Any person could be a potential seed of new church, whether they are believers or not. Many people have a whole network that they’re connected to and influential within. When they experience gospel transformation, you never know what other fruit may begin appearing....
I once asked a seminary dean the question, “When students graduate from your program, what can they do?” He later told me that question kept him up at night for a couple of months. When we look at the ways we’ve traditionally trained people, there isn’t a strong...
The more successful we are at recruiting, the more that has the inadvertent effect of diminishing our emphasis on the long-term development of others. Why invest in long-term leadership development when you can just use ready-made leaders from somewhere else?...
As you start missional communities, you’ll see leaders arising. Get them together! You’ll need to provide support of some kind; they won’t be able to run on autopilot. When you do get them together, here are 5 good questions you can ask: What’s working What’s not...
As you process and begin to live missionally, do it alongside some other people. You don’t have to get everybody on board, but if you look around there’s almost certainly someone who would like to do it with you. I’m serving alongside Art (pictured here) at a...
I virtually always find coaching to be meaningful work. But then there are the times when God’s presence is just glaring. I was coaching a leader who was unsure of his agenda for our coaching session. He had just come out of a season of change and transition and it...
Comunidad Mosaico, a ministry I visited in Mexico City a couple of weeks ago, has launched an interesting initiative. I’ve often spoken of starting with the grassroots if you want to see real change. They’re dialed in to that reality: they’re starting with teenagers....
Leave it to Jesus to be forward-looking. He knew there’d be many years to come when he couldn’t be there with his followers, showing them how to do things. He taught them how to figure out how to take the next steps. He shaped their characters and prepared them to...
Note: part of a series started April 22nd. The next question my coach asked me—after I had wrestled for a while with “What’s next?”—was “What’s missing?” After reflecting on the state of the church in the U.S. I decided my answer was that true leadership...
