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Innovation

Writing a Simple Life Plan, Part 3

By Encouragement, Family, Innovation, Leadership, Life Plan, Vision

This week we are writing life plans for the coming year. If you have missed the first two posts, read them HERE and HERE. My desire is that we realize all the dreams and goals we have this year. I’m convinced many of our resolutions…if we make them…are reachable with a little more intentionality and discipline. Many refuse to make resolutions, because they have repeatedly failed at keeping them. The purpose of these posts is to help you start the year on a good path towards reaching those goals.

Today we add another step.

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7 Ways to Better Ensure Your Email Gets Read

By Business, Culture, Innovation, Leadership

I’ve been having a problem with my youngest son lately. He isn’t reading all the emails he should be reading. In fact, we almost missed paying some fees he had due for college, which could have made him miss some deadlines for school. You see, Nate’s a busy college student. He’s consumed with school work, church activities, and a host of social activities. If you want to lose his attention quickly…send him a really long email.

I can’t complain, because he’s wired like me. He is always busy doing something, hates unproductive time, and some emails, if they tend to ramble, simply don’t capture his attention. I realize it’s ultimately our problem, not the sender, but it almost seems a waste of time to process an email that could have been written with the same information in a much shorter form. Just being honest…I don’t read all the long emails I need to read. Sometimes I miss details, because the email was too long to process.

That’s my honesty….I’m working on it…but lately it seems I’m getting a ton of chapter length emails and it prompted me to think through this issue. If you want me to read your email…and people wired like me, here are some suggestions. In fact, if you simply want to make sure your emails are read, regardless of who you email, consider these thoughts.

Here are 7 ways to ensure your email gets read:

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3 Places to Find New Church Leaders

By Church, Church Planting, Church Revitalization, Innovation, Leadership, Organizational Leadership

I was working with a church recently that is facing a growth barrier. They have experienced rapid growth and now the staff is stretched beyond what they can do. There are holes of responsibilities not being filled. My opinion…and they agree…is that they can’t continue growing unless something changes.

The “genius” suggestion I gave them is that they must rise up new leaders, empower them with authority, and spread the load of responsibility. The obvious question: Where do we find these people?

Great question!

I suggested they look for three types of people:

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The Best Leaders Give Their Vision Away

By Business, Innovation, Leadership, Organizational Leadership, Vision

When we planted our church I had a vision. It was actually a ten-year old vision. The vision was broad. I felt God wanted to have a church that reached people where they were, not with rules to perform to for approval, but with unconditional love and grace. I recruited a co-pastor who could share that vision. I recruited a core team who could own that vision as their own. My co-pastor and I recruited a worship leader who believed the vision. Then step-by-step we began to give away our vision.

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