When You Succeed, Look Out the Window

Healthy leaders understand who helped them, who supported them, and who got them to the victory that they are reveling in now. I seek to create teams. I seek to build people and create processes. Interestingly enough, when I have a victory, it is never a victory that I have won on my own. Only

Treat Your Volunteers

Treat your volunteers as if they were the staff team you want to have in five years. Many, many years ago the senior leadership in my church asked me to take on the Director of Children’s Ministry role. As I prayed about accepting this role, I realized that I knew about some details of this

Vulnerability is the Key to Community

Everybody wants community. We were created to be in community. Isolation is one of the worst forms of punishment that can ever be executed upon a human being. Solitary confinement is torture. There is beauty and health and healing found in community. If community is a beautiful treasure and a prize behind a locked door,

To Excel at Long Suffering, One Must First Suffer Long

In children’s ministry - or in any ministry for that matter - perseverance and long suffering are part of the package. There is a hard labor of love that comes in ministry. There are people who will intentionally, or unintentionally, seek to hurt and harm. I need to suffer those insults. Being in children’s ministry

Those who Say and Those who Do

We’ve often heard individuals share at length, droning on and on and on, about what they would like to see happen and yet those items never come to fruition. They never truly see the light of day and we never see those items being executed. Before long, those who are following such a leader begin

The Whole Thing is about the Gospel

Early in children’s ministry, a wise leader warned me that the detail and disorder and drama that comes with the sheer volume of tasks needed to run a children’s ministry can quickly eclipse the Gospel. The whole point of recruiting is to further the Gospel. The whole point of having a well-staffed nursery is to

The Hand of the Diligent will Rule

The book of Proverbs shares this wonderful statement and I think we all need to listen deeply to its wisdom. “If you work with a diligent hand you will find yourself in charge. If you work with a slack hand you will be put to forced labor by others.” I don’t know about you but

The Best Path Forward is a Great History

If you are new in ministry, you want to begin creating a wonderful history of excellence and execution right now. When you start your job, the last thing you want to do is to create for your employer a memory bank of less than excellent work. You want to dominate right from the get go.

Smile More

I think one of the most important leadership principals that we can ever adopt is simply to smile more. Now if you are a librarian, my apologies, but I have a concept that I call a Yes Face and a Librarian Face. The Yes Face The Yes Face is someone who is vibrant and inviting.

Simply Say Thanks

It blows my mind how many leaders don’t understand the value of appreciation. Appreciation can come in many forms, but I want to speak right now to simply saying thank you. It's a simple phrase that we were taught at a very young age — thank you. Over the years, I have been completely blown