Lead Well

Photo by Lavi Perchik on Unsplash Maybe this has happened to you. You had a huge event where hundreds of people came. People were saved. Lives were changed. You get ready to make an announcement in the service or post on social what God has done. But you’re stuck. You can tell them what happened, but only verbally. The pictures and video are terrible or non-existent. A picture is worth a thousand words. Getting that magic shot can tell the whole story of what happened at your event. Or better, get more people to join the event next time. I’m not a photographer, but taking pictures is one of those things that I wish I’d learned in ministry school . It’s something that I’ve had to learn the hard way, and I’ve relied heavily on others who are far more skilled. When I first started, the iPhone was just released and the best phone pics I could take were so blurry, they were unusable. Thankfully, mobile phone cameras have come a long way over the last 15 years, but having a great cam...

Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash A little talked about, but vital document in your ministry is a policy and procedure manual. The manual answers a lot of questions for volunteers and clearly defines your thinking on multiple situations. While your church may have its own policy manual that addresses your ministry specifically, many times these are incomplete when it comes to NextGen. In my experience, they’ll address room ratios and background checks, but not other problems such as fire drills, dress codes, meeting attendance and more. This is why I suggest every NextGen ministry have its own policy and procedure manual. It needs to agree with the main church manual, but it can be more specifically tailored to your ministry. However, just having the manual and sticking it in a drawer is not enough. You need to keep it top of mind for yourself and your volunteers. My first volunteer training and orientation for new volunteers uses the manual as a guide. This gets everyone...

Last week I attended the Orange Conference .  It was a great week of equipping and refocus for me and my wife Liz.  In our last break-out session the leader, Joy Bowen , made us promise not to "puke vision" when we come back home. I though that was funny and a good reminder to leaders.  How many times do we go away to a conference, meeting, or trip to just come back and tell our team all the things we are going to do.  Sadly in our excitement we don't allow for essential buy-in or to even think through our ideas.  We end up scaring our team as well as hurting our integrity, because we end up doing only half (if we're lucky) of what we said we were going to do. So as I check myself, I beg you don't puke vision.  Take the time to think through your ideas, make a plan, organize resources, build buy-in, then roll out the ideas when the time is right.  Maxwell says that the right idea at the wrong time is still the wrong idea.  Let's commit today t...