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Leading Ideas
Delivered every Wednesday, our free e-newsletter Leading Ideas offers articles by thoughtful, cutting-edge leaders on subjects you care about — navigating change, reaching younger people, financing your ministry, communicating effectively — to help you be the leader God is calling you to be.

The Lewis Center is committed to helping congregations and denominations thrive and grow by providing ideas, research, resources, and training for vital and fruitful leadership. Through Leading Ideas, we share vignettes of leaders and congregations, book reviews, leadership quotes, and helpful “right questions” built around the premise that leaders don’t need answers — they need to know the right questions.

Leading Ideas
0 Healthy and Helpful Accountability

Healthy church leadership depends on accountability, but not the kind rooted in guilt, control, or micromanagement. Jonathan Page outlines three principles for creating a culture of accountability that is restorative, chosen, and mutual—helping churches stay focused on their mission even during the slower rhythms of summer. As we’re shifting into the summer season, one tradition I’d love to escape is…

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Leading Ideas
0 Showing Up with Questions: Listening in a New Setting

Strong leadership in a new ministry setting begins not with quick answers, but with intentional listening. Luke Edwards shares the key questions he plans to ask as he begins a new pastoral appointment at Huntersville United Methodist Church, offering a practical framework for leaders navigating transition, discernment, and community engagement. I have some big news. On July 1st, I will…

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Leading Ideas
0 Pentecost Reminds Us That God Speaks in the Ways That We Each Hear Best

Pentecost reveals how the Spirit breaks down barriers of language and belonging, calling faith leaders to embody hospitality, inclusion, and presence in ways that make God’s love tangible across difference. Drawing on Acts 2 and contemporary examples of multilingual worship and community formation, Angel Eaglin considers how the church can communicate God’s deeds in ways that are truly heard and…

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Leading Ideas
0 Prophets, Not Chaplains

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, Kendal McBroom challenges church leaders to reconsider the relationship between faith, patriotism, and prophetic witness. At a time when many churches feel pressure to stay silent or safe, he asks what it means for pastors and congregations to choose justice over comfort and discipleship over nationalism. This year, the United States of…

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Leading Ideas
0 Our Traditions Are a Sacred Inheritance to Be Used

Pastor Marc Antoine Lavarin draws from his experience leading the historic First Calvary Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina, to explore how sacred inheritance can help churches honor their legacy while building bridges to future generations. When I first arrived as the senior leader of First Calvary Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina, members and colleagues alike inundated me with…

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Leading Ideas
0 3 Questions AI Is Forcing Your Congregation to Ask

As AI reshapes everyday life, pastors are increasingly facing difficult conversations about identity, truth, and human connection within their congregations. Kenny Jahng, Editor-In-Chief at Church Tech Today, outlines three major disruptions church leaders must confront: the loss of work and purpose through automation, growing confusion around truth and authority, and the erosion of authentic community in an age of frictionless…

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Leading Ideas
0 Navigating the Pre-Transition Space

In a season of transition for the church, Jonathan Page offers practical and pastoral insights into how congregations and clergy can navigate change with intention and faithfulness. Rather than rushing ahead or clinging to what was, he invites leaders and communities to finish well, make space for reflection, and keep the main thing the main thing. We are in the…

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Leading Ideas
0 Leading Faithfully through Transitions

In seasons of transition, leadership is tested as much as it is revealed. Dontá McGilvery reflects on how shifting roles and uncertainty have shaped his understanding of resilience, trust, and spiritual grounding. Rather than treating change as disruption alone, he challenges leaders to see it as formation—an opportunity to lead with greater humility, awareness, and dependence on God. The last…

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Leading Ideas
0 What If Church Leadership Isn’t about Doing More?

Is the church’s biggest problem decline—or distraction? Craig Meek says that the answer may be unexpected. He engages with When Church Stops Working by Andy Root and Blair Bertrand, challenging common assumptions about leadership, innovation, and growth. Rather than offering another strategy for success, the answer may be to slow down, discern, and recover a way of being rooted in…

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Leading Ideas
0 Global Leadership Lessons for the American Church: An In-Depth Interview with Taylor Walters Denyer

Church leaders face constant pressure to adapt in a changing culture, yet the deeper challenge may be how the church understands its mission. In this conversation, Jonathan Page speaks with missiologist Taylor Denyer about how global experience reshapes leadership in the U.S. church. Drawing on insights from the worldwide church, Denyer presses leaders to reconsider how mission shapes every aspect…

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Leading Ideas
0 Christian Nationalism and the Crisis of Church Unity

In the aftermath of 2020, many church leaders continue to navigate fractured relationships and deep political division within their congregations. In his book Disarming Leviathan: Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor, Caleb Campbell calls pastors to respond not with hostility, but with a missionary posture shaped by the way of Jesus. The year 2020 was an apocalypse. I don’t mean the…

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Leading Ideas
0 7 Ways to Transform Your Church’s Children’s Moment

What if the most overlooked four minutes in your worship service hold some of the greatest potential for formation? Erin Reed Cooper provides us with seven intentional shifts that can transform the children’s moment into a theologically rich experience for the entire congregation. In many congregations, it’s a familiar scene: a few minutes into the worship service, children are invited…

