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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 The “Nones” and the Spirituality of Everyday Living

One of the most important challenges confronting the church today is the rise of the so-called “Nones,” that is, the religiously unaffiliated, those who check “none” when asked for their religious or denominational affiliation. Today, 20 percent of Americans and 30 percent of people under thirty are Nones, and those numbers are growing by about 20 percent year after year.…

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Leading Ideas
0 Young Clergy Numbers Grow Among Young Clergywomen

For over ten years, the Lewis Center in partnership with the General Board of Pension and Health Benefits has reported annually on Clergy Age Trends in the United Methodist Church. The Lewis Center prepares these reports so that church leaders can see the most important trends in clergy numbers and ages in such a way that they understand these trends, can…

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Leading Ideas
0 Taking Prayer to the Community

Several recent research efforts addressing the spiritual practices of those not connected to religious communities have found that prayer is a practice that those inside the church and those beyond the church hold in common. Pew Research Center’s often-cited study, Religion and the Unaffiliated, found that 27 percent of people who describe their religion as “nothing in particular” pray daily.…

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Leading Ideas
0 The Church That Wouldn’t Die

Detroit is almost surgically separated into east and west by Woodward Avenue. Woodward stretches northwest from the Detroit River downtown all the way up through the suburbs until it dead-ends in Pontiac. Both sides of Detroit have been plagued with church closings during the last 40 years. Some of the congregations have merged and others have moved, but far too…

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Leading Ideas
0 The Over-Stuffed Bulletin

Do you remember those prank peanut cans? You would buy one at a novelty store, and then give it to one of your friends. When they opened the can, a fake snake exploded out of the can and flew toward their face. Maybe I’m remembering it more dramatically than it was, but there were a few Sundays when our church…

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Leading Ideas
0 Crafting Better Commitment Campaign Messages

Many churches have a one-size-fits-all approach to their annual stewardship appeal. Everyone in the congregation receives the same “Dear Friend” letter inviting them to prayerfully offer up their tithe to the church for the coming year. While this approach is simple and easy to execute, it’s generally not the most effective or meaningful way to communicate with people about their…

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Leading Ideas
0 Inspiring Generosity with a Thank You Letter

How often have you opened up what looks like a form letter and read, “On behalf of blah blah blah, I want to thank you for your generous donation.”? In principle, there’s nothing wrong with this. And believe me, it’s way better to receive a boring thank you letter than to receive nothing at all. How many faithful stewards do…

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Leading Ideas
0 Cultivating a Feedback-Friendly Congregation

Think of a time when good feedback or a helpful suggestion made a big difference for you or for your church. Think about what you do regularly that perhaps goes back to an observation or idea a friend shared with you. Remember all that you never realized you were doing wrong or poorly until someone pointed out a better way.…

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Leading Ideas
0 Bringing about Systemic Change through Social Entrepreneurship

I believe that an understanding of the concepts of social entrepreneurship is critical for church leaders who seek to effect real, sustainable change and address complex social problems incumbent in many communities today. Social entrepreneurship, as defined by Debbi Brock and Susan Steiner, is “the creation of social impact by developing and implementing a sustainable business model which draws on…

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Leading Ideas
0 Fostering Conversations That Connect

Does it seem that you still see the same people in worship on Sunday but not as often? For a number of years, declines in attendance have come not primarily from people giving up on the church but from a less frequent pattern of attendance by members. Even as churches work hard to reach more people in worship, they are…

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Leading Ideas
0 Learn from the Stupid Things You Do

It was a stupid thing to do. Returning to my hotel room at the end of the first day of a conference, I could not find the keys to my Honda. My husband, Gary, and I drove separately to the event. We looked everywhere, dumping out the contents of both suitcases and computer bags and checking the pockets of our…

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Leading Ideas
0 Some Practices to Improve the Use of Your Time

Everyone can improve how productively they use their time each day. It isn’t necessarily a matter of working harder or having the most items on your to-do list crossed off. The important thing is working toward your goals and getting there on time or ahead of schedule. In working with churches and their leaders over the years, I have identified…

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Leading Ideas
0 How to Communicate Change

