Does the staff influence the church more or does the church influence the staff more? Obviously, they both happen to some degree, but this question has been on my mind. In this post, I will focus on the ways church staff and leaders can help shape the church: 1. Through Prayer – It’s the obligation of … Read more
How is it that some people are never late and others always are? How can an issue always arise that creates the conditions for being late? There may a few good reasons, but overall, the leader sends some certain messages when they are late. I’m far from perfect in this regard, but I do have … Read more
Next week, our church office is beginning to slowly open back up. As I post this, we’ve been living through the 2020 global pandemic that seemed to shut the world down. If you’re serving in a church ministry, you either fall into the camp of feeling like you’ve had a bit of a break these … Read more
“Ordinary thinking and ordinary effort are almost never enough to generate leadership.” – Tribes, Seth Godin Could it be that the reason the church has trouble “generating leadership” is because of ordinary thinking and ordinary effort? Sometimes I think pastors look at other churches – especially in this day and age of one church conference and … Read more
In his book, Your Best Year Ever, Michael Hyatt talked about comfort being overrated. “We think that if we had every comfort available, we’d be happy. We equate comfort with happiness. And now that we’re so comfortable, we’re miserable. There’s no struggle in our lives. No sense of adventure.” Dean Karnazes Butterflies are beautiful because … Read more
Being a leader at any level requires moving the vision forward every day. If you don’t intentionally cast the vision and keep it in front, it will be impossible to grow your team, your people and your organization. You need to do something every day to move the vision forward. I liked the way I … Read more
The beauty of the church is that it literally everywhere. There are roughly 50 million people in the United states who called themselves believers and attend worship on a regular basis. In fact, in the United Methodist world, there are way more UMC’s than there are McDonald’s in the country – almost three to one. And that’s … Read more
Spent time in Sunday School last week talking about the Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel. Some of the conversation began to center around the church and how the pastor looks out on the congregation praying that they will come alive and grow in faith followed by amazing things. As we were speaking, these two thoughts occurred to me. … Read more
It was about 12:20 am. We’d just stopped at a gas station and while waiting on others from the Harvest band, I was buying an iced tea. There was another guy standing in the same isle and he asked me, “how’s it going dude?” “It’s going well,” I responded. “How’s it going with you.” In a … Read more
Scripture talks about praying before meals. Jesus modeled it. During the feeding of the 5000 he broke the bread and gave thanks for it. Paul modeled it in a couple of other places throughout the New Testament. I have always thought of it as an opportunity to be reminded. We don’t really need a reminder … Read more