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Leading Ideas
0 What Gets Celebrated Gets Replicated: Why Joy Drives Leadership

What if the key to lasting momentum in your church isn’t more pressure, but more joy? Brad Aycock shares five practical ways leaders can make joy and celebration a consistent part of their leadership strategy, showing how celebration shapes culture and strengthens mission. We just celebrated Easter. Churches were full. Energy was high. People showed up. Why? Because when something…

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Leading Ideas
0 When No Children Come Forward: How Churches Can Grow Young Again

If you’ve watched the number of children in worship shrink year after year, you’re not alone. But renewal is possible. Laura Heikes gives us four practical, joyful steps that helped one church go from “no kids this week” to a vibrant, diverse, growing group of children who are now woven into the life of the congregation. I remember Sundays at…

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Leading Ideas
0 Resurrection as a Call to Action

Easter is the high point of the Christian year. But Ann Michel says we can’t allow our celebrations to divert attention from the challenge of renewing the church. Drawing on the lessons of this decade and the biblical narrative, she writes that Easter is not an end point but rather a call to action. This article is adapted from an…

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Leading Ideas
0 96 Hours That Can Change You Too

As Holy Week approaches, many church leaders find themselves caught between the demands of planning meaningful worship and the deeper invitation of the story they are called to proclaim. In a season marked by intensity, expectation, and sacred responsibility, it can be easy to guide others through the journey without fully entering it ourselves. Jonathan Page offers four grounding reminders…

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Leading Ideas
0 10 Traits of Jesus as Transformational Leader

This article by Ed Stetzer and Thom S. Rainer was originally published on September 2, 2015. Because it remains one of the most popular Leading Ideas articles ever, we are resharing it as we approach Easter. When studying the subject of transformational leadership, we should take a look at our own leader, Christ Jesus. He is the one who can…

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Leading Ideas
0 Harnessing Social Capital for Community Centered Ministry: An In-depth Interview with Angie Williams and Audrey Smith

What does it look like for churches to truly center their communities in their ministry? In this interview, Audrey Smith and Angie Williams explore the practice of community convening, emphasizing deep listening, relationship-building, and the power of social capital. Drawing from their work in Ettrick, Virginia, and with Open Table, they invite churches to move beyond assumptions, rediscover their neighbors,…

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Leading Ideas
0 Restoring God’s Image through Worship

Worship does more than express what a church believes—it forms what a church comes to believe. The language congregations repeatedly use for God and the stories they highlight in worship shape how people understand the image of God. Dr. Allison A. Hickey explores how expanding worship language can help congregations more faithfully reflect the biblical vision that all people bear…

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Leading Ideas
0 An Inclusive Church Will Be a Growing Church

Healthy churches pay attention to the people God has placed around them. When ministry reflects the realities of the surrounding community, congregations bear fruit; when it does not, decline often follows. In this piece from his new book An Aura of Hope, Lovett H. Weems Jr. challenges leaders to ask a simple but revealing question: Who is missing—and how is…

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Leading Ideas
0 Turning Hospitality into Discipleship

Hospitality is more than a friendly greeting or a warm cup of coffee—it’s the soil where discipleship grows. Julie Hagen shares her journey of finding a welcoming faith community and explores how intentional, mutual hospitality can transform a church into a place where people are seen, loved, and ready to share God’s love with others. Here you’re safe. Here you’re…

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Leading Ideas
0 A Prayer You Can Replay: Extending Care through Voicemail

Looking for a simple, intimate way to extend your pastoral presence? Laura Heikes reminds us that a voicemail prayer only takes a few seconds to record but can be replayed for hours, days, or long nights of waiting. “Leave a message at the beep.” One of the best innovations in my pastoral ministry happened entirely by accident. A sassy, compassionate,…

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Leading Ideas
0 The Outside-Inside Parallel of Church Leadership

Lewis Center Director Jonathan Page says that church leadership today requires holding two realities at once: engaging the needs of the community while also forming disciples within the church. He draws on examples from two recent United Methodist gatherings to illustrate how faithful leadership requires movement between the life of the church and the life of the community it serves.…

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Leading Ideas
0 Getting Your Missions and Ministries Grant-Funded

Have you ever considered grant funding for your organization and felt daunted by the process before you even began? Micháela Murray wants to help demystify the process by breaking grant seeking into clear, manageable steps—covering eligibility, readiness, research, and proposal writing—so church leaders can move forward with clarity and confidence. If your church is operating outward-facing ministries of service, you’ve…

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Leading Ideas
0 Do Service Trips Matter for the Church’s Future?

How can faith move from theory to action in the lives of young leaders? Brittany Bethel, executive director of Cross Connection, shows how they equip students through service, curiosity, and community to practice a faith that transforms both themselves and their neighborhoods. There are few things I believe in more deeply than the work of Cross Connection. If we want…

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This article is reprinted by permission from Leading Ideas, a free e-newsletter from the Lewis Center for Church Leadership of Wesley Theological Seminary available at churchleadership.com.