I was only twenty-one years old as I stood reading a copy of the letter from my Executive Director. It was addressed to one of the key supporters of our ministry whom he wanted me to visit. Reading the last line I said to my wife, “I’m not going on this trip. I’m afraid I will not live up to…
If you have ever served on an organized, highly proficient, united team then you are extremely blessed! Unfortunately, too many of you have had experience with the dark side of leadership teams: the kind that are disjointed and unproductive. We have all been there on these teams (I use the term loosely). Just being in a meeting with this group…
If you are like me you try to read as many articles, blogs and books as possible but just cannot catch all of them. “In Case You Missed It” is my way of pointing out a few “reads” that I think are too good to miss. At Last, A Millennial Segmentation - Carol Phillips Millennials are the most diverse…
It was a simple illustration. Or so I thought. I never dreamed of it being a difficult concept to communicate. But I could tell by the blank stares I was not getting though. I repeated the words again thinking that a little more emphasis would aid with the communication…still nothing. I promise to finish this story but first let me…
Ministry linguistics, as I addressed it in last week’s post Ministry Linguistics: Connecting Core Concepts, may be as simple as communicating how two concepts are supportive of each other. However, sometimes the issue is not comparing concepts: it is clarifying terms. If while talking about your favorite sporting event or high school memory, students look at you as if…
This past fall I read The Digital Handshake, Seven Proven Strategies to Grow Your Business Using Social Media by Paul Chaney. Most of you reading this post are in ministry rather than business, but I believe this book can benefit your ministry as it has mine. Ministry is about people, so I am not suggesting you treat students or leaders…
Okay, so you probably read the report in USA Today (Wednesday) released by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The headline on page one read “Kid’s digital day: Almost 8 hours.” It appears that the time spent with media for kids 8-18 has increased by 79 minutes in the last decade bringing it to 53 hours a week. So…what does all this…
I was stunned . . . did she realize what she was asking? How could a caring, loving person be so cruel? I don’t believe I am addicted or that I really spend as much time as she thinks on my Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, FiledBy or texting communications tools…do I? Just before Christmas my wife asked me if I would…
Autonomous (capable of independent function) Youth Ministry - Part 4 Highly-effective youth ministries also have a parent ministry focus. The home should be the primary resource for spiritual training; however, we all know there are many spiritually-deficient homes. Is it our responsibility to be surrogate parents and take the place of their parents or are we to work in tandem?…