Leadership
Holistic Leadership Development
You want to develop leaders who will do what Jesus called us to do, leaders who can take the church forward into the 21st century. You look to the fields and see them, as Jesus does, ready for harvest — and you know that’s where your ministry needs to concentrate.
What’s needed is holistic leadership development — the kind of leadership development that comes from the harvest and leads people back into the harvest, resulting in subsequent generations of new believers and new leaders living as Jesus called us to live.
We can help you develop leaders the kind of leaders you need in a way that is both relational and intentional… and ultimately effective in helping your church accomplish its mission.
Water tank financial management
When I coach people in the area of their finances, I like to use the image of a water tank. Water comes in at the top and out at the bottom. The water level in the tank signifies cash in the bank. Positive cash flow means that the water level is rising: there is more...
What to do during that leaders meeting? VHS
If you want to cultivate a thriving church, you must make the care and feeding of your small groups and their ministry leaders a very high priority. The leadership community meeting is a regularly scheduled meeting for this purpose. I often refer to the three...
The Habits of Leaders
Today’s entry is from guest blogger Dr. Steven Goodwin. I love reading. It has been a lifetime passion of mine to read, read, and then read some more. I feel a great kinship to Erasmus who once said, “When I get a little money, I buy books. When I get a little more, I...
Reprogramming our self-talk
I've discovered not only in my coaching but through life in general that people often engage in negative self-talk. "I'm always X." "I struggle with Y." "I can't do Z." They spend a lot of mental energy rehearsing the wrong stuff, embedding it even more deeply into...
What I’ve been tempted to say….
Every once in a while during consultations, I've been tempted to tell churches to put up a banner out front saying, "Go to hell. We don't care." (Full disclosure-- I only actually said this once.) What circumstances might lead me to want to say this? A church that has...
The power of green
As an avid mountain biker who lives in the Los Angeles area, I've been thinking about green spaces lately and how the natural environment helps us connect with God. I read an interesting piece on Dave Daubert's blog that I think puts words to the way we as followers...
Worship strategy: Separating the creating planning from the implementation
One strategy I've found to be quite helpful-- particularly in the worship area-- is to separate the creative planning of the worship service from the actual implementation. You can get your creative thinkers to come up with ideas and the plan the services. They're...
The importance of planning as a process
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. Below are...
Planning and evaluation: ministry flow charts
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 for the...
Planning for retirement: what will be your ongoing contribution?
Yesterday I wrote about planning for retirement financially. There's a second way we need to plan for our retirement, and that's thinking about our Kingdom contribution. What are we going to DO during retirement? In my opinion, we never fully retire. If we're here on...
Not planning for retirement: free financial advice
I am increasingly surprised by the number of people who haven't been planning for retirement. As I have conversations with people that are approaching retirement age, many are not prepared financially. They are stuck; they don't have sufficient income to live after...
How to have that tough conversation with a client
Yesterday I wrote about working with clients that aren't motivated. There's no reason to keep working with a person who doesn't want to change or is for some reason not able to change. Sometimes the person is overwhelmed or distracted for legitimate reasons: a spouse...