Articles for tag: church leadership

July 1, 2022

Doug Crozier

Make Sure You and Your Ministry Are Healthy

By Doug Crozier You can’t avoid it. The health of your ministry is tied to your personal and professional health. Many leaders (me included) have learned this lesson too late; we continue to push harder because we passionately want to grow God’s kingdom. Working hard is one thing; overworking is another. Since transitioning from the corporate world almost 30 years ago, I have dedicated my life and ministry to the Restoration Movement. It was a big change, but I have never regretted it. After many periods of burnout in my life, I began to develop a plan to break these

May 1, 2022

Michael C. Mack

Online Attendance: The Exception or the Rule?

You may notice changes in our 2021_Church_Report. We’ll blame COVID-19—at least partially. It’s the fashionable thing to do these days . . . and the pandemic has had a huge impact. Before 2020 and coronavirus, online streaming of worship services was the exception rather than the rule for many churches. A 2019 Lifeway Research study showed that 22 percent of churches were streaming their services at that time. But within months of the start of the pandemic in early 2020, 97 percent of churches were providing some form of online services. The exception became the rule and vice versa. Before

May 1, 2022

Tyler McKenzie

Tyler McKenzie

‘Continuous Partial Attention’: The Impact of Smartphones on Us, Our Kids, and Our Faith

By Tyler McKenzie In a punchy scene from Gulliver’s Travels, the Lilliputians (the little people) think Gulliver’s clock is his god because he keeps checking it. After interrogating him, the Lilliputians conclude the following: “And we conjecture it is either some unknown animal, or the god that he worships; but we are more inclined to the latter opinion, because he assured us . . .  that he seldom did any thing without consulting it. He called it his oracle, and said, it pointed out the time for every action of his life.” Already, in 1727, author and Irish clergyman Jonathan

March 1, 2022

Tyler McKenzie

Tyler McKenzie

Healing Our Emotions After Two Years of Trauma

By Tyler McKenzie A pressing need exists for the church to focus discipleship efforts on emotional health, which is something the church rarely touches. It’s been over two years since COVID-19 first shut down the United States. Since then, leading a church has felt similar to being a frontline worker. I won’t pretend that our challenges have rivaled those of an emergency room doctor or a COVID-unit nurse. Still, pastoring a church has felt like a heavyweight boxing match that never ends. There has been heavy pressure, many needs, and relentless controversies. We have felt constantly embattled in fights we

March 1, 2022

Renee Little

Finding Authenticity

Finding Authenticity in the Middle

By Renee Little Recently I couch shopped for an entire weekend. My two young boys “test drove” every couch by bouncing from one to another. (It’s a good thing couches cannot experience fear.) I was more careful during this search than on a previous couch-shopping expedition. This time, before I would even sit on one to try it out, I read the tags to verify the couch was made from genuine leather. You see, I once made the mistake of buying a “pleather” couch; it was nice at first, but soon cracks and chips appeared. I was not making that

January 1, 2022

Doug Crozier

Building a Leadership Pipeline

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-13). As 2020 started, the church in America was already coping with issues ranging from racial tensions to gay marriage, all while competing with sports for a family’s attention on Sunday mornings. Then COVID-19 arrived in full

January 1, 2022

Wes Beavis

‘Lead Like You Are the Colorado River’

If not for the obstacles standing in the way of the Colorado River, there would be no Grand Canyon. Without these natural barriers, the river would not have created dramatic ravines, horseshoe bends, and whitewater rapids. Instead of a Grand Canyon, we would have a “Grand Trench.” How awe-inspiring would that be? Not very. If I could give any counsel to Christians and ministry leaders in today’s world, it would be this: Lead like you are the Colorado River. Anticipate impediments to your progress. Don’t expect the way to be free and clear of obstacles. No matter what the barrier,

September 1, 2021

David Roadcup

Elders Who Disciple: One Key to an Effective Church

In his book Disciple, Juan Carlos Ortiz says the greatest problem facing the church today is “the perpetual childhood of the believer.” The fact that most of our churches are made up of spiritually immature believers is a major issue to the church fulfilling her mission. This extreme lack of spiritual development continually cripples the dynamic advancement of our churches. We will never take our cities for Christ if the vast number of our people remain at a “kindergarten” level of spiritual growth and maturity. This deep and widespread problem can be attributed, more than anything else, to the lack

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