Four Reasons Church Leadership Is Tougher Than “The Real World”
Before becoming one of the vice-presidents of LifeWay, I served on church staff teams for 17 years. I still serve as teaching pastor at a local church, but my responsibilities are far less than they were in the past. Many times I have heard businessmen in churches reference “the real world” as if those of […]
Choosing the Title of Doulos
People love job titles. One corporate executive revealed to me that to keep employees happy, her company is overly generous with titles. The title “vice president” is attached to many positions. The corporate brass knows that titles motivate people. And it is easy to give a title to someone who is willing to work longer […]
Gospel-Driven Awe
In reference to the gospel of our salvation, the apostle Peter wrote: Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that would come to you searched and carefully investigated. They inquired into what time or what circumstances the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating when He testified in advance to the messianic […]
Three Common Mistakes Pastors Make
I was recently honored to discuss leadership on a panel at the Southern Baptist Pastors Conference with Greg Matte, Rodney Woo, and Jack Graham. People submitted questions beforehand, and one of the questions that Pastor Greg sent my way was “What are the most common mistakes pastors make?” Here are three: 1. Not offering clarity Marcus […]
How To Respond When People Aren’t Responding
Church leaders have often asked me how to handle a staff or a congregation that is not exactly eager to follow pastoral leadership. How do we respond when people are not responding to our leadership? First, we must realize that leadership is not easy. It is extremely difficult. One of my mentors once told me, […]
Define Your Process
Defining your ministry process is extremely important. In our research for Simple Church, we asked vibrant church leaders and comparison church leaders to evaluate how clearly defined their ministry process is. We asked them to state their level of agreement with the following statement: “We have a clearly defined process for moving a person from salvation to […]
Is a Pastor a Leader?
Sadly in many contexts, pastors either fail to exercise leadership or are stripped of their leadership. Those who fail to lead their congregations are often content to be chaplains who feverishly run from need to need without leading the flock in a particular direction. In other cases, a local church greatly hampers the leadership of […]
Blueprint for Discipling People with Wisdom
The apostle Paul described his ministry as skillful building in response to and empowered by God’s grace. He said, “According to God’s grace that was given to me, as a skilled master builder I have laid a foundation” (1 Corinthians 3:10). In other words, the apostle Paul did not just “wing it” or “go with […]
Consistent Confession
Don’t be misled into thinking that the more you confess the further away from God you must be. The opposite is true. As your relationship with God becomes more intimate, confession is more prevalent. When Jesus gave us an example of prayer, He encouraged us to seek forgiveness: Therefore, you should pray like this: Our […]
Three Applications of the Great Exchange
In the last post from Transformational Discipleship, I discussed how Psalm 32 is an Old Testament celebration of the Great Exchange. How joyful is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! How joyful is the man the Lord does not charge with sin and in whose spirit is no deceit! When I kept […]