word | spirit | world | church
The challenge I didn’t describe in my previous piece of developing leaders, and especially those nearest to my own heart—Ephesians 4 teachers, doctors of the church, pastor-theologians, or whatever you want to call them—was the challenge of recognising them. How do you recognise those that you should invest time and energy into and ‘develop’ in… Continue reading Recognising Leaders
The most undertrained group in churches are elders. Most church elders are not on staff at their churches. That’s not just thinking about very small churches that can’t pay one of their elders, but most eldership teams are going to be majority non-employed by their churches. As an aside, don’t call these guys ‘lay elders’… Continue reading Elders & Training
Throughout the Bible, people lead. Whether they are judges, kings, or prophets, they lead the people of God by showing them a direction in which to go. Leading is good. Leading is required, for without it we are like sheep gone astray, crying for a shepherd and prone to false ones. Churches need direction (even… Continue reading Lead vs Leader vs Leadership
I recently read Danny Webster’s response to the report into Mike Pilavachi’s abusive leadership. Pilavachi’s fall has rocked the charismatic evangelical world here in the UK. He was a strangely unifying figure who cut across streams and denominations. His abuse was longstanding and covered up by the charity’s trustees. Like many I attended Soul Survivor… Continue reading Leadership Development needs to go somewhere
Lots of churches run leadership development programmes of one sort or another, but is that a good idea? I used to operate graduate development programmes for Rolls-Royce, while there I was involved with redesigning the early career leadership development programme which was at the time award-winning and worked across eleven different countries. It’s been seven… Continue reading 7 Leadership development principles
Church isn’t supposed to be hard work. I know you don’t believe me, but it’s not. So often I meet people in churches I’ve been involved in or from elsewhere who are working incredibly hard for Jesus. It’s laudable but it rarely looks to me like the Way of Jesus. Jesus taught a way of… Continue reading The Martyr Complex
A much more experienced writer than me recently gave me some writing advice about editors: He suggested that you don’t always need to make the changes editors suggest—and every writer breathes a sigh of dramatic relief. But you do need to assume that they have spotted something that’s wrong and that section or idea needs… Continue reading Leading is Editing
I’ve worked in a global corporate company and in some large public sector institutions. Every one of them has gone through some sort of major change programme while I was there. It’s the nature of the beast, nothing is perfect so every five years or so it gets reinvented—usually fixing a real problem by creating… Continue reading Leading Change
Leadership is a useless concept and we should stop talking about it. Ok, so that was a confirmed clickbait opener. I don’t really think that. I’ve designed and run award-winning worldwide leadership programmes for a household brand. I don’t think that was pointless. I’ve run leadership development programmes for a church too. I don’t think… Continue reading Against Leadership
What is discipleship? This is one of those perennial questions that get’s thrown around by those in some sort of ministry. We’re all in favour, and we’re very happy to call a lot of things ‘discipleship’, but what is it? Maybe it’s easier to start with what it isn’t. It’s not going and having a… Continue reading On Discipleship
nuakh 