Tag «Discipleship»

How To Avoid These Costly Financial Mistakes Your Church Could Be Making

At BELAY, we’ve been helping busy leaders for over a decade, and we’ve learned, no matter what organization you lead, finances are paramount to your success – and church finances aren’t any different. Poorly managed church finances can hurt a pastor’s ability to lead church members and reach the local community. After all, very little…

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Leading a Church When the Wrong People Hold Power

Can you lead a church without proper authority? Yes, but it is more challenging and complex. I’m assuming most church leaders would rather not step into a situation where they have the responsibility to shepherd without the corresponding authority. But there are churches with misaligned power structures in desperate need of good pastors. What if…

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Seven Things We Didn’t See Coming in Churches at This Point after the Pandemic

Admittedly, it’s a tricky thing to find a precise beginning and ending point to a pandemic. We could accept the declaration from the World Health Organization that COVID-19 began on March 11, 2020. But the virus was rapidly spreading around the world prior to that date. The ending date is even more of a challenge…

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Seven Things You Can Do to Become a Better Leader

If it hasn’t happened already, it won’t be long before a new generation of leaders are being tapped on the shoulder to step into service in their church or organization. In November 2022, the Federal Reserve shared an article titled “The Great Retirement Boom,” which details the rise in retirement during the era of the…

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Churches Are Getting Less of Total Charitable Giving—Here’s Why (And What You Can Do About It)

For decades, the church has lost ground with overall charitable giving. Charitable giving is up—a near record of $485 billion in 2021, despite surging inflation. Giving to churches has dropped even though giving to non-profits is up by 4%. In the early 1980s, churches received over half of all charitable giving. Today, churches receive less…

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10 Reasons I Would Seek to Raise Up Staff within My Church

More and more churches are deciding to raise up staff from within their congregation. While I wondered about that direction when it first began to gain steam, I have come to see the value of it. Here are 10 reasons I encourage you to consider this option: You likely know them better than outside hires….

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Five Warning Signs of False Teachers

Five Warning Signs of False Teachers Several years ago, I received an email with a link to a sermon given by a pastor in my community. The person sending the email was genuinely concerned. “Is he preaching heresy?” The sermon included a terrible conclusion about how Jesus emptied Himself in Philippians 2. The pastor taught…

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A Thought on Leaders Making Memories

I don’t often write about my story, but this topic—a topic I trust you will see relates to Christian leadership—was on my heart this past week as we celebrated Father’s Day. My first memory is being a frightened three-year old as my father wrecked our home in a fit of anger. Now almost sixty years…

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Three Leadership Practices Every Young Church Leader Should Do Right Now

“What can I do right now?” I had coffee with a young minister. He asked a great question. What can I do right now? The young minister (in his early 20s) wanted to know how he could lead better—starting today. He caught me a bit off guard. After all, leadership is learned and refined over…

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The Five Stages of a Church Dropout: From Highly Committed to Goners

It’s painful enough to lose any church members, but it is particularly painful when the church member was highly committed. We call these dropouts “Goners,” because they were once one of your best church members. Now they are gone. It has been both painful and amazing to see the consistency in the patterns the Goners…

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