Yeah, I know.  The title of Andy Andrews’ new book is a little on the depressing side.  While the title is dark, the message behind the book, How Do You Kill 11 Million People, is something that every leader, and every follower, needs to hear. The book might take you an hour to read, but the message is one that should stick with you while.  Over the course of ninety-six pages will very simply answer [...]

I will be the first to admit that I have a man crush on Jim Collins. Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, let’s talk a little bit about Collins’ new book: Great by Choice.  I first learned of this book while at Catalyst this past October.  Great By Choice takes a look at how companies have managed to continue a pattern of success, even in uncertain times.  Collins studies seven companies that have done [...]

Whenever I go to ministry conferences I am always amazed by the stories that I hear, by the people that I meet, and all the different ways that God has wired people for ministry.  While we often celebrate the strengths that God has given us, we also need to be aware of our weaknesses, and the vulnerabilities that come with those strengths.  Gary McIntosh and Samuel Rima’s book Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership helps leaders [...]

Organizational change can be hard.  Regardless of the context in which we lead, change is a difficult task.  John Kotter’s 1996 book Leading Change is the seminal text on guiding an organization through transition.  Through the course of the book Kotter maps out a process and strategy for helping an organization go through the process of organizational change. Ten years after Leading Change’s publication, Kotter and Holger Rathgeber wrote Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any [...]

Regardless of what we do, regardless of our local context, leadership at its very core is about people.  Ministry leadership, while grounded in God’s Word, is no different.    Tom Endersbe, Jay Therrien, and Jon Wortmann’s book Three Commitments of Leadership calls leaders to create an environment that is created to developing clarity, stability, and rhythm in the lives of their teams. As I think back on the teams that I have been a part of [...]

Earlier this week I had a conversation with a friend of mine who works to serve the church in similar ways as I.  As we spoke, we came to the mutual realization that the majority of our conversations are about one of four things: “What you are doing is really cool!” “You really need to connect with my friend ____________.” “You really should think about leaving your current church.” “You may want to consider leaving [...]

The millennial generation is here. I have written before about some of the generational struggles that are going on in churches and other organizations, and how there is a clash between the perceptions of arrogant impatience of the millenials and the boomer’s stubborn refusal to empower the next generation.  While we know that the truth lies somewhere in between the generalizations, I think it is incredibly helpful to get a better understanding of just what [...]

I am a fan of Chic-fil-A. Not only do they make a fantastic chicken sandwich, I love the culture that the company has created.  In an industry whose typical employee turnover is 107%, Chic-fil-A’s turnover is a whopping 60%.  The employees that I have experienced have always been pleasant… responding with “my pleasure” after I thank them, and genuinely seeming to enjoy their jobs.  Whether you eat chicken or not, you have to admit that [...]

Yesterday afternoon I spent some time with a some old friends talking about what I am doing with Church Simple.  During our conversation we ended up talking about how important social media is for the rising generations and how any church that intends to do effective ministry with and for the thirty and under crowd must have a social media strategy in place.  In many churches, the social media policy, like the website, is handed [...]

Full disclosure: I have a rather large man-crush on Seth Godin. That said, I think that the church could learn a good bit from his new Domino Project book, We Are All Weird.  The idea behind the book is that the bell curve that has for years defined our society is fading away, and that the “mass market” is going the way of the dinosaur.  No longer is one type of coffee, one style of [...]