Author: 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.

What’s a Leader to Do?

The Summer Express

It was a train wreck in the making. The senior pastor had been called when the church was averaging about 400 in worship and he led a growth initiative that took the church to nearly 1000. But between the 400 and the 1000 came a revelation to the church’s leadership, including the board. The senior pastor […]

The Illusion of “Fair”

Accountability

“But that’s not fair!” These are words I expect to hear from my young grandchildren … not words I expect to hear from adults, let alone mature Christians. But I hear them nonetheless. “We can’t appoint Frank to an elder’s position … he doesn’t participate in any adult faith formation groups.”      “But that’s not fair […]

Are You the Bottleneck

Are You the Bottleneck?

I get the Harvard Business Review Management Tip of the Day during the week and had to share this one. (BTW, I highly recommend HBR for pastors … it’s worth the expense.) This tip was particularly insightful because in our our experience, pastors regularly suffer from this malady (and so do most church leaders, truth-be-told). […]

Is Your Church Destined for Smallness?

The Importance of Measuring Results

How many church leaders does it take to change a lightbulb? I’m not sure, but in many churches it takes 50 percent or more of the sitting board members to make virtually every decision. And there’s a church growth correlation that shows the more leaders involved in management decisions, the smaller the church’s potential. Case […]

Developing a Transformational Small Group Bible Study

Let me start out by being totally clear. A Bible study in and of itself is not a life transforming activity. The church is filled with spiritually immature members who are the products of many years of “Bible studies,” Sunday school classes, and discussion groups. Most Bible studies are data dumps of information that fills the […]

Radical Disciple Making: Creating Processes

Small Group-Mentoring

“What I really need is more nuts and bolts on how to do disciple making. Obviously, what we’re doing isn’t working.” The pastor was exasperated because he had a church full of members instead of a church full of disciples.  At the Radical Disciple Making Conference, we speak about the need to create “processes” in […]