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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 Strengthening the Ministry of Lay Staff

Many churches rely on lay staff workers to lead critical ministries of education, formation, outreach, and worship. Yet lay staff rarely have the level of training or support as clergy persons in similar roles. Ann Michel of the Lewis Center staff provides suggestions for strengthening the ministry of lay staff through education and training, as well as clear expectations and…

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Leading Ideas
0 Three New Books on Effective Pastoral Ministry

The pastoral excellence movement has given rise to a growing body of literature analyzing the nature of effective pastoral ministry and offering advice on how to nurture and sustain effectiveness. Three recent titles exemplify this trend. One focuses on new pastors, one on long-term efficacy, and one on getting off to a good start in a new ministry setting. Starting…

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Leading Ideas
0 Reaching More Diverse People

How effective is the United Methodist Church in reaching the increasingly diverse population of the United States? Recent research by the Lewis Center in cooperation with the Research Office of the General Board of Global Ministries provides a snapshot of the denomination’s success through 2009 in reaching more racially diverse people. The findings indicate: Effectiveness in reaching people of color…

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Leading Ideas
0 Three New Financial Stewardship Books

Three established authors on the subject of congregational finances have new books to help congregations develop joyful and generous givers. Each author has important contributions to make for congregations of diverse traditions. Whose Offering Plate Is It? New Strategies for Financial Stewardship by J. Clif Christopher, Abingdon, 2010. Christopher found a large following for his previous book Not Your Parents’…

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Leading Ideas
0 A Win-Win Worship Debate

A disconnect developed in the historic African Methodist Episcopal Church I serve between older and younger people around worship styles. While the median age in the church is 60, we have a small but consistent group of committed youth and young adults. Many of the young complained that aspects of worship, including the historic hymns and order of service, were…

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Leading Ideas
0 From Where Did All These Young Adults Come?

I visited a new church a couple of weeks ago. I periodically do this partially because of my own natural curiosity about how different churches cultivate spiritual vitality differently. On this particular week, I visited a congregation only two miles from my home in a suburb of Minneapolis. I found several unique aspects about this congregation. 1) The church began…

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Leading Ideas
0 Denominations Face Major Reset

Most congregations know the financial squeeze of recent years from the economic recession. What is more striking is that the financial downturn for denominations is even more pronounced and perhaps more long lasting. Recent developments in the United Methodist Church may serve as a bellwether for others. As Loren Mead recently noted, it was the Methodists in 1966 that for…

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Leading Ideas
0 The Ministry of Greeting is for Everyone

In many churches, the approach to greeting worshipers assumes that the main focus should be on greeting guests and that seasoned church members make the best greeters.  But a more expansive vision for the ministry of greeting can deepen the experience of community for regular members and newcomers. Expanding the logic of greeting builds community and forges deeper connections with…

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Leading Ideas
0 Loving Your Old Pastor and Falling in Love with the New Pastor

Churches shouldn’t have to choose whom to love. Congregations can’t be asked to forget the former pastor, forget where he or she led them, and how he or she cared for them. The love for the former pastor should be enshrined while the congregation falls in love with the new pastor. The congregation can love both the former and the…

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Leading Ideas
0 First Year Priorities When Pastors Move

How does a pastor gain a congregation’s trust? How does a pastor warrant their respect? These are lessons I have learned through my own experiences with pastoral transitions. For the first year or so of ministry, the priority must lie in being active in the life of the church by being present and actively engaging in developing this new relationship.…

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Leading Ideas
0 Mission as the Emerging Entry Point for New People

It is intriguing that the first connection people have with a congregation tends to change from time to time.  For churches with struggling adult Sunday Schools, it may be hard to imagine that for a long time the Sunday School was the most likely church entry point for most adults, as well as children and youth. Well into the 1950s…

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Leading Ideas
0 What Does a Pastor Do?

I’ve been a part of several conversations lately with new church attendees and community members where I have been asked the question: “Now, I know you work on your sermons, but what do you do the rest of the week?” There’s so much more to the pastoral life than what you see on Sundays. Sundays are only the tip of…

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Leading Ideas
0 Do Endowments Help or Hurt?

