Have you had this experience? You have a church member who has a great heart, is very influential and loves to serve in the church. You think to yourself, “This is a potential leader.” Many pastors aren’t sure what to do next and default into placing someone like this in the most needed leadership role,…
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Every church needs volunteers. It’s no secret that in most churches, the area of ministry that requires the largest number of volunteers is in children’s ministry. Often, we recruit out of desperation. When that happens, we don’t take the time to think through the kind of people we want serving with kids. I believe that…
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Every church needs more leaders. The problem is there are only three ways to get more. 1. Buy them, by hiring them. 2. Steal them from other churches. 3. Train them up yourself (the most difficult of all). So how do we do this? The Bible tells us to take what we have learned and teach it to others, that…
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I attend and serve in a small rural Alliance church in Iowa. While our town looks very much like it was an inspiration for one of Norman Rockwell’s paintings, looks are deceiving. Drugs run rampant in our little town. Brokenness and trauma mark nearly every family and person in this town of 5,500 people. Our…
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I’ll admit it, I’m a chronic over-thinker. I spend way too much time overthinking. Sometimes, I overthink about really good things like, “What do these kids need to know about Jesus deep in their beings that will keep them walking with Him forever?” Other times, I overthink about really dumb things like, “If I paint…
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Shockingly, visitors decide whether or not they will return to your church WITHIN THE FIRST ELEVEN MINUTES of arriving (Mancini). That’s before the service starts, before your worship team is up, and long before you begin your message. When you consider the hours spent on practicing the worship sets, on message prep, on AV presentations, perhaps it would be worth spending…
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Have you had those Mondays when you sit in your office and wonder if all your efforts are really helping your church be the Church, as the Bible defines it? Have you felt like busyness has consumed energy, but you weren’t sure it was energy toward the right direction? Here is a system you can…
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Did you know that all kids grow up with an understanding that love has conditions? The love they receive is often directly related to what they do (or don’t do), what they say (or don’t say), or what they believe (or don’t believe). The simple fact of that matter is, that while we as Christ…
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January is a great time to take a fresh look at things. Often in our church buildings, we forget to look around with the eyes of a visitor. After a year like 2020, my guess is that your building could use a fresh set of eyes. Let me encourage you to take a few minutes…
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I’m big on goals (more about that here) and I bet you are, too. After a year like we just had, one might be tempted to throw up hands and not bother to make goals 2021. Sure, 2020 was not what any of us predicted, but many people accomplished more than we expected to. And we…
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