Subscribe free to "Leading Ideas" at churchleadership.com/leadingideas. Every Wednesday, "Leading Ideas" delivers information, resources, and strategies for forward-thinking church leaders.
Are virtual meetings and work-from-home staff part of the new normal in your church? John Wimberly discusses best practices for working with staff and volunteers in a hybrid era.
Turning toward a hybrid future, churches have focused much attention on digital worship. John Wimberly says it’s just as important to consider how to work…
Ann Michel of the Lewis Center staff says that unanimity is not required for a group to move forward. Good leaders drive consensus by extracting…
How can you connect the dots between where your church needs to be headed and the steps needed to get there? Doug Powe interviews Chris…
Trying to improve communication by sharing more and more information is likely to backfire, according to Ryan Hartwig and Warren Bird. Effective communication is aimed…
Justin Irving and Mark Strauss write that collaboration is an important factor contributing to effective leadership. Leading with humility, celebrating the contributions of others, and…
Ryan Hartwig and Warren Bird studied leadership teams in more than 2,500 churches to discover the distinctive features of thriving teams. They found that the…
Eric Geiger says a church leadership team’s effectiveness is hampered when members act as consultants, critics, or senators. Each of these postures distances members from…
Leadership Consultant Mike Bonem suggests strategies for making meetings more productive. The first step is to be clear about the purpose for convening a meeting.…
Carey Nieuwhof explains that ineffective leaders tend to lay the blame on seven common excuses. Successful leaders are aware of these traps and lead people…
Lewis Center Director Doug Powe says when looking for leadership lessons in the Bible we shouldn’t focus so much on Moses that we skip over…
When confronted with a difficult person, do you try to work around them or just complain behind their back? Lewis Center staffer Ann Michel says…
Amy Valdez Barker says that the church should be a training center in the development of trust. She names practices that leaders can employ when…
What practices lead to synergistic leadership? Listen as Lewis Center Director Douglas Powe interviews Ann Michel about her book “Synergy: A Leadership Guide for Church Staff and Volunteers.”
Ann Michel of the Lewis Center staff says church meetings should be holy ground where the Spirit can act because the people of God are…
Bonnie Marden explores the importance of relationships to congregational vitality, and she suggests key questions for assessing the strength of relationships that undergird a congregation’s…
The landscape of ministry is rapidly evolving as more and more lay persons take on significant ministry roles. Part of this trend is a growth in…
Churches often put up with ineffective volunteers because they don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, says Lory Beth Huffman, a pastor in Western North Carolina.…
Lovett H. Weems Jr., explains why leaders need to affirm the positive and assume the best of others — even when things aren’t what they ultimately…
Personnel matters in ministry settings are almost always more complicated than in business, says church leadership expert Mike Bonem. He names the shifts in attitude…
John Wimberly reports how creating a team of four teachers for each children’s Sunday school classroom had the paradoxical effect of easing the burden of…
Jill Fox lists ten things to keep in mind to develop a ministry team with healthy and happy volunteers, and one that is also attractive…
Leaders are constantly faced with problems. They engage such challenges with energy because they know that these issues represent what stands between their current reality…
There are many, many things about leadership that we do not know. However, there are a few truths about which we can be sure. One…
Jesus made it look easy. Pick some folks (anyone will do), spend intentional time with them, give them chances to lead, and Bam! A team…
If the idea of recruiting volunteers has been a challenge in the past, you are not alone. But getting rid of the mind-set of recruiting…
As wonderful as our worship gatherings are, everyone sitting in long rows facing a pastor is not real community. Large gatherings of people for corporate…
One of the great blessings of my life is knowing W. Clark Randall. Before his retirement, Clark spent his professional career as a senior executive…
Trust is probably the most oft-mentioned and common ingredient within great ministry teams. Experts from all fields of team building agree on this essential. All…
It just may be that the best way to make people feel truly honored is to listen to them with rapt and sincere attentiveness. Few…
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.