Sometimes a wrong turn can be tragic, sending a ship to the bottom of the sea, a motorist onto the wrong lane of the highway or a passenger jet onto the wrong runway. In churches it’s often the turn inward which sends the congregation on a one way journey to obscurity. Here are five […]
Book Review: The Unstuck Church
As a new pastor I was given a big set of cassette tapes which told me exactly what I wanted to hear. As a gifted teacher it was music to my ears to hear from a superstar pastor that all I needed to do was to study the Bible all week, pausing a few times […]
Five Facts About Leadership Coupons
We’re all familiar with coupons. In my case, my wife clips them, hands them to me, and expects me to use them. I’m not a big fan of them. Too often, the extremely fine print says that they’re outdated or only apply in certain stores, from three to four AM, or when there’s a full […]
Book Review: Designed To Lead
What? Another book on leadership? Yes it is, but Designed to Lead (The Church and Leadership Development) has a different take on the subject. As the subtitle suggests, Eric Geiger and Kevin Peck’s 2016 book focuses on the place of the local church in developing leaders for the whole wide world. Their thesis is that […]
Three Advantages To Choosing A Focus Group
In my experiences of helping churches with strategic planning tasks – clarifying their mission, ideal disciple, values, vision and strategy – the most controversial part of the process has always been the possible choice of a target or focus group. A focus group is a demographic niche which a church deliberately decides to concentrate on […]
Eight Ways To Choose A Focus Group
The congregation’s leadership team worked through the delicate discussion about the wisdom of choosing a target or focus group. As usual, some good people reacted to the concept of seeking to identify a God-chosen demographic group for their church to focus on reaching for Christ. The objections centered around fairness, exclusivity, prejudice (or “respect of […]
God Doesn’t Offer Stock Options
Many corporations offer stock options to their employees. It works out pretty well for everyone. Employees get a piece of the company. Employers get increased dedication from their employees. Sadly, many Christian workers make the mistake of assuming that they are earning shares in the ministries they work for through their hard work and dedication. […]
Four Ways Great Churches Keep It Simple
“Out of complexity, find simplicity.” Albert Einstein Not everything in life is simple, of course. There’s doing your taxes. Or getting your new computer up and running. Sigh. But the longer I live, the more I value the genius and the hard work which it takes to arrive at the elegant simplicity that is on […]
Three Ways Great Churches Focus On Action
“Words! Words! I get words all day through; First from him, now from you! Is that all you blighters can do?” Eliza Doolittle singing “Show Me” in Alan Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s “My Fair Lady” It sounds simplistic but I believe it’s true. Mediocre churches focus on words; great churches focus on actions. Here’s what […]
Six Ways Leading A Worship Team Is Like Leading A Church
It had been over ten years since I’d led a worship team while also leading the church. I had vowed to not do that again, but in a time of need, I broke my pledge. To my pleasant surprise, the task has been immensely enjoyable for me. I think it’s been helpful to our church […]
Ten Suggestions For Improving Our Small Groups And Bible Studies
Almost all of our evangelical churches have small groups and Bible studies of various kinds and configurations. Many of them are excellent. Some of them are…not so much. All of them could stand some improvement. Our wonderful God is ready and willing to help us if we want to make them better. Pastors or other […]
Three Reasons To Kick Robert Out Of Your Church
No, I’m not talking about Elder Bob, or Deacon Robert or Youth Guy Robbie, I’m talking about the ubiquitous Robert’s Rules of Order. No offense is intended to Henry Martyn Robert either. The US Army Major meant well when he published his Pocket Manual of Rules of Order for Deliberative Assemblies in 1876. Robert was […]
If Not Robert’s Rules, Then Whose Rules?
In a recent blog, Three reasons to kick Robert out of your church, I wrote about the problems involved in using Henry Martyn Robert’s famous Rules of Order in churches. They’re not consistent with the New Testament leadership pattern, They’re not consistent with a Biblical philosophy of leadership, and They open the door for ungodly, […]
What’s the Church for anyway?
About twenty years ago I thought we finally had it right. My own enlightenment came through Sonlife Ministy’s Dann Spader: The church is for making disciples out of the raw material of lost people. This involves winning the lost, building up the believer and equipping the worker. Refreshing. Challenging. Simple. Biblical. Unarguable. Or so I […]
Book Review: The Externally Focused Quest
The challenge of turning an inwardly focused church into a vibrant, externally focused mission to its community is formidable. It’s no accident then that the same writers who gave us The Externally Focused Church, Eric Swanson and Rick Rusaw, felt led to follow it up with The Externally Focused Quest. It is a quest, and […]
Five Ways To Practice Spiritual One-upmanship
We might as well admit it. We’ve all used spiritual one-upmanship to win an argument or get our way in a board meeting or committee debate. My dictionary defines one-upmanship as “the technique or practice of gaining a feeling of superiority over another person.” Spiritual one-upmanship uses questionable appeals to the Bible, claims to godly […]
Ten Ways To Respond To Gossip About Your Leaders
It’s out of style in today’s world, but in the value system of God, church leaders are to be held in high honor. I Thessalonians 5:13a says we should “Hold them in the highest regard in love, because of their work.” The “highest regard” means that we treat our church’s leaders as being just as […]
One Big, Unhappy Family
For several decades family therapists have been thinking in terms of family systems. Family systems theory says that a key to understanding the behavior of individual family members is the family system to which they belong. Just as individuals affect the system, the system affects individuals, in many cases assigning certain roles to members without […]
Four More Characteristics of the Unhappy Church Family
In an earlier post I wrote about how family systems theory applies to local churches. Family systems theory says that families are more alike than different. They’re characterized by patterns, roles and habits which show up in the Jones family from First Street, the Smith family from Second Street and the Swanson family from Third […]
Encountering Dysfunctional Church Systems
In the 1962, Western classic, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” Jimmy Stewart plays a fresh-faced young lawyer, Ransom Stoddard, determined to bring law and order to the wild west town of Shinbone. Before he even makes it into town he is robbed and brutally beaten by the outlaw bully, Liberty Valance. As much as […]
Six Ways You Can Help Unhappy Church Families
I’ve done some writing in this blog on the subject of dysfunctional church systems, which I’ve referred to casually as “unhappy church families.” By whatever name, these congregations are often characterized by one or more of the following: Unofficial heads of the family – Someone other than the pastor is the leader Triangles – Three […]
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