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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 Remaining Fruitful in the Midst of a Financial Reset

I think the American Church is undergoing a reset. America is getting older; and the Church is even older. For a generation, expenditures have increased while membership has declined. Mainline Protestant churches are at unsustainable levels of salary, benefits, and indebtedness. We can’t just downsize temporarily or ride out the storm. There must be fundamental changes in the way we…

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Leading Ideas
0 Congregational Focus

Dan Aleshire, executive director of the Association of Theological Schools in the U. S. and Canada, went back to his home town in Ohio to chronicle the ways in which the churches of the community had changed since his family moved there fifty years before. One church was Concord United Methodist Church located in open country when Dan was growing…

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Leading Ideas
0 Taking Note of Leadership Lessons

There is truth in the adage “Experience is the best teacher.” But how can we best capture the lessons experience teaches?  A few years ago, I started recording experiences and insights related to my pastoral leadership. I organized the document first in terms of the key elements of my job. Then, I continued with sections on great ideas, quotes, and…

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Leading Ideas
0 Fast Forwarding Your Church’s Community Engagement

Many churches today are pioneering a shift in which they are truly engaging their communities in mission. These churches are not only deploying their own members for service; they are engaging with people who aren’t part of their church, but who are attracted to rolling up their sleeves to bless the community. They are strategically engaging with other churches and…

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Leading Ideas
0 Christmas is Not Your Birthday

There was a time when churches were reluctant to take an offering at their Christmas Eve services. The reasoning was that many people at those services would be those who rarely came to church, and the last thing the church wanted to do was to confirm their preconception that churches only care about money. But today, in many places Christmas…

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Leading Ideas
0 Christmas Giving for Christ

Soon the seasons of Advent and Christmas will be with us, and we will be inundated with commercials and product advertisements on television, radio, and the internet. Consumerism at times overshadows the focus of the season. Many believers exchange gifts with co-workers, friends, and family, yet fail to present the season’s honoree — Jesus Christ — with a special gift…

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Leading Ideas
0 The Worship Recession

It is commonplace to hear references to what it means for churches to function in “the current financial recession.” But there is another recession going on in the United States that has been affecting churches far longer and more consistently than the economic downturn. It is the worship recession. Figures collected by the Lewis Center for Church Leadership from four…

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Leading Ideas
0 Reaching More Disciples

The first decade of the 21st century was one of highs and lows for U.S. congregations. In the wake of the tragedy of 9/11, many more people went to church for the next five Sundays or so. Then the numbers turned downward. If 9/11 and its aftermath shaped much of the external environment in the early years of the decade,…

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Leading Ideas
0 Renovate or Die

Bob Farr offers a generous collection of tools for congregational development in his book Renovate or Die: Ten Ways to Focus Your Church on Mission (Abingdon, 2011). Most of them are borrowed from others, but all of them are stamped from his experiences as a pastor of five vulnerable congregations and as the director of congregational excellence in the Missouri…

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Leading Ideas
0 Key Competencies for a Missional Congregation

The “missional DNA” of Floris United Methodist Church has been one of the keys to our growth and vitality. Fruitfulness in mission has had a dramatic impact on everything from worship attendance to stewardship. I am convinced that vigorous mission engagement is one of the key synergies that drives vitality in congregations of all sizes. What steps can a congregation take…

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Leading Ideas
0 Being a Stewardship Leader Requires Clarity

What do you think about financial stewardship? While there are a host of resources for churches on developing giving, it’s important to clarify your own thinking. The clearer you are yourself, the easier it will be for you to offer others a challenge to give. Leaders need to know what we think about giving, and we need to share that…

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Leading Ideas
0 2011 Clergy Age Trends Report Shows More Older and Younger Clergy

The Lewis Center for Church Leadership today released the 2011 version of its annual report Clergy Age Trends in the United Methodist Church. The report, prepared with assistance from the General Board of Pension and Health Benefits, shows increases in both older and younger clergy. The historic high median age of elders set in 2010 continues, as does a marked…

