Last week, I talked about how to encourage generosity at the end of the year by making growing generosity a part of your teaching ministry, and teachers need to be creative. We’ve talked about getting creative by making a Christmas Wish List for your church. It’s a way to engage the people directly with the…
Make a Christmas Wish List for Your Church
We’ve talked a lot about increasing generosity at the end of the year. As we’ve posted elsewhere, the end of the year brings challenges. You’ve got this year’s budget gaps, next year’s budget planning, end-of-the-year appeal letters—it’s a lot. On top of that, Christmas is fast approaching. There are two temptations during seasons like this…
What’s on Your Christmas Wish List?
At LeaderWorks, we are all about helping church leaders do their work. To that end, we posted a new idea for helping your church give in the final month of the year: make a Christmas Wish List for your church! Still, you deserve more than a lump of coal, so take a break and write…
Interview: Arrabon
After the events in Charlottesville in August, I came across an article by Doug Paul of Missio Alliance with a catchy and convicting subtitle: “When a Generation of Church Planters Reach Only White People” In reviewing the book The Creative Class, Paul argues (persuasively) that in creating ‘hip’ church plants, many young pastors may be inadvertently…
House Calls: A Pastor’s Guide to Talking to Donors
It’s the time of year when church leaders start to see lots of red—and it isn’t always early Christmas decorations! Many churches have deficits they need to close by year’s end. I have been there many (MANY) times. Sometimes, these gaps are relatively small. All you need is to remember to ‘double December’ and take…
Trellises and Vines
The Church is a tended vine. The metaphor runs through all of scripture, from Isaiah 5 to John 15. It’s our model for making disciples. But have we taken a moment to ask what we know about the plants themselves? Consider: Some days our churches feel very aligned with these descriptors, don’t they? We imagine…
People of the Book
We’ve made two wrong turns so far, and that’s my fault. I keep looking up from the map on my phone at the mountains surrounding us here in northern Washington state. We are looking for a retreat center in Sumas, a town that seems to be mostly small farms patched in among the forested hills….
Giving Up: More than Money
David Roseberry’s book, Giving Up, provides concrete ways to jumpstart financial giving in churches. His wisdom, gleaned from decades in ministry, gives church leaders applicable tools to do the work they need to do, which requires members of churches to be generous with their resources. So, yes, the book is about money, much as Jesus’…
Discover Israel: Behold the Man
Every week or so, we will post about one of the sites on our upcoming Israel tours for pastors and everyone. The stories of these people and places in the Bible have the power to form us, first as humans made in the image of God, but also as servant leaders who have been called…
Five Ways to Help Houston
Are you on the dry earth right now? Most of us are. But we cannot imagine the impact of Harvey. As much as the media has covered it, our minds cannot take it in. To help us truly fathom it, experts set up mind-blowing comparisons. Here are a few. It is truly unbelievable. But most…
Announcement: Giving Up is Coming Soon!
It’s Ready After years of gathering ideas, studying Scripture, preaching “The Money Talk”, collecting three decades worth of wisdom…and months of writing and re-writing, the book is finished. We took our final pass at it with our red pens and now it lives with the publisher and then onto the printer…and then I hope…to you!…
Discover Israel: King Saul, Tragic Leader
Every week or so, we’ll highlight one of the sites we’ll visit on our upcoming Israel tours for pastors or for everyone. The stories of these people and places in the Bible have the power to form us, first as humans made in the image of God, but also as servant leaders who have been…
