2018
Most church leadership principles focus on how to prepare your church for numerical growth.
That’s an important aspect of leading a church, for sure. One I want to learn more about.
But it’s just one aspect of church leadership. It shouldn’t be the entire menu. ...
If you want a church to grow, you need to become less of a hands-on pastor.
That’s what I’m constantly told. But it’s not entirely true. At least not for most congregations of a typical size.
The go-to Bible passage most church leaders use for this idea is the ...
Most pastors get a lot of training before we go into full-time ministry. We learn about theology, preaching, counseling and more.
But the one aspect of ministry that most of us get the least amount of teaching on is one that touches everything we do. Money.
Because of this, most ...
Small companies are fueled by passion, innovation and risk-taking. Small churches should be, too.
As companies get bigger, passion is often replaced by profits, innovation by budgets, and creativity by quality control. Big companies tend to take fewer risks because they have ...
Some lessons come easy. Some lessons come hard.
For many, maybe most of us, the practical financial lessons of ministry often come hard. We learn by doing – and by making mistakes. I wish I was the exception to that rule, but I’m not.
Over the years I’ve made ...
More isn’t always better.
No one wants more heartache, more tragedy, or more loneliness. Unless you’re trying to write a hit country song.
In fact, it’s not just bad things we don’t want more of. No one wants more of an average meal, a typical day, or a ...
If you have a message, idea or product you want the world to know about, there’s never been a better time than right now to build the platform for it.
Technology has enabled anyone, anywhere to take an idea (it doesn’t even have to be a good one) and make it available ...
If we want to become better leaders we need to have good feedback. And to get that feedback, we need to find and listen to better critics.
But getting helpful feedback has one significant challenge. There is an inverse correlation between the frequency of a person’s opinion ...
Pastorates are getting longer.
This is mostly good news for pastors, their families, and the churches they serve. (As we saw in my previous article, 8 Benefits Of Investing A Lifetime Of Ministry Into One Congregation.)
But there are a few inherent dangers to staying in one church ...
Pastors seem to be staying in their churches longer now than they did in previous generations.
That’s on purpose.
I know, because as of this month I’ve been ministering at Cornerstone Christian Fellowship for 26 years. When our family arrived here, our prayer was that ...
Sometimes it seems like everyone is leaving the church. But that’s not the case.
While we’re right to be concerned about church-hoppers and church-droppers, people don’t typically go to a church with the plan of leaving soon. Most want to put down roots and ...
It’s hard to leave a church you used to love – and maybe still love.
In previous articles I’ve written from the pastor’s perspective about how hard it is when people leave the church you’re pastoring, and what to consider before leaving a church ...
Why are fewer people going to church? And what can we do about it?
This may be the main topic of conversation among pastors today.
For example, while scrolling through my Facebook feed last weekend, I came across multiple posts with sarcastic takes on how sad/interesting/ridiculous ...
More than any other time of the year, Christmas is filled with traditions.
It’s one of the many reasons we love the holiday season.
It’s also something our churches need to pay closer attention to. Before a church holds any event, program or service, we should always ...
There are a lot of bad reasons churches want to change.
- To keep up with trends
- To get bigger
- To have more available funds
- To appeal to a different group of people
- To break from tradition
- Because we’re bored
- Because we’ll die if we don’t
Some of them seem like good ...
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