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Leading Ideas
Delivered every Wednesday, our free e-newsletter Leading Ideas offers articles by thoughtful, cutting-edge leaders on subjects you care about — navigating change, reaching younger people, financing your ministry, communicating effectively — to help you be the leader God is calling you to be.

The Lewis Center is committed to helping congregations and denominations thrive and grow by providing ideas, research, resources, and training for vital and fruitful leadership. Through Leading Ideas, we share vignettes of leaders and congregations, book reviews, leadership quotes, and helpful “right questions” built around the premise that leaders don’t need answers — they need to know the right questions.

Leading Ideas
0 5 Keys to Great Online Worship Hospitality

Olu Brown says churches that livestream their worship need to be intentional about making online attendees feel welcome by showing love through hospitality. He outlines five ways to connect more effectively with those who worship remotely. More and more churches across the country are using online worship to reach people beyond their current circle of influence and are seeing new…

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Leading Ideas
0 7 Things Bad Leaders Tell Themselves and Their Teams

Carey Nieuwhof explains that ineffective leaders tend to lay the blame on seven common excuses. Successful leaders are aware of these traps and lead people beyond them. Nobody sets out to be a bad leader. You didn’t. I didn’t. Yet according to a Gallup study, only 18% of managers have a “high degree of talent” in leading people, which includes…

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Leading Ideas
0 Welcoming Is the Top Factor in Church Choice

A recent study among spiritual seekers aged 25–49 suggests they have a strong desire for genuine community. Knowing everyone will be welcomed, making friends and nurturing friendships, and support during difficult times were the top motivating factors in considering a church. A survey of spiritual “seekers” released last year found that the top motivators for considering a church are knowing…

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Leading Ideas
0 7 Suggestions for Welcoming New Pastors

Barry Howard outlines ways a congregation can prepare spiritually, intellectually, and emotionally for the arrival of a new pastor to make the most of a new beginning. When a congregation welcomes a new pastor, it is an exciting time, a new beginning for both the congregation and the new minister. To maximize this new beginning, it is important to prepare…

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Leading Ideas
0 4 Ways to Build Your Social Media Presence

The use of social media is so prevalent today that it is essential for churches to master ways of creating connections and community online. Lia McIntosh, Jasmine Smothers, and Rodney Smothers outline four critical steps in building your church’s social media presence. With 1.5 billion users on Facebook, the majority of our U.S. communities and most churchgoers are connected using…

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Leading Ideas
0 9 Ways Leaders Can Respond to Conflict Constructively

Leaders need to understand the emotional dimensions of conflict and minimize the inevitable anxiety and systematic stress. In a book published the year before his death in 2020, Peter L. Steinke, a respected leadership consultant, outlined nine beneficial ways to respond constructively to conflict. In times of crisis, a system functions best when its key leaders regulate their anxiety. It…

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Leading Ideas
0 Prayer is the Spiritual Electricity of Congregational Revitalization

Sue Nilson Kibbey says a robust prayer life can be a powerful catalyst for congregational renewal. It can shift a church’s gaze “up and out,” countering negativity and doubt. Leaders live into their prayers with an openness that powers transformation when they pray with the genuine expectation that it really does make a difference. If your church or ministry is…

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Leading Ideas
0 Does Your Church Have the Necessary Leaders?

Church Consultant Joel Snider says a critical characteristic of healthy churches is the presence of “necessary leaders” who can make hard decisions in the right spirit and act in the best interest of the congregation, even when facing criticism. He outlines six characteristics of such leaders and key questions for identifying your church’s necessary leaders. What are the characteristics of…

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Leading Ideas
0 5 Habits Your Church Must Unlearn to Increase Giving

Their study of rapidly growing churches led Matt Miofsky and Jason Byassee to understand the importance of elevating the practice of giving. But for most churches, before they can learn more effective behaviors around giving, they need to unlearn bad behaviors that stifle generosity. Most church are caught in a contradiction. They believe that generosity is an essential component of…

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Leading Ideas
0 4 Ways A Weekday Childcare Webpage Can Connect Families with Your Church

Church tech expert Will Rice says churches with weekday childcare programs will have people looking for daycare regularly visiting their websites. He outlines ways to maximize the opportunity for families seeking childcare to connect with the other things the church has to offer. Does your church have a highly regarded daycare program or weekday children’s ministry? You may proudly dedicate…

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Leading Ideas
0 5 Ways to Engage People the Way Jesus Did

Looking for ways to connect with new people, organize them for action, and lead them to a deepening commitment? Joe Daniels and Christie Latona remind us of five basic practices Jesus used to organize and engage people. Jesus put energy into connecting people and pulling individuals together for the common good. He did so persistently, intently, and sometimes effortlessly even…

