Tag: leadership

  • What to Say When the Youth Pastor Leaves

    It’s June. Professional youth ministries most dangerous month. I’ve served in three churches and all the hiring, firing, quitting, and retiring with the youth ministry seems to happen in June. It’s a wicked combination of the end of the school year and for a lot of churches, the end of the budget year. I could…

  • Pushing Back to Find Sanity in Christ

    Closing in on a year as “just a family in the pews” I have learned a ton about myself, my walk with Jesus, and what it’s like to be on the other end of church life. Having spent my entire adult life on the church leadership end of things I would often say, “I don’t…

  • One-Two Punch of Leaders

    I’ve been thinking about leadership a lot lately as I reflect on the type of leader that I tend to follow. More to the point, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the type of leader I aspire to be. Let’s start with what I hate. I hate the Donald Trump-type of leader.The ego driven…

  • Two Kinds of Medium Sized Church People

    Here are some more thoughts on the medium-sized church crisis. My post the other day attracted a fair amount of comments and attention… and I was pretty frustrated that people jump to the issue of money. I only think that the money problems of current are bringing the Medium-sized church crisis to the forefront. At…

  • Alpha Male Pastors

    I long to see this as a caveat for ministry job openings: Dominant alpha males need not apply. Dear Lord, let it come soon! I had three different conversations with or about lead pastors Thursday. Two were horrible and one was exhilarating. All three encounters lead me to express my frustration with alpha male senior…

  • The Danger of Changes

    Whether it’s a business, a school, or a youth ministry or even a blog there is both fun and danger in change. Some would say that half of the fun of change is the danger. Good Catalyst Almost all of the change I deal with is neccesitated by the existing way not meeting expectations and/or…

  • “Who are you anyway?”

    Recently, God has been all up in my video about who I am. It’s crazy how easy I get my identity wrapped up in what other people think of me. I suppose being in a public position will do that to you. One of the things that Bill Clinton was always accused of as President…

  • Planning for Entropy

    A key component to the second law of thermodynamics is entropy. Entropy is the scientific principle that all systems will eventually go from order to disorder. Entropy allows mathematics to explain dissipation within a system boundary. In the first law of thermodynamics, energy is never lost in a macrosystem. But in a microsystem, entropy explains…

  • You Matter to Your Schools

    This was just posted over at Youth Ministry Exchange. Here’s an excerpt: Here’s a thought that will blow your mind. The God of the Universe chose you to help him build the church in your town. Here’s another thought to give you some perspective. The God of the Universe has an enemy, Satan, whose deepest…