Not all obstacles are obvious

Not all obstacles are obvious

Leadership

If you’re a big-vision kind of leader, you know the excitement of getting people on board, excited, and moving together toward a vision. You also know you need to identify your obstacles beforehand so they don’t derail your plans. Identifying those obstacles and...
Putting out the fires of hell with a squirt gun

Putting out the fires of hell with a squirt gun

Leadership

I once coached a planter who could inspire a group of people to do almost anything. He was an amazing communicator and motivator. I often chuckled that he could preach a message inspiring people to go put out the fires of hell with squirt guns and they’d be ready and...

Congregational Conversations

Leadership

Here’s a strategy you can use regardless of the kind of issues you are facing. Read the description below and think through how you could use this kind of strategy in your own ministry. One church has been in the process of transition. The church is two years old and...

Gaining ownership

Leadership

  Effectively casting vision means more than getting consent or compliance. It means getting ownership. If the people consent to the vision, they’re essentially promising not to block you. If they have ownership of the vision, they want it to happen as much as...

Casting vision

Leadership, Visionizing

People can lose vision is less than a month. Effective visioncasting must be repeated, intentional, and take many different forms. Here are a few common strategies: Strategic prayer Personal example Rewards and recognition Powerful stories Appeals to scripture...

Clarifying your vision

Leadership, Visionizing

Leaders must be able to effectively visioncast for a preferred future, and effective visioncasting—of course—starts with ourselves. In order to grow and develop our ministries in the right direction, we need to know where we’re headed. Often our best intentions are...

The keys to growth

New Church Planting

Note: this entry is part of a week-long series with Dave White from the Philippines. Yesterday we talked about the growth and multiplication Dave White has been seeing in the church in the Philippines. I asked him what he saw as the keys to some of that growth, and...

All or nothing

Leadership

One theme that seems to come up with many missional leaders is they think in terms of all or nothing. They want to move their whole ministry missional/incarnational, but they can’t get everyone to go there. I’ve talked with a lot of these leaders lately. They feel...