Five Red Flags When Interviewing
In my role at LifeWay, there are more than 500 employees in the division I am responsible to lead. As we have been looking to bring passionate people to the team who are deeply committed to our mission of serving churches in their mission of making disciples, I have been involved in a lot of […]
The Four Disciplines of Getting Things Done – Part Two
Winston Churchill famously said, “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” Execution is the hard work between designing the strategy and the results, the impact. Here are some more thoughts on the four disciplines of getting things done. 1. Focus on the wildly important (see my previous post on this discipline) […]
The Four Disciplines of Getting Things Done – Part One
A great strategy without execution is merely wishful thinking, a dream on paper that is never translated into real life. I have found that many leaders, organizations, and ministries struggle with execution, with actually getting things done. The book Four Disciplines of Execution has provided a sticky mental framework for me on leading teams to […]
How to Gracefully Kill a Church Program
Last Friday I was privileged to speak at The NINES, an online leadership conference sponsored by Leadership Network. In this five-minute video I talked about how to gracefully kill a church program. After writing Simple Church several years ago, it is one of the questions I have been most frequently asked.
Burying a Program
Since writing Simple Church with my boss Thom Rainer, a common question has been, “How can we eliminate a program or an event?” Those who ask the question often know that a program on their church calendar accomplishes very little for the Kingdom and is not aligned to the mission of their church. But they […]
Two Common Hiring Mistakes
Every hire is a risk. Every time I have hired someone or have been hired, there was a risk involved. Some argue that proven track records eliminate the risk, but in reality a great history only minimizes the risk. Even when hiring someone who has a proven track record, it is hard to separate the […]
Theology of Staffing
The great folks at The Gospel Coalition asked me to write a few articles on staffing. Here is the first one I wrote that is also posted on their website. Pastor David is perpetually frustrated, and he is self-aware enough to know it. As his church is growing, it seems he is always overwhelmed with […]
The danger of “hiring the best”
The longer I lead, the more I realize how essential the right leaders are to the success of a team, ministry, or organization. While the right leaders will overcome insufficient systems and processes, great processes and systems can never overcome ineffective leaders. The right leaders are not necessarily the “best” leaders. The “best” leaders when […]