An Outsider's View of a Next Level Church - Weekly Staff Meeting

Last weekend, we hosted 11 church planters from across the USA for 5 days to train them in what is called "Basic Training." One of the experiential elements we put into the curriculum is an opportunity for them to "watch" our 1 hour, weekly, all-staff meeting we do on Monday afternoons from 4 to 5 pm.  The why behind the what is because we've realized that alot of church planters are coming out of less-than-healthy church cultures and the likelihood of them having never seen what a healthy, functional staff meeting looks like, is extremely high.

Ben Liles, a recently launched church planter in Panama City Beach, FL came in to teach, share his story, and observe for Monday and Tuesday. He recently posted on his blog (www.BenLiles.org) his observations from watching our staff meeting on his blog. I have re-posted them below. It's always interesting to see what you do through someone else's eyes, so thanks Ben, for the chance to see our weekly staff meeting through an outsider's perspective.

Here's Ben's Blog Post from October 19th, 2010:

Next Level Church Staff Meeting Takeaways

October 19th, 2010

One of the things I love to do is to find ways to be more productive. From online help, to personal schedules, to reading books on productivity, I want to be productive in my personal life. Yesterday, I found a major flaw in one area of my productivity as a leader: being productive in a staff meeting.
For the last few days I have been at the ARC Basic Training helping to train church planters. Part of the training yesterday was getting the privilege to  sit in on an all staff meeting led by Lead Pastor Matt Keller at Next Level Church. WOW. It was amazing to watch a staff meeting flow like that one. Here are some of my main takeaways.

• Just so you know, there were 11 departments represented and the lead pastor, so keep in mind it was not just 3-4 people. They do this every Monday afternoon.
• NO COMPUTERS! There was not a single computer at the meeting. None. You know what that means? No one was on Facebook or Twitter during staff meeting. Yeah, I am sure you’ve never done that!
• The lack of computers created an environment of engagement. Everyone was listening, helping, discussing, and a part of every conversation. It was not one person talking while everyone else played on their computer. They brought pens, and yes, wait for it…notebooks and paper calendars! No computers, no iPads, but plenty of engagement.
• Phones were shut off or on silent. Most of them never even looked at a phone once. Again, no Twitter and Facebook.
• They discussed “wins” first. They celebrated their wins together. Many of the wins were heard for the first time and they celebrated together. They dealt with losses at a later time. Fight to not go to the negatives first!
• Next they went around the room for department reports. Sounds like the boring part right? Nope. They each talked for about 60-75 SECONDS. They talked about 2 things. First, the one main thing they are working on. Second, the one challenge they are having. They discussed ways to help the challenge as a team, and when a possible solution was had, a secondary meeting was scheduled for those two staff members and BANG, next person! No long term discussions, trying to solve hundreds of problems.
• Next they discussed a reading assignment they had been given. It was a blog about how to organize and respond to the overwhelming number of emails that leaders respond. They each gave their one main takeaway and helped each other find ways to implement it.
• They finished with prayer requests. Not prayer requests from a card, that is handled by others. These were prayer requests that they had found about through relationships. It forces the staff to be involved in people’s lives. They assigned a staff member to follow up with each request, and report back.
• Done. Wins and losses, 11 departments reports, secondary meetings scheduled, leadership devotional with application, and prayer…total time…52 minutes. Less than an hour. Very productive and very time conscious.

Now remember, this was an all staff meeting. From what I understand, Pastor Matt has other meeting throughout the week with some of these guys as needed. So there were other meetings taking place, but for an all staff meeting, this was really productive.
Pastor Matt also highly recommended the book, “Death By Meeting” by Patrick Lencioni. Overall, it was a great eye-opening experience. Leaders, what have you done to improve productivity in your staff meetings?