5 Leadership Insights I Wish I Knew 25 Years Ago
I’ve been in vocational ministry over 40 years and my leadership roles have included my role as singles pastor, discipleship pastor, associate pastor, teaching pastor, church planter, and lead pastor. Although I’ve earned two seminary degrees and I appreciate what I learned in seminary, I’ve learned many key lessons that seminary never taught me. I
3 Simple Brain Boosts for a Healthy Brain
Pastors and leaders need healthy brains to lead well. A healthy brain helps us become more resilient, be more present for those we lead, think more clearly, and, well, lead better. Neuroscientists can peer into our brains and are learning what makes them tick and how we can take better care of them. Here are
Take the Gratefulness Test to Find out how Grateful you are
The Bible says a lot about gratefulness. Answer these six questions to rank how grateful you are. Gratefulness Test: Do you say “thank you” less than once a day or 2-3 times a day? Do you often spend time wishing/dreaming that things would be different or do you often thank God even in difficult circumstances?
4 Ways to Improve Focus while Preparing a Talk or a Sermon
Preparing talks and sermons is one of my highest priorities as a pastor. I’ve often said that preparing a message feels much like writing a term paper, each week. I even heard someone say that sermon preparation is like delivering a baby each week and then on Monday realizing you are expecting again. It’s hard work
How to Have a Tough Conversation with a Staff Member
Leadership often requires that we sometimes must navigate a tough conversation with a staff person. It’s easy to neglect such vital conversations for several reasons: fear, they’ve gone sour in the past, we don’t know how, etc. But to lead well, we must not avoid those talks. I’ve learned that a simple process called active
Should a Pastor be Accessible 24-7?
Accessibility. An issue that probably every pastor struggles with. Should we make ourselves accessible around the clock or should we not? Here are my thoughts and some helpful practices. I’d love to hear yours as well. I believe that pastors who make themselves accessible 24/7 can’t do the job God has called them to do.
3 Qualities Necessary to Learn from our Critics
Nobody likes to be criticized, at least not at first. Sometimes criticism is warranted. Sometimes it’s not. And sometimes it hard to differentiate between the two. The writer of Proverbs implies that we should learn from and even seek out the beneficial wounds from our critics. Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses
4 Legal Drugs Every Leader Should Know about and Leverage
Drugs. At first blush the word implies something illegal, immoral, and bad for your body and brain. However, there are 4 key drugs or chemicals that every leader should know about, use, and wisely leverage in the ministry and the workplace. Every leader should learn about these 4 legal drugs that impact leadership. Click To
How to Foster ‘Aha’ Moments in your Team
Wise leaders encourage their teams to solve their problems with their own insight rather than with the leader’s insight. When an staff person or a volunteer brings a problem to us, it’s often easier and less time consuming to give them advice and solve their problem. Yet in the long run such a response can
Resolving Conflict: 5 ways to prepare your heart
In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7 he forcefully deals with a judgmental spirit which often gets in the way of resolving conflict. Often when we try to resolve conflict, it doesn’t go well because we’ve not prepared our heart beforehand. I’ve found these 5 heart benchmarks crucial to prepare my heart before I
