Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens; building teams, collaboration, and developing leaders, these are a few of my favorite things.

I wonder how many people are actually enjoying this forced stay-at-home season so they don’t have to feel guilty saying no or not showing up. We’ve been known to ask way too much of people. They keep trying and trying, doing and attending, but then life catches up and they feel like they can't ever keep up with our expectations. They feel deflated.

As recently as January of this year, I was asked, “Do you think you’ll ever be an Executive Pastor again?” Without hesitation, I replied, “No, I really don’t see it. I’m enjoying what I’m doing too much.” I can’t explain it or pinpoint it, but that began to change a couple months ago. Something was awakening deep inside me that others noticed before I did.

You've all met the fool. At times they are fun to work with, but other times they suck the life out of the team because of the way they respond to feedback. When a fool runs an organization, people just stop trying to offer feedback, as they know it's futile.

The coronavirus is a new reality and whether your church has 18, 180, or 18,000 every week, your leadership should focus some time on talking about how to help your congregations both practically and spiritually face the fears and realities of this virus.

Lately, Faith and I have been learning more about this amazing tool called the Enneagram. “What if we could find a marriage coach who used the language of the Enneagram to help us understand each other better?” Through a few months of searching, we found @EnneagramAndMarriage on Instagram, and last fall we went through a program led by its’ author and founder.

My friend Mark is sick. He is in a fight for his life and needs your prayers.

For the first 3 years of our marriage, our nest was empty. For the past 26 years, 4 months and 19 days, we’ve been in full-on parenting mode. That all ended last Thursday when we dropped our youngest off for college…

I’ve conducted well over 1,000 interviews and consulted hundreds of organizations. Here are some common mistakes I see managers making when conducting interviews…

As an introvert, I get my best work done sitting on an airplane, in a hotel lounge, or sitting in the backseat of a stranger’s car—surrounded by people, but alone. Recently, though, I was in the back of a Lyft car and instead of pulling out my computer like I wanted to do, I kept it in my backpack and I talked to her. What I learned was invaluable.

Recently, I sat down with my friend Mark Waltz, who facilitates personal life coaching every week, and asked him a few questions…

Transitions are difficult. Emotions can run high. But so much is at stake, we must get this right.

No pastor ever plans to blow up his or her church. Until they do.

I’m pulling together two leaders for one-week of training for lead pastors. We are limiting this to 25 pastors, and the slots are already filling up. Don’t miss this opportunity!

Imagine a pastor who serves faithfully at a church for 20 or 30 or 40 years, and is well-loved by the congregation. Then in their final months when engaging conversations about succession, feelings get hurt, things are said in the emotion of a moment, and they leave their church feeling dejected and pushed out.

When a pastor is retiring or transitioning, and a successor is being considered--there are typically three common types of transition. Sometimes a church can strategically choose--other times the decision is thrust upon them and pre-determined outside the control of the leaders. But those transitions typically fall into one of these categories …

We’ve already acknowledged that pastoral succession is the elephant in the room of many church elder or board meetings. So what is the right time to begin talking about succession? Let’s look at seven signs.

Succession is the elephant in the room of every church with a pastor that is in their mid-50’s or older. The pastor doesn’t want to bring it up too soon, because he or she fears that the just mentioning the word will bring it on faster than they would like. And the Board or Elders don’t want to bring it up, because they don’t want to give any indication they are trying to push the pastor out.

It’s time to quit being frustrated by people’s irregular attendance and embrace it! Churches that are winning are finding ever-better ways to keep their members engaged even when they aren’t there in person.

In whatever method you find to “do” church – it can be both missional and attractional. It can be about both sending and gathering. It can be about equipping your people to be a difference in their homes and workplaces. And it can also be about putting on an attractive weekend service that makes it easy for your members to invite the people they care about the most.