Blog

This week, my wife, Marty, and I had the honor of attending a church planter's retreat sponsored by the Converge Northwest District and held at the beautiful Cannon Beach Christian Conference Center on the rugged Pacific coast in northern Oregon. Read on to discover just a small amount of what was seen and heard at that relaxed gathering. Maybe you and your church can learn from my observations.

I've spent many years coaching and consulting churches and pastors and have heard many questions. However, there are questions I have seldom if ever heard. Here are some for pastors and leaders that you might consider asking when you have the opportunity.
When it comes to social media, pastors need to be not just good but excellent stewards of the use of their time and use of social media. This is true both of personal social media accounts and also your church or ministry accounts. In this blog, I will attempt to suggest some guidelines for pastors.
Coaching ministry teams can be challenging, but your task will be a lot easier if you follow certain rules. Read some suggested rules for coaching or leading a ministry team in your church or organization.
It's planting season on the farms in the Midwest. I know that because God gave me the honor of pastoring a rural church in Nebraska. It was in a place where life and soil meet, and the people are wonderful. Remembering my experience there, I thought I'd share with my readers a few lessons I learned about the church while shepherding God's people, the sheep of His pasture.
This evening I received in my inbox an evaluation to fill out for my local gym. I try to go to this local workout hangout three times a week, at least thatâ°°s my goal. Unlike many surveys of such kind, I chose to let the gym know of my experiences this time. As I reflect on this opportunity, it made me wonder why local churches donâ°°t do that for those who visit or attend. My reflections turned into a blog, so here goes.
Coaching can be a very helpful and effective tool for leadership development in your church or ministry organization. Here are some helpful coaching questions you can use in your ministry.
I am consulting with a church and the question of church membership came up. In this church it's more than a question, it's an issue of great importance to a number of people in the church family. Some feel the concept of church membership is very important. To others, their independence outweighs the requirement of joining the church. Let's take a look at this dilemma in today's blog.
Anyone who is in a pastoral or biblical teaching ministry may experience a sinking feeling after the presentation has been made. It's that helpless feeling that comes when you think you could have done much better and you wonder if you "lost" your audience somewhere between the introduction and the conclusion. I had one of those experiences yesterday. Now, 24 hours out, I am reminded of what really happened. Let me share a few thoughts about this with you as a way to encourage you in your ministry.
The Lead Coach at Coach and Equip Ministries has written an introductory book for learning to coach pastors, church planters, and ministry leaders, Creating Ministry Champions. There are many reasons I recommend this book, but my blog offers 10 of them. Read on to learn more.
Team, committee, or board meetings should be evaluated after a meeting to ensure everyone's time and contributions are not wasted and the purpose of the meeting was fulfilled. The best way to evaluate is for the leader and a couple of team members to ask the following evaluation questions and then forward their answers to the team leader. So, what questions are suggested?