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About Bill Tenny-Brittian

Bill is the Managing Partner at The Effective Church Group. He began ministry as a church planter in the early 1980s and over the past 40 years he's grown churches from one side of the nation to the other. In 2002 he joined Bill Easum's consultation group and began partnering with churches and church leaders to help them reach their fullest potential. He is the author of twelve books and the editor of Net Results magazine. Reach Bill here.

Are Your Leaders Interested or Committed?

I was reading some business blogs the other day and came across one in Entrepreneur magazine. The president of Fusion Logistics, Joe Judson, was waxing eloquent on one of the measures of success, interest versus commitment, and it got my mind spinning about some church leaders I’ve worked with.

Many church leaders are interested in […]

The Right and Wrong Ways to Network

He finally took our advice and started spending time at the local coffee shop at the big box book store. Every Tuesday and every Thursday he was there from 9 to noon without fail, but after eight weeks he was pretty discouraged. He hadn’t had a meaningful conversation with anyone, hadn’t exchanged contact information […]

Five Things You’re Doing That Won’t Grow Your Church

The church pastor was flummoxed. He had no idea why his church wasn’t growing. He was doing lots of stuff right, but he just couldn’t get any traction. So he called me. After a lengthy conversation, I helped him identify five things he was spending a lot of his time on that weren’t growing […]

Pocket Numbers

Back in the days when I was involved in Toastmasters, I used to carry a “pocket speech” with me to every meeting. A pocket speech was a pre-prepared three- to five-minute speech that I could present just in case the scheduled speaker didn’t show up. Every member of our club was encouraged to have […]

Top Five Blog Posts of 2014

2014 was a banner year for The Effective Church Group at 21st Century Strategies.

We provided church leader training resources to over 44,000 church leaders this year, including:

Access to over 1500 blog posts on EffectiveChurch.com
Over 200 training videos on Church-Talk
Over 325 issues of Net Results magazine

We worked in person with over 300 pastors […]

The Effective Church Board in Action

We often get questions about what kind of decisions an effective policy/accountability board is responsible for.

Below are a couple of brief scenarios that demonstrate decision-making processes a board should and should not engage in. (These are hypothetical examples that may or may not reflect issues facing your congregation.)

The petty cash policy limits the […]

The Six Most Powerful Accountability Words

“That won’t happen again, will it?”

There shouldn’t be question mark at the end of that question, because it’s not really a question. It’s a statement that should actually end with a period. In fact, it’s a statement that says much, much more than just those six little words.

I first heard those words from a pastor […]

Sample Staff Meeting Agenda

Just a few hours ago, we posted a sample board meeting agenda. Within minutes, we started receiving requests: “What would an effective staff meeting agenda look like?”

The primary difference between a board meeting and a staff meeting is that the staff is leading the programs and ministries of the church. They’re responsible for making […]

Sample Church Board Meeting Agenda

Every so often we get asked, “What would an effective board [or council or session or vestry] meeting look like?”

As you look at the agenda, remember that a board’s top priority is to hold the pastor accountable for mission alignment and vision achievement. It is NOT a board’s job to manage anything. However, for the […]