When a Leader Steps Down
When a church goes through our Pathway or Inventory program for revitalization, it often includes a site visit from one of our team...
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elementals: quick reads to sharpen your leadership edge.
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Dec 6, 20222 min
To Be Vulnerable...or Not?
A few years ago a friend of mine stepped into the senior pastor role at a large church after the previous successful pastor left under...
Nov 28, 20223 min
Dogpaddling with Dolphins
I’ve been on both sides of a lead pastor transition. Years before serving in the lead pastor role at our church, everyone on...
Oct 4, 20223 min
Let's Talk About Church Consultants...
Yeah, I know, I know. It’s a tacky mashup of Pixar and Peanuts. But the point is: do we really need “church consultants”? I have to admit...
Sep 6, 20223 min
VBS…an Emergent Problem?
The Integrity value is one of four key elements we’ve identified as being absolutely essential for the health and effectiveness of any...
Aug 24, 20223 min
The Problem With Traditionalism
The owner of a Chevron station in the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle got tired of plastering advertising deals on his sign. Instead,...
Aug 3, 20223 min
How Americans View The Church
The phrase “Perception is reality” is generally attributed to a controversial political consultant back in the 1980s. That alone sheds...
Jul 12, 20223 min
4 Types of Succession Plans
In an earlier post, I explored a bare-bones chronological overview for thinking about leadership succession as it related to senior or...
Apr 5, 20222 min
Hiring The Right Staff
You’ve no doubt heard of the 3 C’s when building a team or hiring a new staff member. They are often listed in this order: Character,...
Mar 7, 20222 min
Bringing Dreams to Life
Nothing should thrill a leader more than overhearing a volunteer describing the mission of the organization in a way that sounds as if...
Feb 22, 20223 min
Change Management 101
Years ago we went through a very difficult season at our church. After a time of crazy growth, we had a number of people leave as a...
Feb 15, 20223 min
Reconstruction After Deconstruction
One of the more sobering passages for me in the New Testament is the story of John the baptizer’s painful deconstruction. Please apply...
Feb 8, 20223 min
The Challenge of the Easy
Any form of movement requires energy. Energy, however, is hard to come by. As biological creatures, human beings will naturally seek to...
Jan 25, 20222 min
Existential Ekklesia Angst
In our work with churches, we primarily assist with what we call “organizational discipleship”. It’s the idea that pastors and church...
Nov 10, 20212 min
How Is Your Mission?
In our work with churches in assessing the four key elements of healthy organizations, the first one we typically look at is the...
Nov 2, 20212 min
Are You In Survival Mode?
Lots of folks have been questioning what church life and ministry should look like post-Covid. To do that, I think it would first be best...
Oct 21, 20213 min
Do You Have the Right Problems?
In his landmark book Corporate Lifecycles: How Organizations Grow and Die and What to Do about It, Dr. Ichak Adizes laid out...
Jul 20, 20212 min
Change. Or End Up With A Subdivision.
My father-in-law was a remarkable man: a colonel in the Army in the same headquarters in England that General Eisenhower worked from...
Jul 6, 20212 min
Life After Pastoring...
I was recently invited on a podcast with William Vanderbloemen. I wasn’t completely sure what the interview was going to be about, but it...
Jun 22, 20212 min
Why Is Change So Dang Hard?
Sociologists have noted the unprecedented “acceleration of change” happening in our world.. Information is instantaneous. People change...
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