Maurilio Amorim

Month: June 2011

  • Positioning Your Church

    Positioning is becoming a hot issue with growing churches. While most of the private sector has always struggled with positioning their business in the minds of consumers, churches have not given it much thought until recently. With the proliferation of interdenominational, community, or fellowship-type of churches, positioning a church clearly in their mind of the community has become a very complicated task for church leaders.

    positioning your church, brand position

    Just the other day I overhead the following conversation:

    “Where are you going to church these days?”
    “Hope Community Church.”
    “Oh, isn’t that a Baptist church that has dropped ‘Baptist’ from its name?”
    “I don’t think so-people raise their hands during worship.”
    “It’s a charismatic church, then!”
    “No, I don’t think so, either. I think we’re somewhere between a Baptist and Pentecostal church.”

    Well, Hope Community Church is suffering from poor positioning. I’m sure the leadership of the church purposely chose a name that would be positive and inviting, free of potential negative denominational baggage. However, it also chose a name that does not clearly communicate its core values or foundational beliefs. Some might not visit Hope Community because they fear a charismatic encounter, while others might go away disappointed. While the name Hope Community is a strong name, this church would be well served by stronger brand positioning.

    Defining Expectations

    For a long time, denominational tags were a great way to set up expectations. Most of the time you can walk into an Episcopal church with confidence knowing what to expect. There are some exceptions, obviously. I once had the privilege of worshipping with a charismatic Episcopal church -what a treat! I had never seen people speak in tongues during a “processional.” But for the most part, the Episcopal name carries with it an expectation of liturgical services.

    These days, though, denominational tags can work against you if your church is not typical. A friend recently visited a St. Louis area church, and pronounced it “the most lively Lutheran church I’ve ever been to.” In that church’s case, they have a positioning issue: the sign says “Lutheran,” but you wouldn’t have known it by attending a service. So to avoid confusion, some sense of positioning would help to continue to define that church.

    Maximizing Potential

    Hope Community Church is neither Baptist nor Pentecostal, but it has a dynamic worship style and attracts both seekers and Christians who are looking for an authentic community of faith. If you find yourself in the same predicament – misunderstood, therefore mispositioned by the very people you are trying to attract – here are a few options to consider:

    Use a brand statement that helps define your church. Find words that are descriptive of your local church culture. Use a brand statement that delivers on your promises. I’ve worked with a congregation that uses “Connecting Faith and Life”  They are passionate about preaching that communicates with those who are outside the faith and are trying to make sense of Christianity. Their brand promise focus on helping people in a practical way.

    Be up front. If your name or brand statement doesn’t position you well, then be more descriptive in your advertising. For example, you might say something like, “Hope Community uses contemporary, dynamic music in our worship.”

    Use visuals that reinforce the message. Your logo, images and illustrations that accompany the written message are just as important, if not more important, than the message. Visuals will communicate volumes about the culture of your church, therefore helping to position your church in the mind of a future member. Your brand statement might say “everyday people,” but if your pictures reflect a microcosm-perfect families and perfect smiles-that says just the opposite. A potential visitor might say, “This is not at all like my family!” and regretfully decide, “I guess I don’t belong.”

    Positioning your church is no longer a luxury reserved for “trendy” or mega churches these days. Whether your church has a denominational tag that poorly describes who you are, or your church gets lumped into the great chasm of the faceless interdenominational churches, it’s your job to help position your ministry in the minds of the people you are trying to reach. One of the greatest mistakes you can make is to assume that your church sign or newspaper ad is doing the job of clearly communicating your true identity. It takes consistent thinking and a communications strategy to help position your church so you can maximize your ministry potential.

    How well positioned is your church?

  • Managing the Decline

    “She was hired to manage the decline.” I heard those words over a year ago and they have haunted me ever since. I have lived a life where advance, growth, opportunity, were the words used to describe the next idea, product or ministry. I was hired once to turn a money-losing summer day camp around and within 2 summers we had tripled the enrollment and had enough profit to cause an internal fight on how to spend the excess cash. But I could never imagine being told to manage the decline.

