Tag Archive - ministry

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5 Articles that will Help your Church Make Vision Real

Thank you for making June a great month here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! It’s great staying connected with you through social media and hearing about how helpful different articles have been. So, thank you for connecting with me through the content on this blog! You made these the top 5 Posts from this last month. If you missed out on any of them, here they are all in one place for your convenience!

#1 How Centralizing Ministry is Crippling Your Church

While at first pass centralization may seem like an efficient approach to greater ministry impact and moving further faster, it’s not always the best thing for the advancement of the mission of the church. In fact here are 6 ways well intentioned churches are unknowingly crippling their ministry impact for the sake of centralization.

#2 4 Ways Spiritual Leaders Violate the Trust of the Church

Trust is the fuel that leadership runs on, especially in church-world. When trust is high there is an environment for momentum, wins are celebrated, and people follow leadership because they believe in the leader and where the leader is taking them. When trust is low skepticism runs high, progress comes to a screeching halt, and the tenure of the leader is short-lived. Below are four ways leadership of church leaders is commonly eroded.

#3 How to Raise the Speed Limit at Your Church

Everyone is going to spend eternity somewhere. And there is a moment coming when you and I will no longer have the opportunity to affect change on the world. Jesus will come back and set everything wrong…right. Until then we’ve been given a window of opportunity to join Jesus in a sacred mission of reconciling the people of the planet to the purposes of God. That’s why it’s rare that I ever meet a church leader that wants to slow down. Most have a white hot passion to see people far from Jesus come near to him. While as church leaders we can’t control the movement of the Holy Spirit there are things we can do organizationally to set the sail.

#4 3 Ways Leaders Lead at their Best

Over the last 15 years I’ve been blessed to lead worship with many talented musicians and singers. I’ve led at camps and retreats. I’ve led for different generation, for different gatherings, for different churches. I’ve led in large venues and small venues. And through it all I’ve discovered three principles that allow me to lead at my best…truth is, these principles apply to anyone who leads a team.

This was a great guest post by Matt Thompson the Worship Pastor at Sun Valley Community Church’s Tempe Campus.

#5 Why Shared Leadership is Better Leadership

Leadership is a gift that is meant to be shared. It’s how leadership is both best developed and best exercised. Shared leadership is not for everyone though. It requires a tremendous amount of personal security and deep levels of trust at the highest levels of the organization. But if you can master shared leadership then you’ll move at a pace you never thought was possible.

Photo Credit: justin fain via Compfight cc


Posted in Leadership

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It’s Time to Join a Leadership Coaching Network

I recently caught up with Micah Hutchison who serves as the Executive Pastor at Harvest Community Church in Mesa, AZ. Harvest Community Church started in August of 2009 with a small core team and in less than five years has grown to more than 900 people in attendance. Micah participated in one of my Leadership Coaching Networks and had the following to say about the experience.

“The coaching and leadership conversations we had over six months with Paul elevated my leadership in the church as much as any experience I’ve ever had. I gained valuable tools and strategies for developing the leaders under my care. Additionally our discussions provided a strong foundation for understanding why healthy churches grow, and the time to personalize theory to our specific ministry situation. Paul’s personal ministry and leadership experience and wisdom ensured each coaching session was a valuable experience!”
Micah Hutchison, Executive Pastor at Harvest Community Church in Mesa, AZ

Interested in Joining Us?

Here are all the details about the leadership coaching network in Phoenix. My teammate at The Unstuck Group, Tony Morgan, is facilitating a similar network in Atlanta

Complete the coaching network application and pay your initial deposit to hold your space. The deposit will be your first month’s fees. The next Phoenix and Atlanta networks will start in October 2014. The deadline for your application is August 15, 2014.

