We’re going to deal with the subject of leading a meeting. Some of you are saying, well, I’m not a preacher. I’m not a gifted public speaker. That’s not the issue when it comes to leading a meeting. Wisdom, governance, and understanding what’s required is important. This is something you can learn and grow into. In 1 Corinthians 11:17, Paul’s writing to the Corinthians says, “But in the following instructions, I do not commend you because when you come together, it is not for better, but for worse.” In fact, some translations say you, “do more harm than good”. In other words, the meetings in Corinthians were more harmful to the people than good. Just imagine that! Paul looks at your church service and says, “Quite frankly, everyone, you should have stayed at home today. That meeting has done more harm than good.” Paul then describes the type of things that are happening in those meetings in the first place. “You come together, and I hear that there are divisions” (1 Cor. 11:18). So as a leader of a meeting, as a governor meeting, what we want to see is we want to see unity. We want to see oneness. He goes on to say in 1 Cor 11:20. “I believe when you come together, it’s not the Lord’s Supper that you eat.” In other words, the reason you come together should be to glorify Jesus, to put Jesus at the centre. Obviously, the church in Corinth wasn’t doing that. He goes on to say, “For in eating, each one goes ahead and does his own meal. One goes hungry, the other gets drunk”(1 Cor 11:21). He’s alluding to the fact that there’s chaos. Governance brings peace. Where Jesus comes and governs, there is peace, and that’s our pattern (Isaiah 9:6) for governing a meeting. There is peace in a meeting. For the rest of this chapter, I want to look at the top 30 mistakes One Life Church elders have made when leading a meeting over the years.
1. WHEN YOU’RE NOT SINCERE When your greeting is not sincere, not happy and not natural, when you start a meeting, you’re setting the mood; there needs to be a smile on your face. There needs to be sincerity of heart. It needs to be very purposeful. Often I’ve seen a guy start a meeting, and I know he’s thinking so much about the other elements of the meeting that he appears quite grumpy. Yet it’s the greeting that sets the mood for the rest of the meeting. Often you’ll find us sharing that responsibility, allowing people who are just going to greet, just going to say “hello” and maybe wrap things up at the end sometimes. That can be helpful.
2. WHEN YOU IMPOSE YOUR MOOD ON A MEETING. When MCs impost their mood on a meeting, meanwhile, there’s nobody else in the room is down and depressed but now after hearing the MC everyone else is down and depressed. Don’t take your mood and impose it on the meeting. Sort yourself out before God and then come and lead the meeting. Equally, I see people lead a meeting looking deliriously happy. Looks like they’ve just won the lotto. Don’t impose your mood on other people when you are leading a meeting. You are hosting it on behalf of Jesus, and you facilitate people coming into his presence, not into your presence.
3. TOO MANY ANNOUNCEMENTS When you have too many announcements to make, we have a visionary video which has got 1 maximum, 2 announcements in it. At a local site, you can also bring a couple of announcements, but if you’ve got 5 or 6 announcements, no one is listening. This is the guide, if it doesn’t cover and pertain to 50% of the crowd, don’t talk about it. Use other ways to communicate. Use WhatsApp groups, use your social media, and direct messages. Don’t overdo your announcements because overdo the people start checking up. They don’t listen.
4. WHEN YOU START OR END LATE Starting late is just rude. Ending late is unwise because people will then make decisions on these subsequent visits to church. You should honour time.
5. RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO SUM UP EVERYTHING Resist the temptation, to sum up everything. Don’t try to find a thread through everything and then tell everybody. People have a brain, and people can make the connections themselves. You don’t have to always tie a neat bow over every part of the meeting. You’re just repeating what’s being said.
6. WHEN YOUR WORDS ARE BORING When you repeat cliches, I often hear this one: “My name is Grant Crawford, if you haven’t met me before”, “haven’t met me before” it’s become like a mantra in one life circles. You don’t need to say it. When someone uses a well-worn phrase people check out, you don’t want that.
7. WHEN YOU REHEARSE LINES, PARROT FASHION When you rehearse lines in parrot fashion, it looks unnatural. Rehearsing is good but don’t become robotic. Get to the point where it’s natural.
8. INTERRUPTING WORSHIP When you jump up too soon to interrupt, worship. I’ve seen guys stop a song midway through. Disregarding what the Holy Spirit is doing in worship.
9. BEING LONG-WINDED Sometimes people take 5 minutes of what could have been summed up in one sentence.
10. WHEN THERE’S NO PASSION You set the mood. You set the stage when you’re hosting a meeting. Passion is something that comes from your heart. Don’t manufacture passion. I’ve seen very quiet people say passionate things, and it moves people’s hearts.
