Goals are highly overrated.
In today’s culture, we love them. With each New Year, we set endless goals for ourselves because we love stories of people...
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The Spiritual Consequence of Planning Out Your Life
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7 Values I’ve Discovered in Brokenness
During times of trials and difficulty we often forget—or we never even understand—the value of brokenness.
Yes, I just wrote the previous sentence. And I stand behind it.
Not many people would choose to be burdened with heartache or disappointmen...
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7 Specific Suggestions for Dealing With Stress in Life and Leadership
Stress is very much a part of life. Having traveled to many cultures, however, I think we may sometimes “specialize” in stress in America. It almost seems we look for ways to bring more stress in our life.
Yesterday, I shared some general ways to...
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How to Prevent Superficiality in a Megachurch
Very large churches are sometimes accused of being shallow. A mile wide and an inch deep. There is certainly truth to that potential, but I have found that many of the driving characteristics that allowed a church to become...
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Stop Treating THESE Habits as a Badge of Honor
Find yourself busy? A little overwhelmed?
You’re not alone. Especially in leadership.
I made a lot of mistakes in how I handled my workload as a young leader in charge of three small but rapidly growing churches.
Like many people, I assumed...
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Life After Ministry (What to Do if You've Been Fired)
I’m at that point in my ministry where I feel like I’d rather cut grass for a living than serve Christ as a preacher of His gospel. That’s just not healthy. But that’s where I am.<...
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5 Ways to Create a Strong Church Culture
I recently met with all the managers and directors of the Resources Division at LifeWay, the division I am responsible to lead. We have nearly 650 employees in the division, and they all report to the leaders who were in that room. At the beginning o...
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How to Recover From Burnout
I had never been through anything quite as deep or, frankly, personally frightening as my burnout in 2006.
Burnout moves fatigue and the darkness from a place where it was in your control to place where you can simply no longer control either....
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5 Tell-Tale Traits of a Lazy Leader
The people of God have always understood laziness to be a sin because laziness fails to appreciate the gift and blessing of work and fails to make the most of the time we have been graciously given. We are commanded to be wise and to make the most of...
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You Are Called to Full-Time Ministry
Here’s a little questionnaire for you.
1. Do you call yourself a Christian?
2. Do you believe in the power of God’s Word?
3. Do you believe the Bible is the inerrant and inspired Word of God?
If you answered...
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The 4 Phases of Planning to Promote Church Growth
Few churches have a great planning process. Most don’t even have a good planning process, if they have a process at all.
I’m not sure why this isn’t a bigger priority. Planning is certainly biblical. I don’t find many pastors who would re...
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The 3 Battles Every Pastor Fights
Leaders who are fully engaged in their mission fight battles.
There is no way to avoid battles if you want to make progress consistently. New territory is never easy, and it always comes at a price. Life never gr...- Published on
How to Spot Integrity Lapse in a Leader
Integrity. It is a powerful word. It is used to describe people whose private lives match their public lives, whose actions match their words, who live honorably and humbly.
Rightfully so, we long for our leaders to be filled with integrity. For m...
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6 Signs Your Church Is Healthy!
Jesus is into results. I know I’m going to lose a lot of readers at those four little words. But I really believe it’s true. Read the scriptures and Jesus actually has a plan that He’s working to make everything new and fix what we broke. Both Jesus...
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When Should a Leader Submit
Leaders need to be strong and make good decisions.
Leaders need to know and declare the vision. Leaders need to demonstrate confidence and deliver hope. But how does submission fit in? We don’...