Don’t shy away from asking God questions

Don’t shy away from asking God questions

Are prayer times with your team feeling stale or forced? A listening prayer practice of asking God questions can help break that cycle and breathe fresh and unifying life into corporate prayer.  Each time we practiced this kind of prayer, we were surprised by the...
Using coaching skills in everyday life

Using coaching skills in everyday life

If you are a coach, take a moment to think about how coaching skills can be applied broadly to the full range of our everyday life relationships. We can use coaching skills to good effect with our friends, our spouses, our children, and even just in everyday...
Lenten Series Week 4- Barnabas—an Active Listener

Lenten Series Week 4- Barnabas—an Active Listener

Barnabas moved people toward maturity rather than dependence. Instead of simply telling people what to do, he helped people mature in making their own godly decisions. In this way, people grew in responsibility and in leadership. Paul casts a beautiful vision for this...
The 3 Rs of listening to the Holy Spirit

The 3 Rs of listening to the Holy Spirit

Whether you are part of a small group, a ministry team, a discipleship relationship or a coaching relationship, you will need to be intentional about listening to the Holy Spirit. That’s how we help others growth: not by telling them what to do but by listening to the...
The Spirit-Led Leader

The Spirit-Led Leader

I realized early on in ministry that I was not smart enough to be the Holy Spirit. The best I can do is to help people listen to what God is doing in their life and then to cooperate with the Holy Spirit to see God’s agenda become a reality. When we are discipling...
Responding to criticism

Responding to criticism

Responding to criticism: Do you ever get criticized? I’m guessing if you’re a ministry leader, the answer is yes (exercising my profound powers of discernment). The real question is how to handle it when criticism comes. How can you avoid reacting defensively, help...
Listening to build trust

Listening to build trust

Listening to build trust: In ministry, we are inevitably dealing with people that have differences: different perspectives, different priorities, different directions. The default for most of us is to convince people of the rightness of our view. We get into a...
Spirit-guided community

Spirit-guided community

Next time your people meet to dig into discipleship or leadership development, try this. Break people into groups of three. Then give one person the floor for thirty minutes to talk about they’re experiencing God and what they’re hearing from him. The other two people...
Being right vs. being effective

Being right vs. being effective

I ran across this great post recently from coach Scott Eblin: Five questions for leaders who would rather be effective than right. He makes a great point about the tension we sometimes feel when we’re trying to advance an agenda. We most often want to get credit for...