Articles for tag: Strategic Planning

Colleges & Seminaries Organizations & Events

Emmanuel Awarded Pathways for Tomorrow Grant from Lilly Endowment

A Lilly Endowment grant will support efforts by Emmanuel Christian Seminary at Milligan University in addressing challenges that limit prospective students and underrepresented populations from attending and graduating.

August 22, 2019

THE BIG CHALLENGE FACING SMALL CHURCHES (6): Elders Wanted

By Matt Johnson If many people with leadership gifts and experience attend your church, then your pool of potential leaders is deep. If your church is comprised of people who have little leadership experience or skill, you’re facing a completely different situation. You may have great workers with great hearts, but you may not have competent leaders. It is possible this dynamic contributes to the size of the church. How can the small church cope with a dearth of potential leaders? My response is mostly anecdotal. The church I served until recently, Levittown Christian Church, is in a lower-middle-class, blue-collar

August 22, 2019

Jim Estep

Leading through Rural Church Challenges

By Jim Estep When I hear the word rural, I have flashbacks to my childhood. Not because I was raised on a farm, but because I watched Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, and The Beverly Hillbillies while growing up. I found those shows humorous, but they weren’t documentaries of life in rural America. Elders in rural congregations face many challenges their counterparts in urban and suburban churches do not, but country churches can be very vibrant and successful. Declining Population The rural population has declined over several generations. It’s common for once lively rural communities to now be half their previous

May 17, 2018

Kent E. Fillinger

Special Church Report Part 2: Large and Medium Churches

By Kent Fillinger This month, the focus is on large churches (average worship attendance of 500 to 999) and medium churches (250 to 499 weekly) from our annual church survey. If you missed the May issue on megachurches and emerging megachurches, you can read it online to get caught up. Next month, I’ll conclude this series with a report on small churches (averaging 100 to 249 weekly) and very small churches (fewer than 100) and share the first-ever recorded data on these two church sizes. Here are some stats and stories that show the major themes that emerged for large

December 29, 2017

Money & Debt Stewardship & Generosity

The Church Budget Shouldn”t Be This Hard!

How to Build an Effective Church Budget and Choose the Right Tool By Chris Boue Building a church budget can be hectic and complicated. Even if everyone agrees on how much the church should spend 12 months in advance, technical and administrative issues always seem to crop up. We send files back and forth, miss important email attachments, and lose track of the “right” version of that Excel file or tab. These types of problems can give everyone a bad case of heartburn. You know the budget process is going poorly when you hear statements such as, “I”ll just put

June 1, 2016

Church & Ministry Leadership Development

Perfectly Executing the Wrong Vision

By Jim Tune In his acclaimed book Why Smart Executives Fail, Sydney Finkelstein describes a fictional situation about a meticulously planned military operation. In his scenario, a special forces unit moves in with devastating efficiency and successfully accomplishes every objective; the forces kill or capture everyone in the base they were attacking. The unit suffered very few casualties. There was only one problem. The target they had attacked and captured belonged to friendly forces. Central command launched a massive investigation to figure out what went wrong. Several missteps were eventually identified. Operational protocols were reviewed, changed, and corrected. The only

May 8, 2016

Church & Ministry Church Leadership Pastoral Transitions & Succession

First Look Inward (Part 1: The Person)

By Gary Johnson The interior world of the outgoing leader is a key factor to transitions that succeed. While each of us knows about different kinds of journeys, I”m exploring a journey that is unique. This journey involves Christians in a local church or parachurch organization, and it is called succession. It happens when the senior leader leaves and a new leader arrives in his place. Just as every person in the plane, on the train, or in the car travel together, this journey involves everyone in the particular church or parachurch organization. Succession involves more than one minister leaving

September 21, 2015

Rethinking What I”m Doing

By Jennifer Johnson I don”t know what it”s like to grow from boyhood to manhood or, for that matter, to spend four days wandering through Angeles National Forest. However, one part of my conversation with Dane Johnson about Christ”s Church of the Valley“s new Leadership USA program did resonate with me. (Read the related article.) “The guys explore whether they are a doer, a thinker, or a feeler,” he told me, “and they learn that each one is valuable. If you don”t fill your role, the team suffers.” I agree with the idea that each type is important, but after

July 15, 2015

Church & Ministry Leadership Development

Ian DiOrio’s Thought Leaders

We asked 35 Christian leaders, “Who is the influencer with the biggest impact on your life and ministry?” Most of these leaders listed severalÂ influential thinkers, writers, innovators, and leaders more of us should get to know. This response is fromÂ Ian DiOrio, lead pastor of Yucaipa (California) Christian Church. ________ Doug Parks and Bart Rendel started Intentional Churches in 2013 after lengthy stints on the leadership teams at Canyon Ridge Christian Church and Central Christian Church in Las Vegas, Nevada. Their vision is to create a movement of like-minded churches who learn, use, and collaborate about the best practices of growing

July 20, 2014

Christian Living

Time Pout

By Janet McMahon (From our series “The Best or Worst Advice I”ve Ever Received.”) Some of the best advice I ever received was from my friend, mentor, and then boss, Jon Ferguson, one of the founding pastors of Community Christian Church in Naperville, Illinois. As one of the kids” ministry directors, I remember complaining to Jon that there was not enough time in the day to do all the urgent things that needed to be done. I never had enough time to strategically plan, pray, and think about the future of the ministry I was entrusted with. (Sigh . .