    Typesetter managing the decline

    The more I learn about people, businesses and ministry, the more I run into people who are managing the inevitable death of their organizations, product lines or even entire industries the best they can. These are not lazy or bad people. While some are smart enough to know that the end is inevitable, they are either powerless to change it or don’t have the willpower to pay the price it takes to make the shift towards something new.

    Remember the typesetters of years ago? These were massive machines where fonts were created out of metal and wood and loaded in as a specialized typist created plates for the printing press. Once the personal computer hit the market, the days of the typesetter machine manufactures, typists, film developers, maintenance workers were numbered. Overnight, and entire industry disappeared. Someone managed that decline. Knowing the end was near, but holding down the fort because it was his job to do it.

    I side with the old poet Dylan Thomas as he cried: “Do not go gentle into that good night. . . Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”  So I rage. I refuse to believe I’m done. I still want to learn, to grow, to run faster to work smarter, to meet new people and to dream new dreams. While I often congratulate my team on accomplishing so much, I push them toward doing what’s going to make us great tomorrow. Today’s celebration was yesterday’s victory, but we still must win tomorrow’s.

    Please don’t ask me to manage the decline or to maintain the status quo. I’m not that guy. I just can’t do it. I once remember trying to do it. It lasted less than a month: “We either grow or I’ll get fired trying.” I left less than a year later on my own but there were a lot of people happy to see me go.

    Have you ever been put in a position that you knew you were managing the decline?

  • Why I Need Balance

    I struggle with finding balance in my life. I’m driven, performance oriented and competitive. Those traits don’t mix well with balance, but I understand that without balance in my life, I tend to focus on the urgent and forget to take care of the important.

    Balance in life

    I’ve heard someone say recently that balance is overrated. Throw caution to the wind and, as the romantics would say, “carpe diem.” But what a balanced life ultimate offers all of us is the ability to look soberly at our circumstance as well as to where we are headed. Balance tells us that we are working too hard, or neglecting loved ones, or that we are not spending enough time and resources to those who cannot help themselves. A balanced person looks at the dashboard of his  or her life where the physical, emotional, spiritual and relational  gauges tell a complete story.

    It’s easy for me to go full throttle on performance-driven areas of life life professional and even physical and neglect the others. But we were created to live balanced lives and when we don’t, there’s always a price to pay. Often it’s a much greater price than we ever thought.

    I am writing this post mostly as a reminder to myself that I must take a sober look at all the gauges of my life even those I often neglect.

    How do you create balance in your life?

  • The Problem with Positional Leadership

    We can distill leadership in two of its basic foundations: positional and influential. Understanding them will dictate and help you successfully navigate through leadership waters.  You can be given the position but unless you also have the influence, you are not really a leader.

    positional vs Influential leadership leader

    Positional leadership is given, while influential is earned. While they are not mutually exclusive, some never make the connection. It took me a while before I got that lesson, but once I did, I understood the power of influence.

    Anyone can get a job managing a person, or a group of people. My first job as a manager was as a part-time music director at a church while going through graduate school. I had to lead a choir, which I was prepared to lead; however, the choir was not the problem, Rosie, the organist, was. I remember my first day on the job when one of the choir members half jokingly said, “all the other choir directors before you are buried behind the gym.” While not all of them were, I’m certain at least a couple had to be there. After all Rosie had been there for nearly 30 years and none of them were around. Her organ shoes were older than me.

    I quickly realized that while technically I was Rosie’s boss, she was going to do whatever she wanted unless I moved from being a positional leader to an influential one. It took me a couple of years of hard work on our relationship and earning her trust, but finally Rosie and I became a team. She trusted me and in the course of a few years, I was the person in charge, even though I was still in my 2o’s and Rosie was well into her 60’s . As a matter of fact, before I left that job, Rosie retired.

    Positional leaders without influence are dictators at worst and poor managers at best. People will “follow” them until they find something else to do. If you’re not sure you have influence, ask yourself “would my employee, team take my advice and direction if I were not the boss?”  If you cannot answer with a resounding, “yes,” chances are you’re managing from a positional place and not leading from influence.

    Have you ever worked for a positional leader? What happened?