Bad Information for a Young Pastor
Jim was right out of seminary and into his third year as pastor of his first church. He had worked hard all three years, but the church didn’t grow. In fact, if anything, it was smaller than when he arrived. His frustration level was high. I ran into Jim at a seminar I was doing […]
How to Interview an Executive Pastor Candidate
A growing trend among mid-size to large churches is the role of executive pastor. We’ve found that many pastors who have a flair for creativity often lack organizational, administrative, and oversight skills. They like to spark ideas and ministries, motivate people to action, and then move on to something else – thus the emergence of the role […]
Packaging Experience
Over the past five years I’ve seen a tremendous shift in my ministry. Ten years ago, the bulk of my ministry consisted of local church consultations and workshops. Occasionally I would be asked to coach a pastor following a consultation. Today, almost half of my ministry is coaching pastors either before, after, or totally absent […]
The Ability to Focus
One of the things I’ve had to do over and over when coaching pastors is remind them to focus on the major issues we’ve talked about instead of getting distracted time and time again. Pastors appear to be extremely vulnerable to distractions due to their high desire to please people. Often pastors have a high […]
Time Management for Church Leaders
One of top questions we’ve heard during the Only Four Things Grow Churches tour has to do with the allocation of the pastor’s time. When we suggest that a pastor leading a church of under 450 needs to spend between 70 – 80 percent of their time networking with the unchurched, the grumbling becomes audible […]
Decentralization
The world I grew up in taught there is one way to do everything and one size fits all. That’s the heart of the industrial world of modernity. However, just the opposite is true today. You know that if you own most any kind of software or cell phone. Almost everything today is undergoing decentralization. That’s […]