June 22, 2014

Confessions of a Mission Statement Cynic

By Eddie Lowen I would not trade””for anything””the experience of seeing what happened with our team when we united around the words of our vision and mission. For a long time, I was a skeptic and contrarian regarding church mission statements. To my eye, nearly all were synonymous, so why bother? Besides, isn”t the church”s mission already expressed in Scripture? Jesus said he came to seek and save the lost. He commissioned his followers to preach the good news to everyone. His words are clear and compelling. Best of all, using the words of Jesus does not require several days

May 11, 2013

Church & Ministry Church Leadership Pastoral Transitions & Succession

One Life at a Time

By Kent E. Fillinger Ralph Mehrens served as senior minister at Calvary Christian Church in Bellevue, Nebraska, for 25 years. Mehrens wanted to transition well, so he planned a 15-month succession process and laid a strong foundation to help the congregation follow the next minister. Scott Beckenhauer transitioned from an eight-year youth ministry with the church to the lead minister position in 2008. “I knew the church family and they knew me, so the trust was already built,” said Beckenhauer, who became only the third lead minister in Calvary”s 42-year history. Attendance declined slightly as Beckenhauer gained his footing the

January 6, 2013

Church & Ministry Small Groups

How Do You Define Your Leadership? Gene Appel

By Gene Appel Others tell me that I”m a visionary pastor whose personal leadership style is collaborative, empowering, and team-oriented. I love to get the right people and right systems working right. I believe that with God”s touch, great things can happen. Several years ago a leadership consultant studied me and defined me as a “catalyzing leader.” I am motivated by problems and love to build teams, cast vision, and solve problems that have kingdom implications. I like to pull key leaders and influencers together to prayerfully dream and consider what God is calling our church to do and be.

August 28, 2012

Michael C. Mack

What”s the Point of Your Small Group?

By Michael C. Mack Why does your small group exist?Â What”s your purpose? What are your goals? Bill Willits, director of group life at North Point Community Church, Alpharetta, Georgia, tells what happened when that church first began meeting in the convention center in Atlanta. The electronic marquee that thousands of people would see every day advertised the church as “No Point Church.” The sign engineer could not fit the entire name on the marquee, so he took some creative liberties. Of course, Willits says, this became the joke of the night, but it also provided Andy Stanley an opportunity

January 16, 2012

What”s a Leader to Do?

By Steve Hayner Here are a few activities that will help leaders guideÂ organizational culture with a skillful hand. Be Attentive and Assess Leaders need to be aware of what is happening within their organizations at all levels. They need to have an ear to the ground. They need to notice the details of life around them as it is being lived. They need to ask questions and then listen carefully to the answers. I am amazed at how oblivious I can be. I get distracted by the vision before me, or by the immediate tasks at hand, and neglect

April 11, 2010

Megachurches: The First 100 Days

By Kent Fillinger In business and in politics, much is made of a leader”s first 100 days in a new role. With 25 years of ministry experience, Gene Appel had a plan as he transitioned from Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago to Eastside Christian Church in Southern California on October 1, 2008. Appel”s plan was simple: focus on getting to know his new staff, their strengths, and the key influencers in the church; preach well; and prepare for a fantastic Christmas. Catalytic Appel really wanted Eastside”s Christmas services to be a catalytic energizer for the church. In those

March 24, 2010

Interview with Jerry Harris and Rodney Roberts

By Brad Dupray In his 11 years as senior pastor at The Crossing, a five-campus church with a home base in Quincy, Illinois, Jerry Harris has seen the church grow from 230 to more than 4,000. That growth did not come without challenges, but The Crossing is “clicking on all cylinders” and a year ago was listed as the fastest-growing megachurch in the United States among those in Christian Standard”s megachurch issue. A large part of The Crossing”s success can be attributed to the relationship Jerry has established with his elders. Jerry, along with Rodney Roberts, an elder at The

June 3, 2009

Money & Debt Stewardship & Generosity

Much More Important Than Money

By Mark A. Taylor Why do some committees work well, while others only spin their wheels? Why do some groups of elders lead effectively while others baffle with their poor choices or inability to decide? Why are some colleges, missions, and similar ministries directed into effective futures by their trustees while others only tread water? Whole books have been written to answer questions like those, but insight from an unlikely source bears some attention. The article appeared April 25 in The Wall Street Journal. In his column, “The Intelligent Investor,” Jason Zweig discussed a host of bad decisions made by

March 8, 2009