The Art Of Simplicity

Simplicity is critical to the effective execution of an organisation’s strategy. Raj Sheelvant’s discusses the importance of simplicity in his post “Simplicity Minded Management“.  He refers to Ron Ashkenas’s HBR article “Simplicity Minded Management”, where the author provides the following checklist as a guide to help to reduce complexity:

Make simplification a goal, not a virtue
Include [...]

Growing Your Ministry Through Procedures

� Part of an ongoing series on growing your ministry from AgileMinistry.com:
Every Ministry Has Procedures
Every ministry, no matter how simple, has procedures. Media ministries have procedures for sound checks, selecting equipment, setup and teardown for satellite/multi-site configurations, and recording/archiving. Ushering and greeting ministries have procedures for parking lot assistance, giving hand outs, ensuring children get to [...]

Construction: Leadership Lessons

Today, we begin a new series in our 2007 Building Series. Last semester, we talked about Laying a Foundation that will last. Today, we begin a new series on constructing the ministry that God has called you to build.
1 Peter 2:5 says,

“And now God is building you, as living stones, into his spiritual temple. What’s [...]

Growing Your Ministry Through Strategy

This article is a part of an ongoing series from AgileMinistry.com:
I’ve recently been playing a web-based game called DiceWars, which is loosely based on the Risk board game. To win DiceWars, you must take ownership of all the territories on the game map by massing troops (dice) and attacking your neighbors. The strategy that has [...]

Growing Your Ministry Through Training

Another great entry from AgileMinistry.com:
Do you remember when you first started volunteering? How did you learn to do your job? Or, was it a sink-or-swim situation?
To continue to grow your ministry, you need to recruit new volunteers. But, what happens when you interview these volunteers and they are eager to get started? You will need [...]

View From The Sidelines

Many of us in ministry leadership can forget what it was like before we started giving our time to the church. This can lead to a gap between those that are serving and those that are not that is often never bridged. Consider some of the things that may be going through the mind of [...]

Community: An Introduction (Week One)

John Hasler is currently an intern for the small groups ministry at National Community Church in Washington, DC.�  He is a frequent contributor to ZoneGathering.com, the community blog for NCC. �  John Hasler is gifted in the area of teaching and discipleship and has been involved at NCC in many of its social justice initiatives.
Community [...]

View From A Volunteer

Here are some thoughts on what goes through the mind of a new volunteer that just started giving their time at your church:

“I don’t know anyone on the team - I feel like an outsider. They probably wouldn’t even notice if I stopped showing up.”
“The first sign that you want to take more of my [...]

Leading Through Uncertainty

Rapid change whilst facing uncertainty, requires great courage. The article in the Pegasus newsletter titled “Landmarks for Leaders in Times of Uncertainty and Chaos” by Bob Stilger is very insightful. The article discusses how community leaders are creating change inspite of the uncertainty around them.
“All around the world, people are stepping forward in new [...]

Growing Your Ministry Through Volunteers

AgileMinistry.com has a great collection of articles written all about how to grow your ministry area.�  One that stood out was this one about volunteers:
It is hard to manage volunteers, and often is the case that the staff will discount the help of volunteers. Rather, they will take the route of doing it themself, even [...]