Three years ago I was hired for my dream job: communications director for a large church. I came with more than 20 years of experience in marketing consulting. In marketing, my job was to help prospects see my clients in the best possible light. I quickly discovered that communicating to a large, demographically diverse congregation is a different animal altogether.…

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Leading Ideas
0 9 Ways Generosity Leads to Healthier and More Purposeful Living

Do you sometimes wish for empirical evidence to back up your faith claims? In The Paradox of Generosity (Oxford University Press, 2014), sociologists Christian Smith and Hillary Davidson provide compelling social-scientific evidence suggesting that generosity leads to a happier, healthier, more purposeful life, confirming Jesus’ teaching that “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their…

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Leading Ideas
0 Navigating Shifting and Competing Values

When I have done strategic planning with congregations of older members, it is common to hear their values expressed as family, community, and faith. But all these are changing. Family has changed. There are fewer nuclear families and more extended-families, blended families, single-parent families, among others. Communities are changing as well, including their expansion given the global nature of today’s…

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Leading Ideas
0 What is “Adjacent Possible”? Can It Benefit Your Church?

Business scholar Rosabeth Moss Kanter has completed a two-year study of the nation’s infrastructure with a special focus on its transportation systems. Many of these systems are many years old and in need of rethinking and reinvestment. Yet she believes the solution does not lie totally in new models not yet conceived, as needed as they are, but rather in…

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Leading Ideas
0 Leadership Lived: Clementa Pinckney and Open Doors

As soon as I saw the television images of Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Charleston on the early morning news, my heart sank. The caption below said nine people had been killed, and soon there appeared the picture of the church’s pastor, my friend and student the Reverend Clementa Pinckney, one of the victims. This cannot be…

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Leading Ideas
0 The Failure-Tolerant Leader

In tennis, players usually give their maximum effort on the first serve, knowing that if they fault on that one, they will have another opportunity. On the second serve, players usually take a more conservative approach to avoid getting a double fault. Imagine a tennis player who determines never to double fault on the serve. He or she will serve…

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Leading Ideas
0 Can New People Navigate Your Worship?

Many churches have a way of doing things that doesn’t allow for new people to connect. Without even knowing it, we exclude those we truly want to reach. Let me illustrate. A guest arrives at a church that is new to her. She learned of the service times from the website. She is nervous. She almost talked herself out of…

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Leading Ideas
0 The Greeter Gauntlet

I have visited churches where I approach the front doors and am immediately met by my first greeter. The eager greeter hands me a bulletin and grabs my hand for a shake. Then I get to the door, and another greeter opens the door, again offering me a handshake. Immediately inside the door, another smiling face goes for an embrace.…

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Leading Ideas
0 What is Your Faith Development Process?

How does someone in your church go from being new to being an authentic follower of Jesus Christ? Many churches provide really fuzzy answers to this question. We often hear people say, “That is what Sunday school is for, right?” We have come to believe that if we come to worship, attend Sunday school, serve on a couple of committees,…

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Leading Ideas
0 Your Building Has More Signs Than You Think

Your building has way more signs than you think it does: The locked front door, the boxes piled up in corners that assault the newcomer’s gaze, the messy Sunday school rooms, the nursery with dangerous or broken toys, the bulletin boards with ancient announcements, the mold growing all over the women’s bathroom. (Yes, that happened at my own church this…

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Leading Ideas
0 Assertive and Humble Leadership

Columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr., reported on Senator Chris Coons of Delaware speaking to the Secular Coalition of America (“A Senator’s Faith — and Humility,” Washington Post, May 3, 2015). The group is committed to amplifying the “growing voice of the nontheistic community in the United States.” Senator Coons was invited because of his commitment to the separation of church…

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Leading Ideas
0 How to Make a Good Entrance

About this time each year, many clergy prepare to begin new work in new places with new people. Some of it will feel familiar. Some challenges will catch us off guard. There will be unexpected blessings. Nothing will feel as overwhelming as it does on the first day, but it will not be as easy as we might like either.…

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Leading Ideas
0 Check Your Website Immediately

Many people can remember when the telephone Yellow Pages or the sign outside your church were likely to be the first places people looked to find information about your church or other congregations in your community. No more. People of all ages go first to your website “to check you out.” This is one of the biggest changes for churches…

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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.