Eight Ways to Save Time

Do you ever wonder how you are going to have enough time to complete everything you need to complete? Create more time each week with these eight tips and ideas:

1.  Clutter can slow you down by distracting you from what you want to do. To take control, begin in one corner of one room and straighten up. (No cheating! Don't just move the clutter to another corner!) Afterward, give yourself a reward for your good work. If you continue this pattern over time, you'll get the job done....

Are You Trained To Fail?

“Have you been trained to fail?”  You have been trained in ministry to fail if you have been taught to do the ministry rather than to train others for ministry.  I am grateful to the teachers who taught me to perform the functions of ministry:  visiting, counseling, marrying, burying, teaching, witnessing, and a host of other duties.  All are needed.  By themselves, however, they help us only to maintain, not to maximize ministry.  We can never be effective ministers until we learn what it means to be a leader and how to function as a leader.  

The following are five common ingredients in growing churches:

1. The pastor and the congregation understand their God-given gifts and use them in ministry.
2. The pastor’s hands-on ministry decreases and the congregation’s increases.
3. Both the quality and the quantity of ministry increase.
4. The pastor’s ministry influence increases as he shares ministry responsibilities with the congregation.
5. A biblical philosophy of ministry is established.  That is, leadership plus lay ministry equals growth.

How can you build a leadership team and maximize ministry in your church?  The following six steps are proven and effective:

1. Identify the leaders in the church.  Who are the influencers?  These persons may hold formal or informal positions of leadership.  They are the ones to whom others look for decisions.  Write down their names and rank them on a scale of 1 to 10 as to their leadership and influence within the church.
2. Intentionally take time to build relationships with your current and future leaders.  Do not ignore or exclude the others, but focus on developing leaders.

Don't Interrupt!

Most people react badly to being interrupted. They often feel disrespected and small when you talk over them. People who tend to interrupt others generally do so for one of these reasons:

• They don't place enough value on what the other person has to say. 
• They want to impress others by showing how smart or intuitive they are. 
• They're too excited by the conversation to let the other person finish talking.

Staying Focused in Your Area of Ministry

(This is an excellent article for Pastors to share with anyone involved in leadership or ministry in their church.)

Sometimes you just have to say it like it is.  This is one of those times.  I offer this to you in a gentle spirit and pray that if you share it with others on your team, that you would do so in a spirit of gentleness and meekness. 

John Maxwell says “Only do what only you can do.”  This is important in the various areas of ministry of the local church.  One thing that stops the momentum of a church is various leaders trying to run someone else’s ministry.  When God has placed you in an area of ministry within the church, he did not put you there so you could judge other lay ministers of the church.  Do your job and let others do theirs.....

Steps To Turn A Plateaued Church Around

Has your church hit a plateau? Here are a few steps we believe will help: 

1. Pray! Pray! Pray! Pray for wisdom specifically and continually. Pray to the Lord of the Harvest for ministry helpers. 
2. Seek a God- given vision for growth and philosophy of ministry (core values) and continually communicate them to the church. 
3. Pray that God will help you identify a core group of people in your church that embrace your vision and core values of ministry and will begin to make positive change in the church......

Communicating With A Secular Audience

A crucial issue for today’s church is communication. At the heart of the Christian faith is the message of the Good News of Jesus Christ. Yet today this message is one of a multitude of messages people are bombarded with daily. Furthermore, the “audience” has changed drastically. Today, the church faces the increasingly difficult task of communicating sacred meaning to a secular audience.

Here’s a check list of things to consider when it comes to evaluating what you’re communicating today as the church amid the rising tide of secularism:

1. Keep it simple. Simplify everything from the bulletin to the sermons. You will communicate better with secular people.
2. Translate please. Secular people don’t understand the theological jargon we use. You can simplify Biblical terms without sacrificing their integrity.
3. Timing is everything. Time is the new currency. Communication must be concise. If people lose focus because of time, they lose the message.....

Perception of the Church in a Social Media Driven World

How people perceive you greatly influences whether or not they will receive what you have to say. In the day that we are living, it is definitely a different world than it was 20 or 30 years ago. With cell phones & computers you can now do everything from make a phone call to do your banking and even have online social interactions. Our world has changed because of these. Along with this, it’s changed how people interact with one another.

As a result, this has changed how we do church to a large degree. Or at least it should. Let’s be honest, we don’t have the personal connections that we used have with people. Its just part of our modern day culture that we are living in. However, that does not mean that we cannot fill the churches we lead with hungry people. In this socially disconnected age that we are living, people are looking for something that is real and genuine....

How To Gain Loyalty

Some of the things you can do in your own congregation to rectify any lack of loyalty are:

1. Teach the difference between faithfulness and loyalty.

2. Remind your people that, according to their new nature, they already want to be loyal. Unless they are outright rebels, disloyal acts come out of ignorance and/or weakness of the flesh.....

A Leader’s Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic

The Covid-19 Pandemic is both a national and international crisis. The health and economic impact is potentially unprecedented. Pastors are besieged with questions they themselves do not have answers for. What is a leader to do in times like these?

Uncharted Territory

None of us have ever lived through an international shutdown of non-essential businesses before. We have never seen a time where schools, churches, and most everyday types of businesses were closed. We have never had social distancing rules for six feet of separation before. Many around us are out of work, out of money, and afraid. This is uncharted territory. 

Pastors and leaders do not have all of the answers. Nobody does, but that is okay. The Covid-19 Pandemic is teaching us so much. What an opportunity to learn! Leaders must face this crisis as it unfolds just like everyone else. Pastors should use this as an unprecedented opportunity to get better at everything they do and learn from everything they experience. 

Jesus Is Our Role Model

Never once in His lifetime on earth did He panic. He never became anxious over anything. He was focused on His mission of truth. Through prayer and submission to the Spirit He calmly maneuvered through every crisis. This must be the way that every leader today handles this crisis. We must face each circumstance calmly and with absolute spiritual resolve and confidence. We must not be soon shaken....