Category Archive

If you think about or treat your employees like family, you’re probably doing more harm than good. Sure, it sounds nice. And some aspects of a family-like culture are important to cultivate – caring, belonging, respecting others even if you don’t like them. But leading an organization as if it were your family is an inappropriate and antiquated leadership practice. Instead, you should consider … Read More

I wanted to wish you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving! I am grateful for you, for the ministry that God has called you to, and for the opportunity to serve you and your church. Hopefully, you’re preparing to spend a great day with family and friends. Kelley, Alexander (now 13 years old) and I have some special plans and … Read More

Loneliness is an affliction that affects many pastors. Pastor Alex Average is one of them. He is reluctant to let people — especially people in his church — get too close to him. He fears being hurt or disappointed by them on a personal level. He doesn’t have close friends outside of his church either. He is extremely busy, and he … Read More

People look to you for so many things—for leadership, guidance, counseling, vision-casting, and theology, just to name a few. Yet while you are smart and competent, you are also human. There are limits to what you can do, many of which are simply the result of limited time. Every day you are bound by the same twenty-four hours, and there … Read More

Heard of my 8 Systems of a Healthy Church? You need to exercise wisdom when you are putting these in place. Otherwise, you will create unnecessary conflict with your congregation. There is no reason to cause yourself, or your church, more stress. Here are some tips on building good systems, learned from the experiences of our churches and churches from … Read More

“Remember your leaders who taught you the word of God. Think of all the good that has come from their lives, and follow the example of their faith.” — Hebrews 13:7 (NLT)

“My concern is not with closed doors; my concern is with the doors that are open which we do not enter.” — Ralph D. Winter, Unreached Peoples Missiologist (December 8, 1924 – May 20, 2009) Winter was a pioneer in the area of developing strategies to evangelize unreached people groups. He was a longtime professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, and … Read More

The religious landscape of the United States continues to change at a rapid clip. In Pew Research Center telephone surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019, 65% of American adults describe themselves as Christians when asked about their religion, down 12 percentage points over the past decade. Meanwhile, the religiously unaffiliated share of the population, consisting of people who describe their … Read More

When it comes time to set your calendar for the next semester of your church small groups, it’s important to put every date for the upcoming semester in writing on a master calendar that covers at least six months–from the focus month all the way through the end of that small group semester. If you are starting to plan for … Read More

You have to be a friend to have a friend. Have you heard that little piece of advice before? It couldn’t be truer. Most of us spend a great deal of time and energy looking for people who will listen to us, accept us, share our point of view, be there for us when we need them . . . and yet … Read More