This week a series of blog posts from TJ Addington, Jamie the Very Worst Missionary, and Steve Saint have really gotten me thinking about the messages that we send to our congregations and the world about finances and blessing.  Each of these three stories talk about how we show up in an area of the world that has a different standard of living than ours (note that I didn’t say poverty stricken) and instantly assume that they are in [...]

Next week is the 2011 installment of Catalyst.  I enjoy heading down to Catalyst for several reasons… I get to reconnect with good friends, hear what is going on in the church world, and connect with church leaders from all over the place.  This year is going to be even more exciting for me because I will be announcing a few major changes during the week that I am pretty excited about (that is a [...]

Yesterday Larry Osborne shared something at The Nines, that made me just nod my head so hard I nearly got whiplash.  Osborne is the Pastor of North Coast Church, and the author of about a million books.  What he said was that he often has some ideas that are so good, that he can’t waste them on a preaching series. What? So often in the church we make our preaching series the star of the [...]

Seth Godin’s post from yesterday morning has gotten me thinking… how often do church leaders limit their effectiveness because they don’t know their strengths, or refuse to lead from them?  How many times do we allow our comparisons to other people or other churches limit what we are able to do?  Maybe a better question is why do we feel like we need to apologize for our strengths? There is something to be said for [...]

As a youth ministry major in college I was fed a steady diet of Sonlife’s strategy for disciple making.  The value of Sonlife was that it forced us to think through how the ministries that we led would develop disciples that would create disciples.  Discipleship seems to be a hot topic of late.  Last week I posted about Shaun King, and his decision to leave Courageous Church after losing faith in the model that they [...]

Matt Note: Two weeks ago I asked Jeremy Moore, from ECCU, to share his thoughts on supporting your ministry in a tough economy.  Today I have asked Jon Sturdevant, from Generis, to do the same. The economy has taken a beating lately.  What does this mean for the support you should anticipate from your donor base? Nothing. There are zero absolutes associated with the economy’s downturn and your donor base.  There are a number of [...]

On Tuesday the Internet Monk’s Chaplain Mike shared his thoughts on Shaun King’s resignation from Courageous Church in Atlanta.  This was the first that I had heard about it, and I have spent the last couple of days reading more about what is going on there.  Courageous Church is in for a tough season, we need to be praying for them over the coming months: losing a pastor is hard, but I would have to imagine [...]

The rumbles that you heard last night were not an earthquake or runaway freight train, they were in fact the twitterverse exploding with the announcement that Southern Baptist Convention President Bryant Wright has formed a task force to study whether or not the SBC should change its’ name. What happens over the course of this task force’s lifetime will be fascinating to watch because a name is a big deal.  A name, defines an organization, and tells its’ [...]

Yesterday we spoke about learning from our ministry crashes, today I want to talk about something similar: how to handle when leaders make mistakes.  Mistakes happen.  Mistakes are a natural part of leadership.  I am convinced that how we deal with our mistakes will ultimately define us as leaders.  Does your church try and sweep mistakes under the rug, or do you get out in front of them and over communicate what happened, and what [...]

Over the weekend I found myself thumbing through June’s Newsweek when I came across a story about NASCAR racer Jimmie Johnson.  The article was called My Favorite Mistake: Jimmie Johnson, with a name like that, how can you not read it?  Johnson tells the story of a crash he had in 1994 at the Baja 1000, and how it changed him… and quite possibly saved his career and his life. Johnson finishes the story with [...]