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.

It’s not that people aren’t pursuing their faith. There is a growing percentage of people of faith in our communities who love God the best they know how—they just see the church as completely irrelevant. It does not even cross their minds to go to a church service to figure out the next spiritual step they should take.

It felt like every week had to be better than the week before. Like a hamster on a wheel, the amazing series or event or production that we did last month or last year is gone all too quickly, and the only lasting impact is that now we have to do better on the next one.

Each new model tells us why the way we are doing church isn’t working or isn’t good enough. We are told how all the previous model were fads and the newest one is going to replace all of them. We are told we need to change everything, go back to the drawing board and do something different—because everything we’ve done in the past was misguided, ineffective and possibly even sinful.

If you don’t take care of yourself, you will not be very helpful to the people around you. You will be worthless to those you are trying to help. You will snap, respond in anger, judge too quickly, lean too much on truth when a bit more love is needed.

When the organization is in a season of health, you rarely have to consciously decide where your loyalty lies. But when the organization is unhealthy or in a season of dysfunction—you may have to decide multiple times a day: Where is my loyalty? Who is my first team?

What if, instead of wrapping up who I am in my identity, I wrapped up my identity in who I am. What if people knew me as someone who is honest? Someone who listens. Someone who is kind. What if I was known as someone who will be there when life crashes down around you?

"Discipleship" is a buzz word that every pastor and church leader is familiar with. Every pastor is leaning in to figure out what it is, how to measure it, and what they are responsible for. But I wonder if sometimes we over-complicate the issue.

You have one job – make your boss a success. Take a step this week with one of these six suggestions.

It’s oh so easy to throw it all away. In a nanosecond. In one poor choice. One wrong decision. The decades that it took to build a reputation of trust and integrity and right living…poof. It can be gone in a second.