Have you ever experienced vision whiplash? You’re part of a church or a faith community and the focus seems to shift every 6 to 12 months. For a season, the church is “all about small groups.” Then, without warning or explanation, you begin hearing that the church is...
Jesus only trained people up to the point where they were already living out what they know. He gave his disciples a little bit to go on and expected them to act on it. (See Mark 9:14-29 or Luke 10:1-24 if you’d like an example.) Training people beyond their obedience...
What are the core things a leader needs to be able to do? In most cases, they simply need to be able to do the things any growing disciple can do: engaging with God, serving, evangelizing, and making disciples. At the core of what’s needed are people who are able to...
What’s the goal of education? Of training? It’s transformation. The traditional approach is to give a lot of information and hope they apply it. Sometimes a more avant-garde approach is that part of passing the course is implementing the information. But what we’re...
The core issue with developing people is to identify the outcomes you’re trying to accomplish. The challenge in the formal education field is thinking in terms of curriculum– what the students need to know– instead of in terms of outcome– what the...
I’ve done a lot of consulting, coaching, and writing about trying to help churches develop leadership farm systems (developing leaders from the harvest). One observation I’ve made is the churches that are able to raise leaders from the harvest have pastors who are...
