Category: Leadership
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Budget for Contingencies
After working with several churches recently I found an interesting trend that I wanted to share. As we were preparing budgets for the upcoming year, we found that most of the churches initial draft contained most of the line items from the previous year with an adjustment for the upcoming year. While this is exactly…
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Who Runs Your Church?
Pastor, Who runs your church? Now I know the ‘churchy’ answer is God, and ultimately that is entirely correct. Without God at the head of our churches we are nothing more than a social club. What I am asking here is who controls your church church. I’ve met with far too many pastors who, while…
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Jumpstart 2012
It’s hard to believe, but 2011 is almost over. As I say every year, it seems that 2011 just started a few months ago. Time is definitely flying by. Having a few days off for the Christmas Holiday was great. Not only did it allow me to slow down for a bit, but I also…
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Spending time with family or Investing time with family?
Jon Acuff recently posted a very thought provoking blog post about the time we all spend with family. If you don’t follow Jon’s blog or on Facebook, I’d strongly encourage it. In the post, he uses an illustration that many of us believe that our physical presence is enough. In some way, we convince ourselves…
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In Tune With the Vision
I recently met with a pastor who was describing their church. I immediately drew an image in my mind that illustrated their operation. I couldn’t wait to get back to the office and describe. See Below: The Senior Pastor, had a vision, told people about it, but really was doing nothing to articulate how to…
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Prefers Traditional Music…
I was perusing through a list of churches seeking pastors and saw a job description with those three words, “Prefers Traditional Music”. I know the debate over traditional vs. contemporary worship will continue to divide this side of heaven. However, what does it say about the openness of your church by making that statement?
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Pursuing Excellence
Yesterday a Godly leader shared a message at Bethel Baptist Church. Norris Price share a message on pursuing excellence and how God deserves nothing less than our pursuit of excellence. He shared about how are nature is to accept good enough and settle for mediocrity because many times, excellence is hard. He defined excellence as…
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Church Accounting Internal Controls
I just received a link to a news article in the Gaston Gazette from a friend about a couple that embezzled $200,000 from their church. [quote] Oh, that won’t happen to us, Mrs. Smith has been keeping our books for years and she is such a nice lady.[/quote] Unfortunately, that’s what this church thought as…
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The Real Cost of Free
One of the greatest fallacies in our culture is the perception of ‘free’. That simple word sounds so good to people, yet few realize that it is actually a misnomer. There really is nothing free. (Except salvation through Jesus Christ, but even that cost Jesus his life.) Every time something is offered for free, someone,…
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Success Analysis for Churches
I had the chance to talk on a local radio show this afternoon. We went into the show expecting to talk about independence but the topic quickly moved to churches and effectively managing change. It was interesting that we were able to cover several topics in relation which were all things I had been processing…