March 31, 2020
Author Barry Voss gives practical how-to's on how to develop your church's strategic plan.

How to Develop A Strategic Plan in 7 Steps

This article on how to develop a strategic plan is a continuation of author Barry Voss’s previous article here where Barry addressed why a strategic plan is necessary in Part One. Develop Your Church’s Strategic Plan Here are some basic steps to use when developing a strategic plan: Step #1: Organize a strategic planning group. The first thing you want to do is to put a team together who will develop the plan. You should pick key people who have appropriate skills or background in what you are planning. Step #2: Outline your Plan. The starting point to any plan is a simple […]
March 26, 2020

Strategic Planning

Planning is an important element in church or ministry leadership.  Robert Schuller, author and former Pastor of the Crystal Cathedral in California, says, “those who fail to plan, plan to fail.”  Having a clearly defined plan helps a church or ministry organize its resources and apply them in such a way as to best achieve their vision.  Without a plan, churches and ministries waste limited resources and valuable time, and inevitably fall short of achieving what God has called them to do.  Having a plan does not restrict a church or ministry to a prescribed course of action, but rather lays […]
March 24, 2020
How do we keep our churches focused on the Great Commission?

How to Keep Your Church Focused on the Great Commission

This article on the Church and the Great Commission is reshared with kind permission from Breeze church.  Something that scares me is that it’s possible to do church without actually doing what a church is called to do. It’s possible to gather people together, sing songs, listen to words spoken from a stage, pass offering plates, and not even come close to the mission that Jesus gave the Church. Does that scare you? I don’t ever want to be a church that isn’t accomplishing the Great Commission of reaching lost people and discipling them into Jesus followers. And yet, we know from […]
March 19, 2020
Disappointment in ministry is inevitable but

5 Ways to Handle Disappointment in Ministry

If you are in leadership or ministry long enough, you will have seasons and moments of disappointment. It might be someone you are counseling that walks away and doesn’t want your help. It might be a leader who decides they aren’t on board anymore, and they leave. Some will create division or hurt in your life. Maybe someone is mean to your wife or kids. The list is endless. What do you do in those moments? For many, these moments are when someone leaves for a new job — explaining how God has called them to a church that will […]
March 17, 2020

3 Spiritual Phrases Christian Leaders Should Stop Saying

I often hear from people who say “We don’t any need more ideas/strategies/conferences/skills…all we need to do is ________,” and then they fill in the blank with something that sounds spiritual. Maybe you have people like that at your church, or someone like that on your team. It’s amazing how common this perspective is. You know the drill.  Every time you suggest “Why don’t we try reformatting our services/changing our kids ministry/reaching out into the community” they shoot back with “what we really need to do is just pray” (or “what we really need to do is get back to the Bible…”) as though […]
March 12, 2020
Kevin Halloran shares the importance of vulnerability and transparency on a ministry team in order to grow in integrity.

Establishing Transparent Ministry Teams

This is the final part of the transcript of a conversation on Preventing Disqualifying Sins in Ministry between Kevin Halloran and John Eichholz. Reshared with kind permission from Leadership Resources Intl. Listen to the audio interview here: It’s important for us as individuals to think about, how we can we best prevent sin in our ministries, sin that could derail our ministry. How might we encourage a leadership team in a church or an organization to seek to protect one another? JH: I want to bring out our organization, Leadership Resources, as a good model. I find this mission organization a […]
March 10, 2020
Kevin Halloran interviews the field director of Leadership Resources Intl. about preventing sins in ministry.

Preventing Disqualifying Sins in Ministry: A Conversation

reshared with kind permission from the Leadership Resources The apostle Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:16 to “watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers” (NIV). Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long to think of ministers who haven’t watched their lives or doctrine closely. Within the last couple of years, two high-profile pastors in the Chicago area have had their sin exposed publicly, even covered by news outlets like the Chicago Tribune. Major sin by Christian leaders leads to great pain, not only in the ministers’ lives […]