The Four Core Processes: Not a Balancing Act
The Church: Mainline, 107 in average worship attendance The Location: Northeast US The Pastor: First call, seminary trained The Resources: Consultation completed, coach engaged The Presenting Issue: Lack of growth, few visitors, lots of busyness with little return The Real Issue: The pastor’s commitment to balance You can lead a horse to water. Sometimes, as […]
Living into Your Mission Statement
Over the past few decades, the idea of having a mission statement has been the topic of many an article and even some books. By now, most churches, growing or dying, have one. The question is, do they help? It depends on whether or not the pastor and church are living into them. What do […]
Pulling the Trigger – Part Three
Leaders Must Manage Their Teams For our purpose we will define a team as “a small group of people with complementary skills who have affinity for one another and who are invited, not elected, by an individual to do the following: achieve a common goal and place that goal before their individual interests, integrate their […]
Curing Congregational Low Self-Esteem
Many churches I work with suffer from low self-esteem and a sense of hopelessness. There are many reasons for this malaise, a common one being that the congregation has come to believe their circumstances are insurmountable (they’re not, but that’s a post for another time). I’m working on a recommendation report from a consultation with a church […]
Pulling the Trigger – Part Two
Yesterday we looked at why it is so hard for pastors to pull the trigger and institute something new. Today we are going to look at what pastors need to do in order to pull the trigger. Leaders Must Manage Themselves Pastors or executive pastors have to be flexible on non-essentials and stubborn on the […]
Pulling the Trigger
Two Axioms for Pulling the Trigger Why is it so hard for pastors to pull the trigger and institute something new? Why do so many resist doing what they know needs done? Let me take a stab at responding to these questions. I think there are two prime reasons. 1. Distractions dilute desire. Don’t kid […]