So often in planning, people try to focus on the plan itself– the end result. What’s actually much more important is the engagement of people in the discernment process, seeking God, and walking together through the discovery of what God wants them to do....
You can use your ministry planning and evaluation process to cooperate with what God is doing. Charts like the ones below (taken from my book Releasing Your Church’s Potential) can help you develop a framework that guides your ministry priorities and decisions...
A while back I posted a blog entry from Mark Fields with Vineyard Missions about how much better his board meeting went when he scheduled spiritual formation retreats just before them. Mark makes some interesting points about how mission and formation intersect. He...
Today’s entry is by guest blogger Dave Wasemann. As I was coaching a pastor recently I had an insight: I was hearing the pastor reflect the five stages of grief through leadership and membership of the congregation. Is it possible to glean insights from work done on...
When I was a pastor, I would track our growth. Historically, the increase of adult attendance would track alongside the increase of children’s attendance. They would run in parallel to each other. Then I noticed that trend diverging. Children’s attendance...
If you are trying to staff your children’s programming concurrently with the worship service, it’s hard to get volunteers because they have to miss church to serve. So what to do? Some churches require parents to volunteer once a month. Yet that approach...
