Five Books For The 21st Century

I’ve always been a voracious reader, so I encourage pastors to read a minimum of ten books a month. I was glad to read a blog from Rick Warren titled “To Be a Great Leader You Absolutely Must Be a Reader.” You can see the article here.

However, I remember when I was a pastor […]

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 […]

Is Your Church Destined for Smallness?

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 in […]

The Most Misunderstood Man in Christianity

To some, Donald A. McGavran was one of the greatest missiologists in Christian history. To others, his name is almost synonymous with the devil.  Those who malign McGavran have simply misunderstood him. They say all he was about was numbers. They say he was responsible for pastors building large churches around the homogeneous model. […]

Loving Your Church to Death … Or to Growth

At my age I have a good bit of experience with love. I’ve been married a good long while, I have five children, and I have seven grandchildren … so far. And so I can say with a certainty that you can love your church to growth, and you can love your church to […]

Measuring Church Transformation

In August, I wrote a blog entry on why so many church consultations fail to net positive, long-term results. As I wrote that article, in the back of my mind was the ongoing question that I often get about how to measure a church’s transformation. There’s always a lot of pushback from church leaders […]

A Church Planter and Church Transformation Self-Assessment

When it comes to professional pastoral ministries, the absolute must difficult job of all is effectively leading a church’s transformation. That’s a glamourless, thankless, painful, heart-wrenching, aggravating, and too often career-ending task. In fact, the only ones who intentionally consider engaging in this kind of ministry are either narcissistic, arrogant, savior-complexed martyrs or else the God-called […]

Disciple has Too Much Baggage to Be Effective

I’m constantly asked, “What’s the best curriculum for leadership development or discipleship?” as if either one is something that can be taught and learned in a course. My response is always the same – “You are the curriculum.”

I often get a blank stare because in the West we think of everything as if it […]

Church and Culture

For our time together I want to be clear that my purpose is not instruction, but rather agitation. My entire goal is to get you to experience the freedom of cursing your monitor. If I fail, ask Bill for a refund.

Second, I want to have some fun. You may not appreciate my humor because […]