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Church Planting

Positional Versus Relational Authority

By Business, Church Planting, Leadership, Organizational Leadership, Team Leadership

I was sitting with a staff member recently who presented me an idea. I had reservations about the idea instantly. It was actually a “red flag” idea and I knew it. I love ideas, however, and I’m consistently encouraging our staff to dream, take risks, and improve upon what we are doing. So I listened intently and we discussed the pros and cons of the idea. The next day this staff member came back to tell me he had thought about our discussion and had changed his mind and was going a different direction. I was thrilled with “his” decision.

In that instance I used relational authority….

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Top 10 Questions about Multi-Site Announcement

By Change, Church, Church Planting, Missions

Yesterday we announced that Grace Community Church is going multi-site. We will be one church that meetings in two locations, adding our second location at Kenwood High School. (I wrote more about it HERE.)

As expected, we couldn’t answer all the questions in the time we had yesterday. This post addresses some of the most common questions I or members of the staff have received since yesterday’s announcement.

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Leading Alone is Never a Good Idea

By Business, Christians, Church Planting, Encouragement, Leadership

If you are leading a team or organization, I have some simple advice for you. This is based on years of experience. I have been guilty of trying to lead on my own. I once had the false idea that I had to lead independent of others and that if I shared my struggles with other leaders, somehow I would be less of a leader. I felt like a sign of strength was to prove that I didn’t need help, but, as many of you know, this is never true for any leader.

Even still, I have been in organizations where there was no one on my team I felt I could confide in with a weakness. If this is your case, or especially if you are the only leader:

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Exploring Coaching Network Options: Help Please

By Business, Church Planting, Leadership, Life Plan

I’m exploring options…thinking through some ways that I can invest in the current and future leadership of the church. One of the most common themes these days among leaders I admire is to start a coaching network, basically as a way to “coach” a small group of leaders for a determined period of time. I’ve never been one to copy what everyone else is doing, but I don’t want to miss opportunities either.

So I’m curious…would you help me by answering a few questions?

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The Posture of Leadership

By Business, Church Planting, Innovation, Leadership, Organizational Leadership, Vision

It’s a strange phenomenon…I’ve seen people serve in leadership roles who I don’t even think are qualified to lead, yet they are leading and people are following. And, many times, they are achieving results…

The reason is not their abilities as much as the way they have positioned or presented themselves to a group of followers.

Here’s one principle of leadership:

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Friday Discussion: Should Churches Compare Attendance Numbers?

By Christians, Church Planting, Culture

I realize there is room for debate and even disagreement on this Friday discussion post. I decided when I began this series that I would not shy away from issues only because they may appear controversial. My criteria is really issues I’m wrestling with personally or have a special interest in the discussion. Today’s post fits that category.

Should churches be comparing numbers of attendance with other churches?

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Will We Be Obedient?

By Christians, Church Planting, Encouragement, Faith, God

I am amazed at what God has done through the work of the people of Grace Community Church in the first five years. We celebrated that milestone last week, but tomorrow is a new day. The start of the next five years. As a natural dreamer, I can’t help but wonder what the next five years will bring.

The anniversary caused me to be reflective this week. I thought about some of the obedience of the people following God in Scripture:

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7 Ways to Prepare for More Effective Meetings

By Business, Church Planting, Encouragement, Leadership, Organizational Leadership, Team Leadership

Successful projects and teams require meetings to accomplish goals and objectives of the organization. Busy leaders, however, are usually somewhat anti-meetings because of the interruption they appear to be in getting actual work done. I have found, however, that much of the frustration is found in the lack of proper preparation prior to the meeting. Although, when done well, the time spent in meetings can actually make projects better and strengthen the work of the organization. A large part of making meetings better is found in the preparation prior to the meeting.

Here are 7 ways to prepare for more effective meetings:

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12 Random Things I Learned from My Time with Rick Warren

By Christians, Church, Church Planting, Encouragement, Leadership, Missions

I had an awesome opportunity a few weeks ago to spend a couple hours with Rick Warren and a dozen or so other pastors. Rick was in town to speak to a conference and Ed Stetzer arranged for him to meet with us. Obviously, this man is bigger than life just because of the book, the publicity he has received, and the impact he has in the church world and society. He is becoming a statesman for the church around the world.

It was a humbling experience. I didn’t choose the seat of honor (I promise), but I ended up sitting next to him in the meeting. Rick talked randomly and conversationally with us and I took notes as fast as I could. There are so many principles I took from our time, but here are 12 random things I gleaned from the time: (Some are quotes…I put them in quotation marks…some are random points of information I heard from Rick’s talk.)

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Criss Cross: Our Newest Staff Member at GcomChurch

By Children, Church Planting, Culture, Innovation

We have a new staff member. His name is Criss Cross. He started in the office this morning (and thankfully I’m out of town).

Criss Cross is our children’s ministries new mascot. We realize churches usually don’t have mascots, but we are passionate about reaching children for Christ. It amazes me to watch children get excited about a mascot at a ballgame. Sometimes they don’t even know a game is in progress if the mascot is nearby. I love watching their excitement interacting with a mascot.

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