Discipleship Teaching or Equipping
Discipleship Teaching or equipping consists of two things – modeling and content. Most people ask me for curriculum for discipling Christians – curriculum = teaching. Even though curriculum is needed, before leaders need curriculum they need to model discipleship in their life and ministry. Modeling is more important than content and content has meaning only if […]
Perpetual Learning Environment
One of the biggest regrets of my early ministry was that I spent too much time among church people. Spending too much time with church people can dull one’s sense of adventure and innovation. I have found over the years that church people are prone to park their brains at the door when they enter […]
How Not to Spend More than 20-30 Hours Working for the Congregation
Most pastors spend so much time working on the congregations agenda that they seldom achieve anything close to what they feel good about at the end of ministry. So, here are a few simple key tips. 1. Go through your work schedule and find 20% of things that you feel will result in 80% of […]
Meditating on Exodus 18
The story of Moses and Jethro can help us understand the role of leadership and the importance of relationships. In this text Jethro bluntly tells Moses that his leadership style stinks -“What you are doing is not good.” Jethro could do that because they had known each other for more than 40 years. They had […]
Collecting Personal Stories
One of the major ways to convey the gospel is through the use of personal stories in worship to support the theme for that day. Nothing is as powerful as personal story. 1. Hand out a fill-in-the-blank testimony sheet each Sunday and ask those whose life has been changed to fill in their story. Then […]
Rechurching the Unchurched
I just finished reading a draft to endorse George Barna’s new book Rechurching the Unchurched. Not the best title, but one that aptly describes the book. It has some very interesting facts drawn from his two years of research with the unchurched. I thought I would share a few of the ones I found very […]