January 23, 2020
Pastor Nieuwof breaks down the big shifts that will be needed to change the direction of the church in the coming years.

6 Disruptive Church Trends That Will Rule 2020

So what are the 2020 church trends you should watch in what is shaping up to be a very pivotal year? In this post, I’ll share six new trends that really have my attention. While it might seem like a lot of change and challenges ahead, you and I lead in an age of massive disruption. Industries are being disrupted or obliterated in years, not decades, and once-dominant companies are falling fast (just ask Polaroid, Blockbuster or Compaq computers). And leading in the church is even a little more complex than leading in the marketplace for numerous reasons. Here’s one of them: […]
July 4, 2019
church

Why People Choose Your Church

resharing with kind permission from the Breeze church.  How did you end up at the church you attend? I bet you have your reasons. Maybe you even wrote them down when you were church shopping or searching for a job. Most people have a list, even if they don’t know it. It’s often intuitive. Do you know what people are looking for? Research is helpful in this area and I’ve noticed trends in my own conversations with people who recently chose to make our church home or recently decided to leave. So, here’s the top six reasons I believe people […]
April 16, 2019
how-to

How to Grow as a Leader as Your Church Grows

There has been a lot written about church growth barriers, what they are, how to break them and get past them. The reality, though, is a church will only grow as much as the leader grows. Every church experiences barriers at different points, but they are usually around the same size: 60, 100, 200, 400, 800, etc. While barriers can happen at other times, these are usually the ones discussed. I was talking to someone the other day about how things change at different times in a church, and it got me thinking about the barriers and what changes at […]
April 11, 2019
Indigenous

From Training Pastors to Indigenous-Led Movements of the Word (Part 3 of 3)

Reshared with kind permission of Leadership Resources International. This is Part Three of an interview with Bill Mills on the history of Leadership Resources. Listen to the interview or read the transcript. Part One: How One Man’s Heart for Discipleship Turned into a Worldwide Movement of Biblical Exposition Part Two: A Church-Focused Missions Organization: Part Two of Interview with Bill Mills Kevin: As you realized you wanted to go deeper with fewer people, what were some of the influences that pushed you to focus on biblical exposition? Bill: That’s a great question. TNT started with our staff in Latin America. They began to […]
April 2, 2019
mpg

How is Your Ministry Work MPG?

Reshared with kind permission by Breeze church. What’s the best car you’ve ever owned? Maybe your first car comes to mind. The freedom of leaving your parents’ house and driving on your own! Sure it was rusty and falling apart and left a hole in the ozone above your hometown but…FREEDOM! Maybe you had a sports car that pushed you back in your seat and made your heart race…before kids and the inevitable surrender to the minivan. Or, maybe, like me, you had a car with insanely good gas mileage and every time you filled up your gas tank you […]
March 12, 2019
criticism

How to Handle Criticism in Life & Leadership

If you are new to leadership, you might wonder why you get criticized. The reality is if you are a leader in any capacity, that is the only requirement to get criticized. If you are a leader and I’m using the word leader to define someone who is out in front of a church or organization, casting a vision for the future, leading people there. If you are at that person, it means you are pushing the status quo; you are most likely making changes of some kind. If you preach on a weekly basis, you are challenging people to […]
December 13, 2018

5 Hard Truths About Healthy Church Growth

Most church leaders I know would love to see their church grow. Similarly, most leaders I’ve met want their church to grow for what we might call the ‘right’ reasons: they sincerely want more people to encounter the love of Jesus Christ. That’s amazing. And yet there’s a strong reaction against growing churches by many leaders. For some reason, many people love to take pot-shots at growing churches and large churches. Some are categorical denouncements. I don’t know what to do with those. Sometimes I sense that underneath the anger are jealousy and resentment on the part of leaders whose […]
November 28, 2018
teamwork

Your Team is Brainstorming All Wrong

Shared with kind permission by Leading With Questions. Guest Post by Art Markman | Originally posted in the Harvard Business Review When your team is tasked with generating ideas to solve a problem, suggesting a brainstorming session is a natural reaction. But does that approach actually work? Although the term “brainstorming” is now used as a generic term for having groups develop ideas, it began as the name of a specific technique proposed by advertising executive Alex Osborn in the 1950s. He codified the basic rules that many of us follow when getting people together to generate ideas: Toss out as many ideas as possible. […]