elementals: quick reads to sharpen your leadership edge.

2 min

Is It Time For The Searchlight?

Last week I wrote about vulnerability…you can read it here. But I want to hammer on this a little more. And here’s why. I have seen too m...

3 min

Vulnerability & Leadership

The organizational behavior philosopher Charles Handy made reference to an exercise known as the Johari Window. The Johari exercise offer...

2 min

Community in a Time of Covid

About 35 years ago, the Journal of Community Psychology featured a landmark article by David McMillan and David Chavis outlining four fou...

3 min

We Have the Meats!

Leaders and pastors, have you ever heard this?: “When are we going to get the deep teaching here? When am I going to get some meat?” An...

2 min

Circumstances and Leadership

This whacked-out 2020 year is a case study in how circumstances can upend organizations and their leaders: how they function, how they fu...

2 min

Leaders Get Ripped Off. So?

In doing ministry that is geared toward serving, generosity, and giving away resources, some churches get concerned that they might get r...

2 min

The (Not-So) Secret Weapon of the Church

For some unknown reason, I recently stumbled across a 60-year old interview with Ayn Rand by Mike Wallace. As you probably know, Rand’s p...

3 min

VBS and C.S. Lewis

One summer when I was a little boy, my mom sent me to something called “Vacation Bible School.” If ever there was an oxymoron, that’s it....

2 min

Moving Connection from Virtual to Reality

Please welcome our friend and guest blogger Boyd Pelley! Boyd co-founded Churchteams, a leader in church management software. In this blo...

2 min

E = mc2 ...spiritually speaking

At one point at the church where I pastored, we were doing seven identical services every weekend. In a room that seated 570 people, we h...

2 min

The Fear of Outside Help

Over the years I’ve found myself ruminating on why pastors are often reluctant to engage with outside organizational assessors, consultan...

2 min

The Outward-Focused Problem

I recently spoke at a friend’s church and mentioned that I believe Jesus teaches that we become more whole, more joyous, more fulfilled, ...

2 min

Who Likes a Test?

As a child, I hated tests in school. The clammy feeling in your hands, the sound of the clock ticking, wondering if everyone else is ahea...

2 min

How Are You Communicating?

Many years ago I came across an old multi-volume set of John Wesley’s journals. I found his accounts fascinating. Meticulous, inspiring, ...

2 min

Innovation and a Culture of Trust

Being a creative leader means ensuring that everyone in the organization is playing to their creative strengths and feels that their cont...

2 min

Leading Out of the Status Quo

If a definition of leadership is basically moving others toward a goal—moving a group of people from one place to another—then the first ...

2 min

The Hidden Danger of Clarity

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. (1 COR...

2 min

Incarnational Leadership

The “Big C” Church has never been about earthly power. Never has, never will. The true Church has never desired to have control, because ...

2 min

Growth Only Comes From Change

Organizations (and leaders) must have a certain amount of change and challenge in order to be fully alive with new questions and decision...

3 min

Falling in Love, Passion...& Leadership

The love story of Jacob and Rachel in Genesis 29 begins with some serious passion! But somewhere down the road, though, Jacob & Rachel in...

2 min

A Generous Church

Does your church have a reputation for being generous? As a leader in your church, the buck (no pun intended) stops with you. Generosity ...

2 min

The Future of Leadership

Leaders of the future will be free from the need to be seen as bulletproof, independent and all-knowing. A “soft-skills” leadership appro...

3 min

A Self-Leadership Surprise

“Virtually everything our modern culture believes about the type of leadership required to transform our institutions is wrong. It is als...

3 min

Black Lives Matter: A Metaphor

Imagine you have a daughter who is the light of your life. And then comes the day you drop her off at a college two time zones away. You...

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