Don’t Waste Your First Six Months
There are two ways to approach a new calling to a declining church. (1) Start slowly, build relationships, get the lay of the land, and then slowly effect changes. Ready, Aim, Fire. Or (2) Assess quickly, make changes, and then make adjustments. Ready, Fire, Aim. The first method is the most common approach in ministry. […]
Advertising the Church
We live in a marketing-saturated world. The number of ads you see every single day is up in the thousands now (in the 1970s you would have seen about 500 a day … today it’s at about 5000 a day – CBS News). With that in mind, it’s no wonder the church is finding it […]
The Discovery Bible Study Questions Revised
Years ago, I was trained in house church leadership by one of the nation’s top gurus Neil Cole. I took the opportunity to shadow him for several days and learned a lot about time management, house church, leadership, and group led Bible studies. At the time he was using the Discovery Questions, six questions that […]
Don’t Make These Five Leadership Selection Gaffs
The pastor was sharing his frustration about one of his executive team members during a recent consultation. “No matter what I do, Cyndi finds a problem with pretty much anything I suggest. She either tries to fix what’s not broken or she sabotages the idea completely. I wish I’d never invited her onto the team, but now I’m […]
Christmas Ignorance Shouldn’t Surprise Us
There seems to be a lot of ignorance around Christmas … and it’s not just the meaning of Christmas or the reason for the season. The very fabric of the holiday season is being torn asunder and the church largely seems to be oblivious to it. I’m not talking about the replacing of Merry Christmas […]
Where’s Your Sign?
I could see the church building from the street. I could even see the parking lot. What I couldn’t see was how to get from here to there. I was in the midst of a Sunday morning consultation and ten minutes after worship began, I strolled through the building to check on the status of […]