A [deceptively] Simple Buy-in Process

I wrote a previous post on getting buy-in from the board. But not all of your biggest influencers are on the board. How did that happen?

You need the support of your biggest influencers to make a success of any major initiative - changing a church name, buying/selling property, changing church organizational structure, raising money to hire a Bible worker, creating a new outreach focus, starting a second worship service, etc.

Obviously, the more people you put into this process, the better. Small churches operate like a large (dysfunctional) family. So everyone has to be considered an influencer. In medium and large churches, make sure you get buy-in from ministry leaders, committee members, and major donors. In very large and mega churches, you only need buy-in from the planning team and staff (that's a very simplistic way of looking at it).

Make a 3 column document:

Those who will make it happen
Those who will let it happen
Those who will keep it from happening

Write down as many people as possible into this document. Then focus all of your energy into getting influencers to move left just one column. You want the "keepers" to become "letters." And you want the "letters" to become "makers."

According to Gary McIntosh in One Size Doesn't Fit All, the influence process needs to be bottom-up through key families in a small church, middle-out through committees and ministry teams in medium-sized churches, and top-down from the staff in very large churches.