Photo Credit: djwtwo via Compfight cc


Posted in Leadership

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Church Budgeting Survey

In working with churches across the country one of the reoccurring points of tension that comes up is church budgeting. “How do we build our budget in a manner that is fiscally responsible and at the same time helps us move towards our vision?” “What are standard benchmarks in church world regarding building a healthy church budget?” The truth is while you can find a lot of principles out there about church budgeting there’s not a lot of hard data that is easily accessible for the average church. That’s why I’m conducting some informal research on church budgeting, and I’m hoping that you may be able to help. The responses from this survey will allow me to share valuable information such as:

  • What percentage of our budget should go towards Staffing, Operations, Ministry, and Missions?
  • How much debt do churches of similar size carry?
  • Do these percentages change as the size of our church changes over time?
  • How do different churches go about building their annual budget?

The more churches who participate, the more specific comparisons can be provided.

Click Here To Take The Survey

Benefits of participating: For those who participate, you’ll receive the results in an executive summary before the findings of the survey are made public! And, you’ll be provided with a copy of the data. No worries, the data will be sanitized to remove possible church-identifiers for anonymity. All for free. Thanks ahead of time for participating in the survey and for helping churches make vision real!


Posted in Leadership

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How Fresh Eyes can Help Your Church get UnStuck

They wanted to reach people for Jesus, but they were stuck. The numbers couldn’t lie. They had been running 200-300 people for the last 10 years, but decline was settling in. Something felt off. The changes they had tried to implement–like creating a “blended” traditional/contemporary worship service–only left them more frustrated when growth did not come. They needed a fresh perspective.

In 2012 I met with Joe Stewart. Joe was the new Lead Pastor at Sabino Road Baptist Church and he was hopeful about their future. He refused to let this ministry stagnate into irrelevance. In my time with Sabino Road I walked them through a Health Assessment to lend new eyes to its strategies, systems and structure and provide a current snapshot of the ministry’s health.

“It was an incredible asset to have someone from the outside say what he saw and provide me with an ally for change,” said Pastor Joe. “The Unstuck Group has a unique way of facilitating discussion and helping staff and key leaders gain understanding of how to move forward.”

Sabino Road did not have a culture of change, which made the process move slowly. Some things were difficult, like transitioning to a new worship pastor and building a new website, but the mindset shift that occurred began to gain ground. The church realized its culture had unintentionally become insider-focused and was able to clarify its mission, vision and values to be about reaching out.

The “transition team” that Pastor Joe rallied set a goal of seeing 100 new guests visit the church between May 2013 and May 2014. As of today, they’ve already exceeded that goal, and they’ve retained 37% of the new folks.

The church has seen more growth in the last two years than it had in the previous 10.

“Through wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.” Proverbs 24:3-5 (NKJV)

Click the following links to learn more about the Unstuck Group and the Ministry Health Assessment or other services we provide to help churches get unstuck!


Posted in Leadership

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A Large Multisite Church in Phoenix is Hiring a High School Pastor

I’m pleased to announce a new Staff Search. Sun Valley Community Church, is beginning a search for a High School Pastor to serve on our Tempe Campus. Sun Valley began as a church plant in 1990 in Chandler, Arizona. Over the years Sun Valley has grown into a large mult-site church in the Phoenix metro area. Currently there are three campuses located in Gilbert, Tempe and Casa Grande with a total weekend attendance of over 5,000 people. Sun Valley was recently named by Outreach Magazine as one of the top 10 fastest growing churches in America. The Tempe Campus is the result of a merger in October of 2011 with Bethany Community Church. In the merger Sun Valley acquired a 16-acre, 8 building campus with over 100,000 sq. ft. under roof. Since the merger the campus has doubled in attendance and at present attendance is over 1,000. When fully utilized the campus capacity will accommodate 7,000 people. Sun Valley was recently featured in a new book by Leadership Network about church mergers: Better Together: Making Church Mergers Work. To learn more about that story click here Part-1 and Part-2.

Interested in learning more? Continue reading below…

Continue Reading…


Posted in Staffing
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