Mission
Dear Discouraged Leader (5 Questions to Ask Before You Implode)
Dear Discouraged Leader, Being a leader isn’t the easiest thing in the world. But it isn’t the hardest thing in the world either. You’re not alone. Leadership is hard at times. In fact, if you’re really leading, there’s rarely a season that isn’t filled with challenges. Just as you solve one problem, two more pop…
Read More
5 Smarter Ways To Embrace Infrequent Church Attenders
It’s a challenge you face as a church leader: what do you do with people who only occasionally attend church? Like at Easter or Christmas or special occasions? But infrequent attendance isn’t just for holidays anymore. It’s for every day. How do you respond as people generally attend less often? You know…the couple who comes…
Read More
7 Practical Tips to Help You Stop Working 7 Days a Week
So you’re busy. Welcome to the club. For too many of us, busy now means working 7 days a week. One leader approached me a while back and said the one thing he knew would change everything for him was to stop working 7 days a week. The problem was, he had no idea how…
Read More
How To Handle Your Critics Like a Pro, Not a Toddler
So you signed up for leadership, but you didn’t really sign up for all the criticism that came with it, did you? And yet here you are. Next question: did anything really prepare you for the emotional journey of leadership? Nope. Me neither. Criticism is an almost daily staple for most leaders. You get everything…
Read More
5 Challenges With Being a Local Pastor (or Leader) in the Age of Social Media
Social media is changing you and me in more profound ways than any of us imagine. Like a growing number of people, I’m increasingly concerned with how addictive tech has become, and am leaning in on the arguments that some like Roger McNamee (who has a fascinating conversation with Sam Harris here) and Tristan Harris make…
Read More
7 Early Warning Signs Your Heart Is Growing Hard in Leadership
If you’re like me, the longer you serve in leadership, the more intentional you have to become at keeping your heart open and fully alive. Hardness of heart is a condition that people on the wrong side of God and people develop. Biblically, Pharaoh suffered from it. Israel did on occasion. And the Pharisees specialized in it. Chances are,…
Read More
How To Stack Your Leadership Pipeline With The Best Volunteers and Team Members
Wherever I talk to leaders, they tell me one of their top challenges is finding enough people for their teams, particularly volunteers. Then—usually within minutes—they tell me an even bigger challenge is to find the right people—people who can lead, inspire, mobilize and accomplish things, and that they don’t have nearly enough young leaders ready to move…
Read More
5 Things About Leadership My 25-Year-Old Self Never Would Have Believed
Oh to know then what you know now. It never works that way, though, does it? This past weekend, I celebrated a birthday. It was a good one. I spent much of the day being grateful, but it also made me realize how much I’ve learned over the years both about leadership and about life.…
Read More
Has Your Leadership Peaked? The Theory of the 10 Year Run.
The last thing you want as a leader is to have your best days behind you. But it happens all the time, long before a leader steps out of leadership. The questions are how does it happen…and, more importantly, what can you do about it? Sadly, you can’t launch into leadership at age 25 and…
Read More
So Many Church Leaders Struggle With Their Faith. Here’s Where It Starts.
There’s a secret many leaders won’t readily tell you. One of the most difficult aspects of Christian leadership is keeping your relationship with God fresh and alive. I suppose that’s one of the reasons so many pastors burn out (I write about that here) or an underlying reason so many megachurch pastors keep falling (here…
Read More