5th through the 25th. I'm personally inviting every single one of you guys to join us. Maybe if you're able to pull this all off on your own, just lead your church into vibrant prayer and fasting. If you want to join us. About a thousand churches actually stream our prayer services every day. We have sermon material from our book Pray First. We have small group material from Pray First. We want to resource you in every way. Please, please, please though, start the year off appealing to God.

[B]

That's great.

[A]

Calling on his name. Pushing that plate aside. Lead your churches, they're ready for it and let's see revival happen in our churches. Truly the most important growth driver there is is God's presence.

[B]

Such great content today. I can't wait to go back and listen to myself. Hey, everything we've talked about in the podcast, we're going to link in our show notes. Make sure you go to growleader.com podcast. You did not need to take notes for our podcast. We have it for you. We'll get those to you. We hope you have the best ever Christmas season. It's a great time of year. Make an impact in your community. Let's be generous. Let's reach people and remind people that we have a King Jesus and He is here with us. Y' all have the best month ever. We'll see you next time on the Grow Leader podcast. Hey everyone, thank you so much for listening to this episode and also a big thank you to all of our partners that help make the Grow Leader podcast happen. For over 80 years, Wesleyan Investment foundation has helped churches with their borrowing and investing needs. Whether you're dreaming of new opportunities or seeking wise resource management, we think WIF can help you. You can learn more about them@wif online.com growleader for over 30 years, One Hope has partnered with churches and ministries to impact the lives of children and youth with the message of the Gospel of Christ. Through collaboration with local communities, communities worldwide, One Hope has reached over 2 billion young people in 112 countries. Discover how you could partner with [e-mail] if you're looking for ways to know your people better and also grow your church at the same time, you need to know about Studio C. Studio C combines strategy, technology and communications to maximize church member engagement. You can bridge the engagement gap and transform your church's impact with Studio C. And you can learn more about [e-mail] growleader.