Leadership

Please Stop Helping Me Fulfill My Potential

If your ministry is about helping people reach their full potential, I have a favor to ask.

Leave me alone. Please.

I’m not interested.

I’ve chosen to be a follower of Jesus. A disciple. Something I do imperfectly on my best days. But from the moment I chose do that, even poorly, I gave up ownership of my life.
My life is no longer mine. It’s his. So my goals don’t matter anymore. Fulfilling my potential is not enough. Not for me, my church, my family or my ministry.

I don’t want my best. I want God’s best. Because his ideas are different than mine. And his best is be

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Pastors Who Have Flamed Out, Traded Down, Or Stayed Strong

There are three lists of pastors that I’ve been keeping track of in my head. Maybe you’ve been keeping some similar lists yourself.

I haven’t kept these lists consciously. Until now, anyway. But after several recent episodes in which pastors have landed on these lists in some dishearteningly conspicuous ways, I started becoming aware that I was keeping them. So now it’s time to come clean about them.

They’re lists of pastors who have flamed out, traded down, or held strong.

Success or failure in ministry isn’t always obvious. The tendency to exchange the best things for less-than-the-best is hard to resist if we don’t keep ourselves alert to it.

We seldom celebrate consistency, integrity and humility as much as we should. But those are the character traits that make for real ministry success. And they should never be traded for anything less.

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8 Life and Leadership Lessons From The Jayden K. Smith Hoax

If you were on Facebook in the last few days, you heard from Jayden K. Smith.

Actually, you didn’t hear from Jayden, you heard a lot about Jayden.

For those not on Facebook, here’s what happened.

Someone started a rumor that if you accepted a friend request from Jayden K. Smith your Facebook account would be hacked. The message encouraged everyone to copy and paste this warning to all your friends. A lot of people forwarded the warning, flooding people’s Facebook inboxes.

Despite all the warnings, no one got a friend request from Jayden K. Smith because the entire thing was a hoax.

Not a big deal. No one got hurt and no accounts were hacked. But, wow, did a lot of people fall for it!

So, let’s learn something from it.

Here are 8 principles that this internet hoax can remind us about life and leadership.

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Why It’s A Bad Idea To Run A Church Like A Business

Churches cannot and should not be run like businesses.

I’ve always felt that to be true. But, as a pastor, I only knew it in the abstract.

Then, a few years ago I started my own business. You’re reading one of the products of it right now. The writing and speaking I do about small churches in my book, the Pivot blog and at NewSmallChurch.com also happens to be a ministry, but it’s not a church, it’s a business. My business.

I started it. I own it. I run it. And I make all the decisions for it.

That’s not the way it is with pastoring.

I didn’t start the church. I don’t own it. I don’t run it. And I don’t make all the decisions for it.

A church doesn’t belong to the pastor. Or the church members. Or the denominational officials. It belongs to Jesus.

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What If We Made Disciples And Left Church Growth To God?

We’re often told that one of the reasons so many churches remain small is lack of faith. But I wonder… Could it be that the reverse is true? Might our obsession with bigger and bigger churches be rooted in a lack of faith?

Are we afraid that God might not do his part (building his church) if we simply stayed faithful to do our part (making disciples)? Is it possible that the glut of church growth books, seminars and classes in the last few decades has been our attempt to help God out?

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5 Mistakes More Likely To Be Made By Big Churches Than Small Churches

Big churches serve many great roles in the body of Christ. And the church growth movement that spawned many of them has been a great blessing to me and so many others in ministry.

But numerical growth, while great, does not come without challenges.

In my last post, 5 Mistakes More Likely To Be Made By Small Churches Than Big Churches, I wrote about some of the challenges that small congregations need to be aware of.

In this post, we’ll look at the other side of the numerical bell curve to see what potential missteps big churches need to be aware of falling into.

If this list feels familiar, it should. Each point is a one-for-one parallel to my small church list.

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Did 2016 Expose America’s (And the Church’s) Fame Addiction?

2016.

Worst. Year. Ever.

It must be. Social media says so.

Certainly, 2016 had its share of serious issues. From escalating problems in race relations, to horrific acts of terrorism, to the ravages of war in places like Syria, and more.

But that’s not what people are referring to. The two topics that dominate the Worst Year Ever talk? The American Presidential election and the deaths of celebrities.

America, we have a fame problem.

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Deal-Breakers: 7 Ways God May Tell a Pastor to Leave a Church

“Do I stay, or do I go?”

It’s one of the toughest questions a pastor has to face.

Pastoring isn’t easy. There will always be difficulties to address and bad history to overcome. But most pastors are in it for the long haul.

This month I celebrate 24 years in my current church. But before I came here, I left two short-term pastorates. One with great sorrow, wondering why the Lord hadn’t called us to stay longer. The other in great pain, wondering why God called us there to begin with.

The reasons for both have become clearer as the years have passed. Including the opportunity to help others by sharing the lessons I learned.

Here are 7 good reasons it might be time to leave your current church:

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12 Ways to Know If You’re Pastoring Like a Boss – Or Like a Leader

The church needs fewer bosses, more leaders.

And even more servants. In the pulpits, not just the pews.

Sadly, too few people in positions of authority know the difference between being a boss or being a leader. Mostly, because we haven’t grasped servanthood.

There are some simple ways to tell the difference between a boss and a servant leader. And they come, not surprisingly, from the life and example of Jesus.

Here are 12 that I’m working on:

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Why I’ve Stopped Saying ‘Church Growth’ – And What I Say Instead

I’m a huge supporter and promoter of growing churches.

How can I not be? Jesus said he’d build his church, and I always want to be on Jesus’ side.

But I’ve stopped using the term Church Growth when I talk about it.

Here’s why.

The phrase Church Growth is packed with too much emotional baggage. It’s interpreted by different people in such different ways that it’s become virtually useless in my context.

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