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Leading Ideas
0 5 Reasons Millennials are Drawn to Mainline Churches

Don’t assume your church doesn’t have anything to offer the millennial generation, says Andrew Ponder Williams. He outlines five ways that mainline churches are distinctively called and gifted to connect with younger generations and offers tips on how your church can maximize these advantages. I consistently encounter the presumption in congregations of all sizes that millennials don’t like mainline churches.…

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Leading Ideas
0 Letting Go of This Pastor and Preparing for the Next

Church consultant Susan Beaumont shares four leadership practices that can help a congregation prepare when their pastor is getting ready to leave. Approaching the situation honestly and communicating openly can help a church understand that times of loss, experienced openly and fully, lead into times of promise. A pastoral transition is announced. One era of leadership winds down as the…

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Leading Ideas
0 The Changing Face of Ministry

Lewis Center Director F. Douglas Powe describes shifting staffing patterns and ministry models emerging as more and more mainline congregations suffer decline. The Lewis Center is launching a three-year research effort supported by Lilly Endowment Inc. to study these and other changes in the religious workforce, the impact on local congregations, and implications for how people prepare for ministry. Many…

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Leading Ideas
0 5 Leadership Insights from Jethro

Lewis Center Director Doug Powe says when looking for leadership lessons in the Bible we shouldn’t focus so much on Moses that we skip over his father-in-law Jethro. In Exodus 18, Jethro offered important insights that transformed Moses’ practice of leadership and can help us as well. While Jethro is not as prominent a character in Exodus as Moses, he…

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Leading Ideas
0 7 Mindset Shifts that Can Reshape Your Church’s Future

To reshape the future of your church you must set aside old assumptions, fears, and stereotypes and embrace new experiences and methods. In the new book Blank Slate, Lia McIntosh, Jasmine Smothers, and Rodney Smothers explore generational transition, design thinking, and successful private sector organizations to discern a new direction for the church. They name seven mindsets essential to create…

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Leading Ideas
0 Do Your Church Programs Obscure Your True Mission?

Sometimes churches get so preoccupied with their own programs and a get-it-done approach to mission that they lose sight of their ultimate purpose. Lee Roorda Schott’s experience as a pastor behind prison walls taught her that the true essence of the church’s mission must be love born of real, authentic relationship. If you look at many churches’ newsletters and websites,…

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Leading Ideas
0 Affirming the Ministry of Lay Readers

Theodore May says reading scripture in worship is a profound and meaningful way to connect people with the Bible, worship, and the church. Congregations need to help people overcome their hesitations by setting reasonable expectations and helping them prepare in more than superficial ways. Performing a role in a play binds an actor to that play for life. For years…

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Leading Ideas
0 Key Observations for Reaching Latino/a Populations

The growing Latino and Latina population in the United States is transforming the religious landscape, reshaping virtually every Christian tradition. Drawing on the work of Juan Francisco Martínez, a scholar of the history of Latino/a Protestantism, Lovett Weems reports on trends in Latino/a ministry that are vital to any congregational or denominational leader with a heart for the newcomer in…

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Leading Ideas
0 Cross-Cultural Pastor as Spiritual Bridge Builder

HiRho Y. Park has studied how pastoral leaders can be more effective in cross-racial and cross-cultural ministry contexts. These pastors can be bridge builders, she says, by practicing their faith, proclaiming the Word of God, and leading from the woundedness of suffering and racism. Pastors who are successfully leading cross-racial and cross-cultural churches are the ones who are able to…

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Leading Ideas
0 Online Church is Your New Front Door

Carey Nieuwhof says that online church was once a back door for lazy or disengaged Christians, but it is rapidly evolving into the primary entry point for new people interested in a church. But to reach people who live on the internet, churches need to devote more resources and staff to online engagement. There’s an ongoing debate about how much…

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Leading Ideas
0 4 Key Practices of Community Engagement

Sam Marullo and Doug Powe, both Wesley Theological Seminary faculty members, have developed a simple model to help congregations engage their communities in meaningful ways. They outline four reflective practices — inquiry, imagination, incarnation, and imminence — to guide a church in connecting with its neighbors. How can churches engage their communities in meaningful ways? Many congregations struggle to figure…

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Leading Ideas
0 Kindness is the New Evangelism

Andrew Ponder Williams says that simple acts of kindness can counter the dominant cultural narrative of meanness and be a powerful way for the church to connect with others. Kindness, he suggests, is the new evangelism. So much of the narrative in our culture today can be summarized as just plain mean. From the way customers behave at the corner restaurant to…

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This article is reprinted by permission from Leading Ideas, a free e-newsletter from the Lewis Center for Church Leadership of Wesley Theological Seminary available at churchleadership.com.