By RaeAnn Slaybaugh In 1998, Clay Scroggins moved to Atlanta to study engineering at college. He found a church home in North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, led by Senior Pastor Andy Stanley — first as an attendee, and then as a volunteer in the high school ministry. “I loved it so much that I […]
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Pastor A has a top-ranked podcast, a book deal from a well-known publisher, and 150,000 Twitter followers.
Pastor B is the secretary at the local Rotary Club, is the assistant football coach at the middle school, and recently joined a bowling league.
Both pastors have influence. Both are doing God’s will. Both enjoy their callings.
I will make a bold statement: Pastor B’s local influence is ultimately more vital to church health than Pastor A’s national platform.
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How the Villanova University Master of Science in Church Management Degree is building capacity for leadership
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At Long Hollow Baptist Church in Hendersonville, TN, hope is not a strategy. Rather, when disaster strikes — as it has, twice — the church has been able to sustain its rapid growth and expansion with preparation and perseverance.
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In my ministry in visiting, encouraging and partnering with literally hundreds of churches, there are five essential aspects of church leadership that I am committed to never forget. Here they are in a condensed form. To make it interesting, the most important is actually the last one on the list.
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It seems we’ve all grown too accustomed to settling for being told ‘half-truths’ obviously designed to deceive. Politicians are likely at the top of the list of half-truth-tellers — but half-truths are also featured regularly on our nightlight news, radio ads, commercials, the Internet, and even many companies’ sales reports.
The problem with any half-truth is it’s actually a whole lie.
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Calm is the “unicorn” of virtues in a world gone mad.
all-is-calmSomewhere along the line, it became cool to be loud and bitter.
It became an expectation that, for us to change the world (our job, apparently), we had to become social activists. Not the good kind — the Rosa Parks type of social activist. I mean the other kind. The abrasive, snarky, shaming, Jesus-juking, share-button-hitting, constantly outraged kind of social activists.
Read More >Good leaders are both analysts and catalysts. Leaders must accurately describe reality. Leaders must create for a better future. An analyst has a proper understanding of present reality. A catalyst knows what to create for a better future. The analyst helps followers understand the present. The catalyst inspires followers to move towards the future.
Read More >If you’re like me, you want your voice heard — even at the top levels of leadership. I may not be able to have lunch with the President of the United States, but I do want to feel like he’s listening to me. I don’t believe it’s an unreasonable expectation of followers to want their voices heard by top leaders.
Read More >Most people don’t like change. Most leaders want to challenge the status quo. Leadership is, in part, the process of helping people see the need for change, embrace the vision for change, and then implement the change.
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