Issues in Church Leadership: Five Articles and Two Podcasts

How to Build Your Personal or Church Platform without Being Selfish—An Interview With Daniel Decker [Podcast]

So you or your church wants to establish a bigger platform to increase your audience or reach.

But how do you do it effectively without coming across as…selfish?

Daniel Decker has helped authors reach the New York Times best seller list and helped many leaders, churches and businesses build their platforms without compromising their character. Keep reading

Three Marks of a Healthy Culture

Peter Drucker famously said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” He was not diminishing strategy. He was simply recognizing the overwhelming influence culture has on people. It dominates everything else. It is constantly teaching, constantly showing people what is most important. By culture, I am referring to the shared values and beliefs that undergird all that the ministry or organization does. How can you tell if you have a healthy ministry culture? Here are three marks of a healthy culture.... Keep reading

6 Leadership Lessons from Being a Father

Yesterday was Father’s Day, and my daughters updated their “Daddy books.” With the help of their mother, each daughter has a “Daddy book” that they update each year with a letter to me and a list of their favorite things to do with Dad. It is an amazing gift and something I look forward to each year. Reading their lists caused to me think about the similarities between leading and parenting.

As the apostle Paul led people to Christ, he viewed himself as their spiritual father. He compared leading people to fathering.

I’m not writing this to shame you, but to warn you as my dear children. For you can have 10,000 instructors in Christ, but you can’t have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me. (I Corinthians 4:14-16)

Though I have an immense amount of growing to do as a leader, the Lord has used the experience of parenting to develop me. Here are 6 leadership lessons from being a father. Keep reading

4 Characteristics of “Emotionally Healthy” Planning and Decision Making

For years I believed that if I could simply identify the right planning and decision-making process, we would then make good decisions at the church I pastor. That, it turned out, was both naïve and misguided. Over a twenty-year period, however, the dramatic difference between our standard process and emotionally healthy planning and decision making became crystal clear.

The first is the foundation from which all the others follow—defining success as radically doing God’s will. Keep reading

Dealing with Power Groups in the Church – Rainer on Leadership #135 [Podcast]

Today on the podcast we discuss power groups—both positive and negative groups. I also found out something about Jonathan that I did not know before. Keep reading

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:36 — 19.8MB)

7 Characteristics of the Backside of Leadership

One critical part of leadership is what I like to call the “backside of leadership.”

It’s the part that is unseen. Or unknown at the time. It’s the unspoken, unclear, has-to-be-tested side of leadership.

So critical. Keep reading

A Day No Leader Wants to Face But Every Leader Must

There is a day every leader has to face. But, no leader necessarily wants to.

I have walked through this with dozens of leaders over the year sand it’s never a fun process.

It’s the day when it’s time to no longer be the leader. Keep reading