Years ago, there was a humungous machine at the World’s Fair. This machine had smoke, levers, and gears, in addition to it making noise. It drew a lot of attention as the people stood in amazement to see this huge contraption belching smoke, churning gears, and making noise. Somebody leaned over to the main engineer, [...]
I may be concerned about many things, but I am responsible but for a few. Place your energies towards the few. Do you know what YOU are responsible for? Over the years, I have been plagued by what I viewed as illogical and poor decision making by ministries that I had no responsibility for in [...]
Let’s imagine for a moment that you are at an off-site event with a set of kids and volunteers. You are at a gas station filling up the 15-passenger van when an individual that you have never met before walks up to you. He boldly thrusts out his hand, shakes your hand vigorously, and says [...]
Remember the promises and remind volunteers that there is an inheritance kept in heaven for you. As humans, we all respond to rewards. We are motivated both intrinsically and extrinsically, and God knows that. God is a God of rewards, but I think we often forget that God has truly incentivized serving and sacrificing for [...]
Over the years, I have been guilty of spending an inordinate amount of time on the front end of a task or project. I sometimes live by the old adage “kill two birds with one stone.” Instead of only completing the task or project, I also create a system to make completing future tasks or [...]
Years ago, our team decided to undertake a massive endeavor and recreate and redesign all our brochures. Now, you may think in your mind that this was a simple task. But it was not a simple task. We started from scratch and it took us a little over a year to effectively craft what we [...]
I think an important value that we should subscribe to in a ministry setting is excellence. For far too long, I have seen quality take a back seat to expediency. Getting it done has eclipsed getting it done well. Over the years it has been a sad stain on so many ministries to see them [...]
Over the years I have been friends with many carpenters. For some reason, God has placed many different individuals in the construction industry in my life. I hung out with them and I sought to try to learn their trade, really to no avail. I’m just not a handy guy! Regardless, I learned something very [...]
I’ve been in ministry for long enough to understand that when someone hurts another person it’s often because they themselves are hurting. When someone seeks to hurt you as the pastor, either consciously or subconsciously, there is often something deeper at play. The issue is not the issue. What they are presenting is likely not the [...]