Notice I did not say IF you lose confidence in yourself. I said WHEN you lose confidence in yourself. It’s going to happen. You WILL lose confidence in yourself. Multiple times over the years in fact. It is not a matter of IF but WHEN. The question is why? In my experience, Senior Pastors lose confidence in themselves when they are unable to lead their congregations to grow numerically, increase their offerings, and generate conversions. Changing Attendance is Harder Than You Think Offerings and conversions are unquestionably the easiest things to change in the life of a church. You can c ..read more

I have a friend who swears that drinking water and walking is the key to optimal health. He walks 50 miles a week and is in great shape. I have another friend who does CrossFit four times a week and claims his Paleo eating plan is the best way to stay fit. He too has the physique to prove it. I have yet another friend who claims that eating a purely vegan diet and long-distance running is the key to getting shredded. And I have another friend who eats nine small meals a day. One who swears by the Ketogenic diet. Another who has had DNA testing and is eating a meal plan perfectly suited to fit ..read more

Years ago, the brilliant church analyst Lyle Schaller noted, “…dozens of surveys have demonstrated that rapidly growing congregations tend to be churches with long pastorates, and stable or declining congregations tend to have short pastorates.” I absolutely believe that. The same argument could be made for other staff positions. In other words, the longer you stay at the church you serve, the better chance it has to (1) grow numerically year after year and (2) deepen its impact in the community . Why? You and I both know it takes years to dig a deep evangelistic foundation: Years to get to k ..read more

There are a number of factors that contribute to a church’s inability to grow beyond the 100, 200, 400 and 600 barriers. The last place anyone looks when diagnosing the problem is the first place I go: the church’s by-laws. I want to know whether or not the church is organizationally structured to facilitate growth. Usually they’re not. Leaders in these churches try lots of things to bring about growth, but find that nothing really works, blind to the fact that the reason they’re not growing has nothing to do with what they’re doing. It has everything to do with the way they’re organized. In t ..read more

If you haven’t rebranded your church in the last five years, your ministry is dated. Rebranding is one of the most worthwhile investments you can make in 2018 to increase your effectiveness in reaching people far from God. Rebranding is much more than creating a new logo – it involves identifying who you’re trying to reach, positioning them as the hero in your church’s story, and aligning everything (logo, font selection, color pallet, signage, etc.) to speak to them. Right now, there’s no church out there more in need of rebranding than ours. Our website is clunky and dated. We have this mish ..read more

Bob Goff says he makes it a habit to quit something every Thursday. I think Senior Pastors would benefit from doing this annually. There are two things I know for certain about people like you and me: We routinely do things that self-sabotage our health, emotional well-being, and ministry effectiveness. We know these things exist, but don’t address them, because we refuse to take time to catch our breath, prayerfully write them down, then drive a stake in the ground and say, “NO MORE.” Last week I finally made time. Below is my 2018 “To NOT Do” list. It’s all the things I’m NOT proud of that I ..read more

At some point – after having worked through everything you need to work through – the only way to break through your next attendance barrier is to commit yourself to what I call “a series of bold moves.” The good news is the “bold moves” I’m talking about are almost always the same for each attendance barrier. Meaning, if you can’t break the 200 barrier or the 2,000 barrier, chances are your comrades in the trenches trying to break through those same exact attendance barriers will need to commit themselves to making the same bold moves to move the congregations they serve forward. The bad news ..read more

Think of the name of a person who recently told you they’re unhappy and thinking about leaving your church. Would you believe me if I told you that that person is not an outlier? What if I told you that that person kicking up dust, threatening to leave, folding their arms in services, talking behind your back, etc., is actually following a well-established pattern of behavior that EVERY SINGLE ONE of your fellow Senior Pastors is dealing with? I’d like to take you on a tour inside the mind of a disgruntled church member. My reasoning is two-fold. First, nothing causes more stress and anxiety f ..read more

U2 just released the lead single off their upcoming album Songs of Experience (due December 1, 2017), and if the album is anything like the single, it’s going to be simply terrible. Just as bad as the album before it, Songs of Innocence, released in 2014. And just as bad as the album before that one, No Line on the Horizon, released in 2009. Not since 2004, when the album released How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, 13 long years prior, has the band produced anything that reaches out and grabs you by the throat. Don’t believe me? Name one song they’ve released in the last decade that you know by ..read more