Lead Well

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash John Maxwell famously said that leaders are readers. I’ve taken that to heart and become a voracious reader.  Every year I set a goal to read a certain number of books. I’ve gone all the way to 36 but have settled between 20 to 24. This year, instead of focusing on quantity, I focused on subjects that interested me and read a few pages every day. Somehow, I still got 20 books in. For this post, I broke the books into categories. Each book has an affiliate link to Amazon so you can easily make your list for next year. Thanks for your support! What I read in 2022

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash I recently saw a post on a Facebook group asking how many volunteers they need for 30-40 kids. It was really a question about ratios, which are very important, but having the correct room ratio may not be enough when thinking about the right number of volunteers. I’ve written about this before , but when I first started in kidmin, you could have called my Sunday morning service the David Reneau show. I led worship, told the Bible story, managed check-in and sound, pretty much every element of the service I had a hand in or was running it. I had a few volunteers relegated to crowd control, but not many more because, why? I was doing all of it, why did I need more people to sit with kids and keep behavior under control. I was running the ministry in what is called a maintenance structure. I needed to set up the ministry for growth. If I wanted to take the ministry to the next level, then I needed the structure to support it. One tool you’ll need b

Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash I’ve heard business entrepreneurs say that you have to know your numbers. The same is true with your ministry. How many attended this week? Last week? How many volunteers? First time guests? Baptisms? Small Groups? If you don’t track it, and by tracking, I mean write it down in a spreadsheet, you’re losing out on valuable information that can help you keep your ministry healthy and growing. I’ll admit I didn’t always do this. In fact, my first few years in ministry it was an afterthought. Sometimes, I would remember to count how many were in the room and tell my pastor, but I never wrote it down. Then after one Easter, my pastor came into staff meeting agitated. I could see it all over his face. He told us that we didn’t have as many show up for Easter as we did the year before. He counted the weekend as a failure. I was shocked at first and then began to wonder, how many did I have? How many last year? Or the year before? I had no Idea. I h

If you’re like me when I first started out in ministry, I didn’t think about follow up. All I focused on was doing a great event or service, and then move on to the next. But just like following through when you swing a bat is key, follow up is as well. It doesn’t feel necessary but is essential to pulling off a great event. We recently wrapped up our VBS at my church using this plan, and it has been well received. 7 steps to a great follow up plan for Sunday and everything else.

I'm always reading, and this year, I read more than I've ever read.  I tried to mix several different subjects on leadership, discipleship, church growth, and even a baby book. So, without further ado, here is the list. Ready, Set, Grow   Developing the Leader Within You Developing the Leaders Around You   Spiritual Maturity  The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People  Love and Respect   Good to Great  Breakout Churches   No Perfect People Allowed   Three Big Questions for Frantic Families   Deep and Wide  A Tale of Three Kings   You Lost Me   Children's Ministry Leadership   Lead small  Volunteers that Stick  The Circle Maker   All In   Jesus is   David and Goliath  I Blew It  Stretch   The Bible   Baby Wise I'll be posting my 2015 reading list in a couple of weeks.  What books have you read recently that were interesting?