Why does everyone seem so anxious these days? And how can pastors lead their congregations through these anxious times. Those are the questions that Mark Sayers attempts to answer in his book, A Non-Anxious Presence. Sayers first digs into the sources of the pervasive anxiety that seems to sit over the whole culture, even the…
Ministries are a collection of systems and also contain a host of projects to be done. How do they relate? Before looking at how projects and systems relate, it's important to review what they are and the differences between them. Projects in ministry are time bound. Projects have deadlines. Because projects have deadline, this means…
Most churches are small. And most will stay small. If most churches will stay small, why are so many pastors using large church strategies and systems to pastor their small church? And how can small-church pastors apply strategies and systems that work for small churches? Those are the kinds of questions that Karl Vaters seeks…
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about what I think “secular” means. Today, I want to explore the concept of our country being “post-Christian.” The idea that America is now “post-Christian” gets thrown around a lot, but what does it actually mean? I think there’s a lot of confusion about our current cultural moment because…
The New York Giants have just fired another coach after two years. Unfortunately, the team’s recent cycle of hiring and firing coaches is tied directly to a deeper cycle of leadership incompetence at all levels of the organization. The Giants have lost 100 games in the last 10 years and have been the second worst…
Why churches begin with the best of intentions to make disciples only to drift off course, falling back in pragmatic or programmatic ways of thinking? Probably because there's a culture problem argues author Brandon Guindon. Guindon points out that strategies for making disciples don't set the culture of the church. It's the other way around:…
Productivity guru Stephen Covey popularized a very compelling illustration about prioritization in his book, First Things First, using a jar to represent a person's life. Typically, we haphazardly jam our lives to the full, placing in big rocks (our highest priorities), pebbles (middling priorities), and sand (things we don't really care about) in a jumbled…
1. Be humble. It is an honor to be in a leadership position. Your team is counting on you to make the right decisions. 2. Don’t act like you know everything. You don’t. The team knows that. Ask smart questions. 3. Listen. Ask for advice and heed it. 4. Treat people with respect. Regardless of rank, everyone is…
On the first official date with my (now) wife, we had finished eating at a restaurant and decided to drive around the city we were in. I didn’t really know the city that well so we just headed off in the direction of the downtown area. Once downtown, I made a turn and just started…
As a ministry leader, you will want to set goals for yourself and for your ministry. Goal-setting is actually biblical as Jesus himself has given the church a goal of sorts when he commanded us to "make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19). Yet so often we fail to reach our ministry goals or we…
Raising Lazarus 