If you have ever attended a Prepare to Plant training (formerly Church Planting Bootcamp), you’ve heard about creating strategies. God has given us a mission – to make disciples, and to live out that mission requires intentionality and planning. Or, to put it another way, our mission requires a strategy. Actually, it requires several strategies.…
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Most of us desire excellence and would love to be excellent at what we do. Overall, I think this is a good thing and something that God would praise and encourage us toward. However, like almost everything, there is a dark side to excellence, especially when it comes to church. In short, I believe the…
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There are various ways to approach creating ministry strategy. Here is one approach that has been helpful to me over the years: Goals, Content, and Environments. Goals Before embarking on a trip, you need to know the destination, and the same is true when developing strategy. Therefore, the first step is to look ahead to…
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If you have ever been through a Church Planter Boot Camp or Prepare to Plant Training you know that part of that training focuses on the mission of the church and how to implement that mission. Among the important components that are discussed, three are of particular importance: Mission: why the church exists. Strategies: how the…
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Last month my article included some thoughts about stewardship and personal financial management. I believe it is important to understand biblical principles regarding money management and for everyone to have a financial plan, but can one go overboard with money management and become obsessed with planning? I recently came across an article that suggests “excellence” is…
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When it comes to ministry, there are many things that the Lord has left for us to navigate using wisdom principles and the Holy Spirit. For example, should you live stream or podcast your services? Or both? Or neither? How much of discipleship should be multi-generational, and how much should be age- and stage-specific? These…
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We are called by the Bible to be generous stewards of everything entrusted to us by God. Understanding biblical principles of stewardship and generosity is crucial to our ability to answer that call well. Managing our own money with a personal financial plan is a tool that can help us be good stewards, but it must be…
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One of my favorite questions to ask people this time of year is if they have any family traditions to celebrate the holidays. One person I talked to said their family hides a green ceramic pickle on the Christmas tree and the first person to find it gets a prize. Another said they always cook…
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Risk management is a topic that should be addressed at a minimum annually by your church. Risk is defined as an uncertain event that may have positive or negative consequences. A risk management plan identifies risks and action steps for dealing with those risks. There are basically four actions for handling risk: Avoid the risk completely. Transfer…
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At the RMD District Conference, April 25 – 28, in Nampa, ID, the RMD Ministry Grant was explained and disbursed. This grant was approved by the Dexcom in March to come alongside our churches in the belief that inflation will affect our churches in the RMD in much more potentially devastating way than Covid has.…
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