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Category Archive: Church Scattered

The Rise Of The Dones: The Done With Church Population

Posted by on January 28, 2020

There can be no doubt based on our own personal experience and great research by Barna and others, that the majority of three entire generations are not coming to church. The days of build it and they will come are over in this post-christian America. Another very alarming trend is those who were once active in church are indeed done and are not coming back. This post by Thom Schultz is a must read for all church leaders:

“John is one of the Dones even though he’s every pastor’s dream member. He’s a life-long believer, well-studied in the Bible, gives generously and leads others passionately.

But last year he dropped out of church. He didn’t switch to the other church down the road. He dropped out completely. His departure wasn’t the result of an ugly encounter with a staff person or another member. It wasn’t triggered by any single event.”

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How Successful People Start Their Day-And Their Year

Posted by on January 6, 2020

William Vanderbloemen is a great leader who has built a very successful business that is also a ministry. He understands all of the tensions between merging work and faith and has a lot to teach leaders about how we can more effectively lead ourselves. This post is excellent:

“Early in my career, one of my mentors told me, “How you start your day affects how the rest of your day will go.” I’ve learned a lot of lessons over the years that have proven true, but this one may be the most solid.

As we start 2020, I think this idea applies to starting your new year, too: how you start your first full week of 2020, what habits and reflection you put into January will affect the rest of your year.”

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The Non-Negotiable Virtue In Leadership

Posted by on December 13, 2019

Great leaders many times can be average to good in their public leadership gifts. However, they must be excellent in what happens in private. Character matters today more than ever and people will not follow someone they do not trust. This post by Matthew Hall drives home this point:

“Leave out one ingredient and the whole recipe falls apart. Some things are just essential. When it comes to leading others, the task is impossible without trust. That’s because trust is at the heart of leadership. If you’re called to lead, you’re called to steward the trust others place in you. Students want to be able to trust their teachers. Spouses want to be able to trust one another. Church members want to be able to trust their pastors. And employees want to be able to trust their managers.”

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Top 10 “Basic” Relationship Skills

Posted by on December 1, 2019

Great leaders have both competency and character and that is why they are effective. Today more than ever, there is a third “C” and it is chemistry. Simply put, it is the ability to lead and work well with other people. Leadership today is far more relational than positional. This post by Dan Reiland is great:

“Getting along with people can be more complicated than it appears. If it were easy, everybody would be good at it!

How you treat people, how they treat you, what makes it work well, and why it doesn’t work when it doesn’t is always important to consider. Conflict is part of human nature.

When the challenges and stress of leadership are added to everyday relationships, conflict is heightened.

The speed and pressure of leadership increase the potential to overlook even the most simple and basic relationship skills. That always gets a leader in trouble.”

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A Toxic Person Is Not Your Fault

Posted by on November 25, 2019

How cruel would it be to walk into a room of blind people and ask them how they enjoyed the sunset today? They cannot see and in many ways its just as unrealistic to expect a toxic person to respond to reason or truth. I must assume responsibility for changing myself but never for changing them. This post by Gary Thomas is excellent, but my only addition would be that God is able to change anyone so never give up:

“If you adopt a wolverine and pour all your love into that animal; if you treat it like a puppy, hugging it and feeding it and playing with it; if you give it the very best care anyone has ever given to a wolverine, the day will still come when that wolverine will attack you, because no matter how kindly you treat a wolverine, it is still a vicious, wild animal, and in the end, its nature will win. It is the same with a toxic person.”

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8 Ways To Add Margin To Your Day

Posted by on November 12, 2019

Leaders of non-profits and for profit organizations face the same challenges when it comes to personal leadership. If we do not define our priorities, then someone else will gladly do it for us. That puts us in a constant reactive mode instead of a proactive one that makes sure the important things get done everyday. This post by Ron Edmondson is very practical for every leader:

How do you fit more activity into an already busy schedule?

Isn’t this a great question?

How do you create more margin in your schedule – to do the things you want to do and the things you need to do?

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7 Practical Thoughts On Forgiveness In Leadership

Posted by on November 3, 2019

Leadership in a church culture is probably the most difficult challenge any leader can face. Your customers are your volunteer work force and financial investors all at the same time. Therefore, they have lots of power and they can use it to say hurtful things. This post by Steve Tillis is a must read for all leaders:

“Forgiveness in leadership is absolutely critical to leading people.

“You hate me! You pick and choose which members you love!” Years ago, those words were screamed in my ear over the phone by a church member who felt like I had not greeted them well on Sunday morning. In fact, they went on to tell me in the conversation that I only gave them one hug instead of two on that day and then they hung up on me. Maybe the moral of the story is always give your members two hugs on Sunday.

Seriously though, forgiving people and asking for forgiveness is tough work. Forgiveness is to the leader what oxygen is to the lungs.”

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10 Signs Your Leadership Is Driven By Selfish Ambition

Posted by on October 29, 2019

Great leaders can determine what needs to be done quickly and how to do it well. They can pick who needs to do the work and when it needs to be done. The most important question that should be asked on the front end is Why? This post by Carey Nieuwhof answers that question:

Let’s ask an awkward, difficult, and at times piercing question: What motivates your ambition?

That’s an important question to ask. Why? Because if you don’t ask it, I promise everyone else around you will. Mostly I don’t like that question because I don’t like the answer to that question.

Sometimes my motivation is selfish. I recently interviewed Gordon MacDonald on my leadership podcast (if you missed it, it was one of the best episodes we’ve done to date, listen here).

Gordon observed that most leaders in their thirties are driven by ambition. Gordon is a little more accurate than I want to admit.

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7 Things Christians Should Give Up To Reach Unchurched People

Posted by on October 19, 2019

There are so many things pulling Christians and churches away from their core message and mission. When Christians chose government over gospel we have lost our voice to speak truth into a culture that desperately needs Jesus Christ. This post by Carey Nieuwhof gives great examples of this critical problem:

“So you want your church to reach unchurched people. That’s wonderful because that’s basically the mission of the church: to share the love of Christ with the world in hopes that everyone will come into a relationship with Jesus.

The challenge is that unchurched people aren’t exactly flocking to most churches, and many Christians seem stumped as to why that is. There are many reasons, but a surprising number center around one thing: Christians who treat the church as if it’s their private club.

The gravitational pull of human nature is toward self, not toward others, and churches behave the same way. You will focus almost exclusively on your needs and wants unless you decide not to.”

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We Become What We Watch

Posted by on October 14, 2019

It is an already admitted reality that we have too many inputs on any given day to process. When we add to the chaos, by adding information that is stealing our margin, we become the problem. We must guard what we allow into our minds, if we hope to have the perspective we need to lead ourselves well. This post by Abigail Dodds was excellent:

Perhaps one of the more obvious discoveries of my life is that the majority of the thinking that I do is passive, not active. When I read my Bible each day, I am often actively holding up specific beliefs against the light of God’s word to see if I believe anything wrongly. Simultaneously, through the mere act of reading well, a hundred other truths are making themselves at home in my mind, even if I’m not wrestling with any one of them in the moment.

Categories: Margin Personal Leadership | Comments Off on We Become What We Watch