Follow Jesus. Lead the church. Change the world.
One of the books I want to read next is Church Unique: How Missional Leaders Cast Vision, Capture Culture, and Create Movement by Will Mancini. The book is intended to be “a field manual” based on Mancini’s “vision work and missional coaching with church leaders.” Awhile back, I downloaded a free visual summary of the … Read more
In preparing for last week’s spiritual formation time at my monthly Matthew 28 pastors group meeting, which I wrote about recently, I came across (and used) a couple great quotes from Andy Stanley’s Visioneering: God’s Blueprint for Developing and Maintaining Vision. Stanley talks about what it takes to pursue a vision. Any vision worth pursuing … Read more
In 2006, two of the churches I was serving at the time merged to form a new congregation, Hope UMC (Alexandria, PA). It was quite an intense experience. I was appointed to Centre Grove in 2008 so I only led the new congregation for two years beyond the merger, but ever since then, I’ve wondered … Read more
Following up on my Ruthlessly Eliminate Hurry post, I’ve been mulling over the difference between urgency and impatience for a while now. On the one hand, impatience is obviously a bad thing. But I believe that having a sense of urgency is a good thing. What’s the difference? Impatience is defined as … a dislike … Read more
During one of the meals at the Bishop’s Retreat last week, each place setting included a 1-2-3-4 card which is intended to describe United Methodists. The folded card is designed “to provide talking points about our church and its mission,” states … We are the people of The United Methodist Church. We believe in— making … Read more
Sometimes “tomorrow” is a bad word — “Instead of doing (fill-in-the-blank) today, I’ll do it tomorrow!” (i.e., procrastination). But, other times, tomorrow is an inspiring word. Tomorrow gives us the opportunity to dream, envision, and plan for the future. Tomorrow is an opportunity to take what we’ve learned yesterday and today and apply it on … Read more
It’s our first day back to work (after parental leave). As we get back to the cause of leading our churches in mission, I’m thinking about an image I saw while we were in Korea. During our tour of Kwanglim Methodist Church, I saw a large wall poster of John Wesley on horseback, which included … Read more
Do you have a tool, an appliance, or a gadget somewhere around the house collecting dust, something you bought (or were given) one time but have never used? A lot of us probably do, and it makes me (Randy) think of Radio Shack’s slogan, “Don’t just buy stuff, do stuff.” Radio Shack’s slogan also makes … Read more
I just wrote this for our charge’s (monthly) church newsletter (November 2007) … Currently our sermon series is based on Acts 2.42-47, which gives us a snapshot of what the first century church looked like. They were a faith community, living their lives together, giving away their lives to others. Being together lends itself to … Read more
Andy Stanley has written a must-read book for leader/communicators who want to maximize the adhesiveness of their vision! Andy Stanley, founding and lead pastor of North Point Community Church, is one of a handful of writers that I read everything they write. The latest book I’ve read is Making Vision Stick (see Google Books’ limited … Read more