11. WHEN YOU DON’T TALK TO THE MEDIA CREW BEFOREHAND I’ve often seen the MC get up and ask for a video. Oh, no, wrong one. And he starts talking to the crew. They didn’t have a conversation before that meeting started.
12. DRESSING IN A WAY THAT ONLY RELATES TO CERTAIN PEOPLE Think about how you dress. Are you relating to only young people with how you dress or only older people? We haven’t got a dress code. But be careful when you dress. Biblically you want to dress modestly and not cause people to stumble. Be sensible about how you dress.
13. TALKING TO PEOPLE OR ABOUT PEOPLE YOU DON’T KNOW I’ve seen people dedicate babies, and they pronounce the name wrong or they read the name of the person they invited into the church off their phone. Memorise their names beforehand.
14. ENDING A MEETING CARELESSLY. If you don’t end a meeting well and the meeting drifts to an end, you’re not thinking about what you’re saying. Often your last words to someone are the words that ring, and they are the one’s they remember. Think about how you end.
15. RELEASING PROPHETIC WORDS AND CONTRIBUTIONS When you’re governing a meeting and prophetic words, and contributions are coming. If you just let them go as they come, you will continually interrupt worship. A good idea is to bunch them all together. Sometimes God is saying the same thing through 3 people – You don’t have to release all 3 just mention just release 1 and say, “You guys are saying the same thing. I’m going to pick this guy to say it.”
16. NOT SMILING There are times when you don’t smile. When announcing a death or announcing a tragedy. The rest of the time, please smile. It disarms people, relaxes people, tells them you want them to be there.
17. NOT TRANSITIONING PROPERLY When the meeting is still and quiet and God is doing something and a guy gets up and shouts, “Wow! Wasn’t that fantastic?” and everyone lurches out of their seats, disrupting what God was doing. Or when it’s thumping, and heaven is breaking in, and someone gets up, and he looks like he’s about to go into mourning. You’ve going to have to read what the Holy Spirit is doing, read the crowd and be able to gear it up or down.
18. SIMPLY FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS If God is doing something, and you have a run sheet to follow, it’s ok to change things up to facilitate what God is doing. Some people just follow the run sheet and get up in the middle of worship when it’s a perfect opportunity to minister to people.
19. WHEN YOU EXPOSE PEOPLE DURING BREAKING OF BREAD The breaking of bread can be a scary time for visitors. It can make them feel exposed. Be intentional and govern and get everybody to do things together, and lead people deliberately through those moments in breaking bread.
20. SURPRISING THE MEDIA TEAM WITH A REQUEST When you surprise the media guy with a request and then wait for him impatiently. That’s just bullying.
21. WHEN YOU DON’T CHECK THE MIC When you don’t check the microphone before you get up, check the mic to avoid issues that may arise.
22. ALLOWING ANYONE TO ACCESS THE MIC Allowing people access to the mic that shouldn’t have it. If you’re governing a meeting and you don’t know somebody, you don’t have to give them the mic. I can tell you hectic stories of people who have been given the microphone, and now there’s a big rescue mission by the MC to try to get the mic back or to correct what has been spoken. Rather ask somebody what they’re going to say, and if it’s from God, say it yourself rather than releasing a stranger with the microphone.
23. WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE A CLEAR PLAN FOR A MEETING I’m not saying that you’ve got to script everything and you’ve got to stick to your plan, but you’ve generally got to have some sort of an idea of where you’re going. Otherwise, I tell you what happens. You have one or two good meetings, but then it’s going to get boring. You’re going default to doing the same thing week in & week out.
24.WHEN HUMOUR EXPOSES OTHER PEOPLE Humour is great, but don’t rip off strangers, minority groups, politics or sexual innuendos. When you do that, people don’t think it’s a safe place. Rather rip yourself off than others and avoid the above.
25. WHEN YOU CORRECT PEOPLE FROM THE MICROPHONE When you correct people from the microphone, when you’re telling people or babies to shut up, you look like a bully.
26. APOLOGISING FOR EVERYTHING When you apologise unnecessarily for things, don’t apologise unnecessarily. Reserve your apology for when you really need to apologise.
27. UNWILLING TO CHANGE THE MEETING You should allow room for the Holy Spirit to change and adjust what’s happening in the room.
28.WHEN YOU DON’T READ THE ROOM When you are flippant in tragedy and sombre in celebration, you’ve got to read the room.
29. GETTING FRUSTRATED WITH CHILDREN I used to do this so badly when I first started leading. You’ve got to be able to just walk through a hailstorm and allow everybody else to handle kids for you. 30. BE PUNCTUAL In every meeting, be punctual