Pastoral care during grief and loss

Leadership

I was recently asked for counsel on how best to engage in pastoral care during a time of grief and loss. That’s never an easy thing to respond to. No one– not even pastors– ever really knows what to say in cases where someone has died. That’s especially...

Some models for discipleship

Discipleship, Leadership

  A good model for discipleship needs to be a simple, reproducible method that helps guide a person toward becoming an obedient follower and disciplemaker. Whatever model you use, you must build in reproducibility. A few good models are outlined below: just...

Vision: Where is the “more”?

Coaching, Leadership, Visionizing

  “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” –Ephesians 2:10  You’ve read this verse before. You know God has created you with certain work in mind for you to do. He has a purpose for...
How to build trust

How to build trust

Leadership

A while back I did a blog entry on handling conflict. One comment rightly pointed out that a basic foundation of trust was assumed and suggested I write an entry on how to build trust. I thought that was an excellent suggestion. Here’s my first take on it–...

Developing a ministry flowchart

Leadership

The purpose of a ministry flowchart is to diagram your overall strategy for achieving your mission. Diagramming your programs/ministry offerings will help you see the relationships among the areas. Here’s the process for creating a ministry flow chart: First, click...

Responsibility and contribution

Leadership

One of the most helpful things I’ve found for building solid teams is to make a distinction between responsibility and contribution. Responsibility is their job– what that person is responsible for. If it doesn’t get accomplished, they are held responsible...