Sorting the soils

In many of the times I address groups of church leaders, I recommend that they invest at least 20% of their time in sponsoring and supporting missional ministries and pilot projects. If leaders agree to do that, the most common question then is how—how do you start?...

Parallel paths

As I’ve been thinking lately about the whole stretch of road between living incarnationally as individuals and leading a multiplying movement of churches, I’ve tried to identify all the steps along the way and how they fit together. So far I’ve come up with four...

The gospel changes everything

For many years in recent history the church has focused on spiritual transformation. Rightly so—for this is what the Holy Spirit brings to us. Yet a piece seemed to be missing. Where was the relationship? The community? The love? Then the church began placing more...

Leadership farm systems—it’s what’s missing

Over my years in ministry, I’ve recommended many different structures be put into place to help us grow and multiply healthy churches:  coaching systems, church planter training and assessment, networks/cohorts of people in similar ministry roles. Those have yielded...

The big five

If you’re putting together a training system, a coaching structure, a discipleship approach, a leadership development plan—almost anything—there are five core elements you’ll need to put into place to make a truly great system: Keep it focused. Have a clear...

Leaders who are not disciples

Too many people in church leadership are not disciples or making disciples. No wonder we have the problems we have in our churches. When disciples are fully trained they become like their teacher. Is that really what we want? Are we modeling what we want people to do?...