The Power of Consistency
The following is a guest post by Michael Kelley, director of discipleship at LifeWay Christian Resources. Imagine a leaky faucet. Regardless of how you hard you twist the knob, it still drips. One drop at a time. Incessantly – drip, drip, drip. The consistency becomes an annoyance pretty quickly. But put in the right environment […]
4 Questions to Plan Your Development
Jesus grew in wisdom, in stature, and in favor with God and man (Luke 2:52). If we look to His development as an example, we will desire mental, physical, spiritual, and relational health. We don’t seek to grow in order to earn His love, grace, or favor. His perfection is already ours, already freely given […]
4 Spheres of Personal Development
Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and with people [Luke 2:52] Jesus’ teenage years are essentially summed up in the above verse. He grew in wisdom, physically, relationally with people, and in favor with God. Christian educators have referenced the verse to show how we grow and develop across multiple spheres: […]
13 Business/Leadership Books Church Leaders Should Consider
I am frequently asked about what business/leadership books I think are helpful for church leaders to read. I think there are two polar opposites that need to be avoided when believers who lead ministries consider adding “leadership and business books” to their reading diet. On one extreme, there are people who consider it unspiritual and […]
Your Leadership Shelf Life
Leadership is always a temporary assignment—always. It is a temporary assignment because leaders do not ultimately own the teams, ministries, or organizations that they lead. They simply steward what the Lord has entrusted to their care for a season. Wise leaders embrace the temporal reality of leading, and they prepare the ministry for the future. […]
Mapping, Making, and Meshing in Ministry
In his book Die Empty, Todd Henry provides a helpful framework to plan, execute, and develop yourself as you work. He divides work into three broad categories: 1) Making: This is what many consider the actual work. It is the doing of the work. 2) Mapping: This is the planning of the work, the necessary strategic thinking that happens before […]
Enjoy Your Unique Contribution
As God’s bond servant, your service is unique. Your contribution to the Master’s kingdom and family is uniquely customized to your calling, personality, gifting, and stage of life. In other words, you administer God’s grace through your unique gifting. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace […]
Serve the Master’s Family
The bond servant chose to stay with his master because he loved him. He wanted to express his love continually through his service because service is the full extent of love. When Jesus washed His disciples’ feet, He was “show[ing] them the full extent of his love” (John 13:1 NIV). The servant’s service to the […]
Learned Helplessness and the Need for Community
Martin Seligman’s research in the 1960s on “learned helplessness” is still widely respected among psychologists. Seligman and his team placed a dog in a cage designed to receive electric shocks. When they hit the cage with a jolt of electricity, the dog jumped and yelped as expected. They waited a few minutes and shocked the […]
Why People Are Not Sharing Their Faith
For years, I have heard church leaders bemoan the reality that the majority of Christians never or rarely share their faith with unbelievers. Though declaring the good new of Jesus to others is the responsibility of every Christ-follower, few people in our churches embrace the holy assignment. Why? In his book Contagious, author and professor Jonathan […]