Leadership
Charles Stone

5 Questions that Reveal your Leadership Strengths

Kevin Cashman wrote a great book every leader should read, Leadership from the Inside Out: Becoming a Leader for Life. In it he challenges leaders to lead from character, the inside. If you’ve not read it, I highly recommend it. In one chapter he lists several questions that can help reveal where our leadership strengths lie. I’ve adapted

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Body Care
Charles Stone

4 Brain Hacks that can Make You a Better Leader

I love leadership and I love learning about the brain. A few years ago I finished an executive masters in the Neuroscience of Leadership which resulted in my fourth book, Brain-Savvy Leaders: the Science of Significant Ministry. As I’ve immersed myself in learning how our brain affects life and leadership, I’ve learned a few short cuts,

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Church Growth
Charles Stone

Pastor, Do This BEFORE you Talk about Money

Every year as a pastor I’ve taught a 3-5 week series on giving and generosity. One year we titled our series The Treasure Principle, based on Randy Alcorn’s book by the same name. We also sent a copy of the book to every giver on record and encouraged the church to read a chapter each week that matched

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Church Staff
Charles Stone

7 Reasons why Church People Criticize Pastors

If you serve in a church, criticism comes with the territory. I doubt that any pastor or leader likes it. But, we must deal with it in a God-honoring way. One way to do that is to understand why people criticize us. I’ve listed below what I believe are 7 reasons why church people criticize pastors with

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Body Care
Charles Stone

How Caffeine Might Make you a Better Leader

I’m a leader. I want to maximize my brain power. And I care about how I treat my body. I don’t drink coffee or tea, yet I do strategically use caffeine with diet caffeine drinks and 5-Hour Energy (Disclaimer: I am in no way related to the company who produces 5-Hour Energy). I believe my

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Church Growth
Charles Stone

5 Essentials Necessary to Build Church and Team Unity

Unity is a powerful force in God’s Kingdom, in our lives, in our families, in a business, and in the local church when it includes five essentials, seen in the great leader Nehemiah. Every leader wants his or her organization, team, or church to be unified. Without it teams lose, churches flounder, and businesses drift.

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Preaching
Charles Stone

Preaching to a Camera in a Covid World

Free 60-minute Webinar Persuasive Virtual Preaching We pastors have been thrust into a new world as the Covid-19 virus has shut down public worship services all around the world and affected our preaching. We’ve all scrambled to assemble the needed equipment, web services, and routines to video-tape (or live feed) our services and sermons. And

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Leadership
Charles Stone

The 6 Biggest Leadership Gaps Pastors Face

In my research for my most third book on people pleasing pastors, I discovered 6 fundamental weaknesses or gaps that leaders in general and pastors in particular face in some degree. These are based on insight from a perspective on how we deal with our emotions called family systems. To which leadership gap do you tend

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Leadership
Charles Stone

5 Traits of a Flourishing Leader

Some people have a green thumb and others don’t. Those that do can grow plants and flowers that seem to flourish with life, color, and vibrancy. Leaders also fall into two categories. Those who flourish and those who don’t. What are common traits of flourishing leaders? I believe what happened in the early church gives

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Preaching
Charles Stone

How Much Time Should a Pastor Spend on Sermon Prep

How much time should we pastors spend preparing a sermon? Recently I watched a video where a famous pastor answered that question. His response, “I study and read all the time and it takes me about one to two hours to put a sermon together.” Yikes! When I heard that I felt guilty because there’s no way

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