Boyd Pelley's Thoughts
 

Using The Grip/Birkman Blueprint In The Local Church       
By Boyd Pelley

I know there are a lot of people using the Grip/Birkman Blueprint (GBB) in their local church, but most of the discussion I hear relates to training coaches, mission leaders, pastors, and other higher level teams and individuals.  So, I thought I would toss out some thoughts on using GBB locally since that is where I live.  I see four different levels of usage within a church: staff, leadership teams, counseling and small groups.  Each one has its own objectives and therefore its own application.

For staff, it seems to me that wise leadership will use GBB as part of the hiring process. That way hiring decisions can be made with eyes wide open considering not only the gifts and style of the candidate, but also the coaching and environmental needs for that candidate to succeed.  Think of the pain that could be averted with this basic knowledge.  Further, new staffs would greatly benefit by sharing and understanding each other’s gifts and components.  That will help them form as a team.  Finally, I’ve seen staffs that have been together for awhile go through the process and as a result real dreams and passions were revealed that launched a new trajectory for several of the staff involved as well as helped the ongoing team work more effectively together.
 
I used GBB with a leadership team made up of volunteers, part time and full time staff a couple of years ago.  We spent several weeks meeting together covering the Grip stuff and then did a one-day retreat to go over the Birkman components.  The results were a tighter staff with a greater understanding and appreciation of each other.  I also used the Grip with a group of all volunteer leaders to help them understand how they lead others and worked together to figure out what coaching and mentoring meant for them based on their God-given spiritual gifts, team style and leadership function.  One semester our small group leader training revolved around Your Leadership Grip and applying insights to how each leader approach leading a small group.

On other occasions, I’ve used the full GBB to help former church staff evaluate the experiences they’ve had and what God’s design was for them.  The personal attention during a very challenging personal season guided by insights from GBB helped move these friends toward the Lord’s purpose and praise for His design.  In the process they gained new insights into their experiences on church staff and their God-given design for future ministry investments.  

As a small group pastor and leader, I have loved using Your Leadership Grip to help group members better understand themselves and each other.  It is such a great environment to figure out how God might have uniquely wired that particular group of people as a team for kingdom purposes.  It is a great idea, but I found it difficult to do well.  Maybe our groups were too individualistic.   However, the insights gained helped folks find their best place of contribution.   In September, Touch Ministries is releasing a new six week series of small group agendas that Paul and I wrote called God Is Powerful In You.  It explores the core ideas of grace, discovery, “I”, “We”, stewardship and God’s dwelling.  Each one of these is a one week discussion with lots of opportunities for deeper interaction allowing the specific group to go as deep and practical as they want.  It would serve as a nice complement to Your Leadership Grip, GBB or Discovering Your Ministry Identity/DYMI and is written in a more traditional small group format.
 
As the founder of Churchteams and churchteams.com, I dream of being able to take the incredible profile insights from Your Leadership Grip, Discovering Your Ministry Identity, or the Grip/Birkman Blueprint and provide a super simple way to use them more effectively for team building at the local level.  Can you imagine what a church well equipped with the tools to understand and apply God’s design for them would like?  It might help knock over that crazy leadership ladder.