Thank you for making June another great month here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! June in Arizona means no more sitting outside and blogging…it’s so hot they’re cancelling flights at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport because the smaller regional jets can’t get enough lift with the excessive heat to get off the ground! So thank you Jesus for air conditioning!
Besides that…it’s still great to stay connected with you through social media and hearing that these articles have been helpful. So, thank you for connecting with me through the content on this blog! You made these the top posts from this last month. If you missed out on any of them, here they are all in one place for your convenience!
By the way…if you look closely you’ll notice that 3 out of the 10 most popular posts this month have to do with volunteering…hopefully churches are catching onto the fact that volunteering is their “leadership development program” at their church.
Ministry would be a lot easier if your church didn’t grow. I know that most church leadership books, blogs, and conferences are designed to give you the inspiration, principles, training, and tools to help your church grow; but If you really knew the truth about how hard it is to actually grow a church, you probably wouldn’t want to do it. Just think about how much easier it would be if your church didn’t grow. There’s all kinds of difficult things you wouldn’t have to do.
Healthy churches produce results and you can know if your church is healthy by the results it’s producing. And while I’d quickly admit that none of the items on this list guarantee a healthy church, you probably can’t lead a healthy church without these things.
But just because someone has a high E.Q. doesn’t mean they’re necessarily going to be a good leader. They may be talented but that doesn’t make them good. Those are two very different things. No amount of emotional intelligence will compensate for a fatal flaw of character. Void of character a high E.Q. will drive leaders towards manipulation instead of leadership.
I’ve never worked with a church that has said they don’t need more volunteers. But I’ve worked with a bunch of churches that have trouble getting people to volunteer and stay engaged volunteering.
Many churches I talk with want different results; they actually want to see more people meet Jesus and follow Jesus this year than last year. Unfortunately, they just aren’t willing to change, let go of old tactics and take a different approach.
I love helping churches and leaders get unstuck and make vision real. In fact out of all the stuff I get to do with churches and leaders one of the things I enjoy the most is Leadership Coaching. Recently I had the incredible opportunity to spend a day coaching a group of Pastors and Church Leaders from Australia (unfortunately their cool accent didn’t rub off). One of the topics we spent time digging into was the difference between shepherding and leading in relation to why some churches are stuck while others move forward. Here are couple of thoughts from the conversation.
Father’s Day always provides a great opportunity to reflect on the kind of Father you had growing up and of course the kind of Father you would like to be yourself. In thinking about my Dad this weekend there were so many lessons that he taught me that came to mind, and fortunately, many things I still have to learn from my Dad. And while every father and man has their deficiencies to be sure, my dad has been an accelerant in my life and leadership by consistently allowing me to stand on his shoulders. Dad, I love you, and I’m so grateful that you’re in my life! So here are a handful of leadership principles that I learned from my Dad.
Church planting has been a time-tested strategy to reach new people in new cultural contexts. Church planting works best to reach people who are culturally and/or demographically different than us, where a different approach than the way we do church would be the most effective. Starting new multisite campuses on the other hand works best for people who are geographically closer, and both culturally and demographically similar to us where the same approach to the way we do church would be the most effective. In other words, it’s not one or the other, it’s both-and. It’s about what approach is going to be the most effective in reaching people with the Gospel. However, there are some significant differences between adopting a planting or a multisite model.
5 Leadership Lessons for Young Leaders based on my experiences training for a triathlon.
In August, 2012, Leadership Network released a report stating that over 5,000 churches are now multi-site churches (churches that meet in more than one location for worship). It’s a growing trend that first began with mega-churches, but has now expanded to churches of all sizes. With this new trend a new staff role has emerged, that of “Campus Pastor.” While a lot churches are still trying to figure out this new role, here are 6 things that great Campus Pastors do:
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