Off the Agenda: Conversations for Building Church Leaders

One of our soon-to-come training tools is called Caring for Church Workers, which helps churches know how to support their staff and volunteers. As a sneak preview, here's a short excerpt from an interview we've included in the tool. Lee Dean spoke with Doug Fagerstrom, president of Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and author of Ministry Staff Member and The Volunteer.

How important is delegating and releasing church workers?

We need to know what we're releasing them to. Sometimes leaders are guilty of catch and release, which is a fishing term. I recruit you and release you to ministry but I don't touch you again. There needs to be a coming alongside. I need to be praying for you, engaged with you, evaluating with you. I need to be asking you good questions about your ministry. "Do you need help? Do you need more people or fewer? Do I need to be sharing with the rest of the organization what you're doing?" We need to release you, but not so released that we cut the line.

Continue reading "Caring for Church Workers"...

Every church faces tough decisions. Perhaps one of the most highly publicized examples this year was the controversy at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church over its new pastor, Tullian Tchividjian.

We want to compile stories about dilemmas like this from around the country. Then we'll turn those stories into case studies that can help church leaders learn how to work through their own ministry dilemmas.

But to do this, we need the help of our readers. So we're asking all of you to email us (BCL at christianitytoday.com) if you know about a case in which a church worked through a difficult decision. Since such situations are often very sensitive, we ask you to be careful about any names and details you choose to give us (we will be doubly careful on our end). But any lead is helpful—even if you only know the name of a pastor that you think we should talk to.

We're especially interested in cases that touch on the following two issues:

Continue reading "A Call for Case Studies"...

Tim Avery is the associate editor of BuildingChurchLeaders.com.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner. It's a good time to try the exercise below—in a board meeting, small group, staff retreat, Sunday school class, ministry team, or other small group setting.

This activity takes its cue from the words of thanksgiving in Paul's prayer for the Philippian Christians. Paul began by thanking God for his fellow believers, thus deepening his connection with them in the most foundational way. When believers today follow his example, expressing thanks for one another, the bond among them also grows stronger.

Exercise

1. Read Philippians 1:3-8 aloud.

2. Explain to group members that you'll use the next 30 to 45 minutes simply expressing thanks for each member. When we affirm fellow Christians, we honor God, who has placed these people in our lives.

Continue reading "Thankful Connections"...

At the TAG Consulting Leaders Forum in Scottsdale, Arizona, this week, noted Christian leader Leighton Ford spoke on how to move from crazed busyness to focused attentiveness. Leighton is president of Leighton Ford Ministries. For 30 years he served as associate evangelist and later vice president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. His newest book is The Attentive Life: Discerning God's Presence in All Things (InterVarsity, 2008).

In introducing Leighton, Jim Osterhaus pointed out that Leighton has been at the forefront of 4 major church movements of the past 50 years: mass evangelism (with BGEA), reclaiming the social dimensions of the gospel (with Lausanne), the study of leadership (with Arrow Leadership Program), and now the reintroduction to evangelicalism of the good of contemplative living (his books).

Continue reading "The Forgotten Art of Attentiveness"...