Some churches have endowments in which the principal is invested, with the earnings made available to support the work of the congregation. One pastor said to me, “I think endowments are a curse upon the church. My last church had a substantial endowment, and it was the reason I could never develop a sense of stewardship in the people. It…

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Leading Ideas
0 Paperless Giving

More than ten years ago, I was introduced to “paperless giving” as a way to receive the offering in worship. A specified amount of money would be automatically transferred from my bank account to the church account each month. A friend of mine knew a company that would arrange this for any congregation (for a fee). I immediately resisted the…

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Leading Ideas
0 Top 10 Learnings about Welcoming Newcomers

Churches often define their success in welcoming newcomers by the number of people who become members of their church. At Redeemer we have shifted our focus to improving the quality of our welcome, and it feels like maybe we’re on to something. We’ve found our way mostly through trial and error — and listening carefully to the feedback of our…

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Leading Ideas
0 Families Remain Important as Their Makeup Changes

While generational differences receive much attention, it is remarkable how people’s highest values tend to stay relatively constant from one generation to another. However, the way each new generation expresses those values tends to be different. This phenomenon appears to be happening today regarding the value of family. Even with all these changes in the shape of family and households,…

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Leading Ideas
0 Two-Minute Leadership

Leaders communicate a lot, for leaders must find many and varied ways to keep the vision before the people. I have learned that I am reasonably good at communicative leadership, but now I know that less can often mean more when it comes to communicating. I attended a university luncheon for all departmental heads on campus. Before the program began,…

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Leading Ideas
0 Volunteer Expiration Dates

Expiration dates are on all sorts of things and for good reasons. We can find them on loaves of bread, gallons of milk, and egg cartons. Expiration dates are on our driver’s licenses, professional certifications, and even the President of the United States. These dates make sure things stay fresh, maximize effectiveness, and give us an opportunity to evaluate the…

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Leading Ideas
0 Faith and the Use of Church Money

I have heard many stories of pastors telling their congregations they need to go into debt or stretch themselves financially as “a matter of faith.” The pastor stands up and challenges the congregation to have the faith that “God will provide.” Such statements suggest that those who do not go along with a particular financial proposal lack faith. I find…

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Leading Ideas
0 The Spirituality of Leadership

The church of the future must emphasize spirituality. We traditionally have asked people to come to church simply because it is a good thing to do. But that won’t work anymore if you are not capable of moving the spirits of those attending. Howard Schultz of Starbucks said, “I don’t sell coffee. I want to evangelizecoffee.” He took away this…

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Leading Ideas
0 What About the Second Pastors in New Congregations?

While many studies report on the work of church planters, few studies examine the experience of “second pastors,” those who follow founding pastors of new congregations. The North Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church commissioned the Lewis Center for Church Leadership to study United Methodist second pastors from recent decades. We identified just over 100 second pastors. Of this…

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Leading Ideas
0 What about People Who Attend but Don’t Join?

In recent years, I have heard from many pastors who say that they are seeing an increase in the number of worshipers who attend their congregation regularly, but are not members. Do the data from the U.S. Congregational Life surveys support this perception? In three areas, there has been a remarkable decline since 2001 in percent of worshipers who are…

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Leading Ideas
0 Helping the World See the Church in a Different Way

The community where I live in South Korea is one of the five top places where Koreans want to live. So to reach new disciples for Christ, it is important for us to think of what we do from a non-Christian perspective. Restoring the leadership and influence of the church is not something that happens inside the church. We have…

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Leading Ideas
0 Cultivating a Consequential Faith

Congregations have been doing a lot with teenagers, but it isn’t always leading to consequential faith, maintains Kenda Creasy Dean in Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church(Oxford University Press, 2010). Urging congregations to move beyond emphasizing self-fulfillment and entertainment, Dean invites them to embody self-relinquishment and a missional imagination. “Mission means participating in…

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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.