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Leading Ideas
0 Challenges to Active Church Participation

Virtually all churches are experiencing a changing environment regarding what they can expect from members in relation to time, participation, and energy. Some feel this is one reason for the ongoing worship attendance recession that began in 2002 and continues today. A new report from the Faith Communities Today research project provides data to substantiate this changing landscape. Based on…

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Leading Ideas
0 God’s Multiplying Power

Last year I came to great clarity that God was calling our church to provide food for the hungry. I realize now that my efforts in my early years as pastor to immerse myself in the culture of the church and community may have prepared the way for this inspiration. It is not surprising that God would call a church…

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Leading Ideas
0 Mature Disciples Supporting New Givers

My mother became a Christian when I was four. From that day forward, we were in church every Sunday … almost. Stewardship Sunday was the one day Mom encouraged us to skip church. Now that we are both pastors, we hope our people don’t feel the same way we did. But we know they do. Seasoned supporters were personally approached…

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Leading Ideas
0 The Culture Isn’t Killing the Church. Our Grief Is.

I recently attended a retreat with a number of church friends. We spent part of our time together looking at The problem is that while the church grieves the death of this post-war culture, Gen X and Millennial Culture are quickly passing us by. In our grief for a culture we knew and loved, we are missing the ones that…

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Leading Ideas
0 The Power of Praise in Awakening Missional Identity

I serve a congregation that averages 60-70 in worship and have been there five years. As preparation for a visioning process, I began meeting with small groups. I decided to use positive questions since it is so easy to focus on problems. I asked: “What are those things we do really well? What are the best things about our church?” The…

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Leading Ideas
0 The Sunday Everything Went Wrong

Building credibility took time in my current congregation. I followed a well-respected pastor, and I had fewer years of experience than my predecessors. It is not unusual that church members took a “wait and see” attitude. I started by doing the small things. On Sunday mornings I stood outside at the front door, in all kinds of weather, and greeted…

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Leading Ideas
0 Four Doors that Lead to Faith Development

People arrived at church for the first Sunday of a four-week stewardship emphasis. They were surprised to see a door with a door frame in the sanctuary, as if workers had neglected to take it to its intended location. But the door was there for a purpose and would stay for each of the next four weeks. Then one additional…

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Leading Ideas
0 Using Facebook Appropriately as a Ministry Tool

Facebook has become a part of everyday life for many across the world. In 2010 it was the most visited site on the internet. There are almost 100 million users in the United States and an estimated 750 million worldwide. Many pastors find Facebook a useful tool for connecting with other clergy, church members, and potential members. And since 35…

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Leading Ideas
0 Recent Research Quantifies the Nature and Scope of Lay Staff Ministry

The growth of lay staff in congregations across denominations is a significant trend shaping the way churches engage in ministry and the way people experience church on the front lines of local ministry. In order to understand this development more fully, Dr. Ann A. Michel, associate director of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership, set out to answer two questions…

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Leading Ideas
0 Embracing and Transforming Chaos

The story of creation in Genesis 1:1-2:4a affirms two realities of faith: the reality of God and the reality of chaos. This account of creation affirms God’s embrace of chaos as God’s identity defines the reality of chaos. Speaking the days of the week into existence, God creates a future that is different from the past by ordering the creative…

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Leading Ideas
0 Casting a Vision

Not long ago, while driving along the coast observing nature, I became aware of countless people fishing. I wondered what their visions or expectations were for that day. Then it dawned on me that there were parallels between fishing and visioning. Vision casting for pastors and leaders is much like going fishing. Many visionary leaders in the church cast visions…

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Leading Ideas
0 From Fundraising to Stewardship

One of the simple realities of congregational life is that most churches are financially dependent on voluntary giving. Most pastors do not relish the annual giving campaign. In our experience, many if not most pastors would avoid talking about giving altogether if they could. First, money-talk does not fit their vocational understanding. Second, there is the bad example of television…

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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.