Here are eleven specific things that churches around the country are doing that could help you make this year your church’s most generous year to date. As you well know, people give to vision. Period. But sometime the reasons people don’t give is because a church is not up to date with how 21st century people prefer to give towards vision. Here are a few things culturally … [Read more...]
Do One Thing At A Time
Try it. Before you start something new, finish the thing that you’re working on. Things Unfinished Finish that book you so desperately needed three weeks ago, but now languishes on your nightstand. I don’t mean feel the need to finish every book you start (because we pick some lemons from time to time, don’t we?). I mean “finish” it. “Finishing” a book, to me, means I … [Read more...]
Becoming A Minimalist Pastor
We would all agree that the worst possible rut to ever be in as a Pastor is living in a perpetual state of distraction, overwhelm, and superficiality. Yet, if someone were to ask us how we’re doing, we’d be lying if we didn’t say that’s how we spend the majority of our week. We race from one “oh that’s good enough” partially finished task to the next. In his book The … [Read more...]
4x4x4 Coaching Process: The Key To Helping Staff Lead At The Next Level
I’ve never met a Senior Pastor who didn’t have the ability to do an outstanding job leading their staff, but I have met quite a few who didn’t have a clear plan in place for making that happen. I would like to share with you a very simple framework for coaching your staff that will make your job, and theirs, much easier. I call it 4x4x4. A 4x4x4 coaching process is when a … [Read more...]
The Passion Myth (or, what Senior Pastors can learn from artisans)
If you feel like you’ve lost your passion for ministry and can’t seem to regain the excitement and motivation you felt in earlier years, that’s a very good thing. Where in the Bible do we see any of the early church leaders praying to “get their passion back?” The idea that “passion for the ministry” is an indispensable requirement for long-term effectiveness is a lie the … [Read more...]
How To Create Compelling Sermon Titles
Here’s a quick and easy process to follow that will help you generate compelling sermon titles every week: 1. Title Your Message Only After You Preach It. Jesus said there are three sins that are worse than all the rest combined: (1) hurting children (2) the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit (3) and Senior Pastors who presume to know what their sermons should be titled before they … [Read more...]
How To Finish Your Sermons By Noon Monday
Everything I was taught about preaching in seminary was backward. Between undergraduate school and seminary, I took eight preaching courses. Each of them was taught by amazing people who loved God and poured themselves into me. For them, I am grateful beyond words. The problem, looking back, is that the classes focused on the wrong thing: their goal was to make me a … [Read more...]
How Senior Pastors Can Schedule Their Week For Maximum Impact
One of the first things I do when I begin coaching a Senior Pastor is lead them through a process of redesigning how they schedule their week to ensure their highest ministry priorities get consistently accomplished. It is the same process whether they serve churches of 50 to 5,000. Here’s what that process looks like: Draw A Weekly Calendar The first thing I have … [Read more...]
5 Scheduling Mistakes Pastors Make That Hurt Productivity (and how to fix them)
If churches aren't growing, I promise that a good bit of the cause is their Senior Pastors have made personal scheduling mistakes that are sabotaging their productivity. The first thing I do when coaching a Senior Pastor is to require them to (a) see a dietician, (b) get a complete physical, (c) meet with a financial planner, and (d) consult with (or hire) a personal … [Read more...]
