You should not be the only one preaching at your church. Here are some of the drawbacks: It's bad for you. You will wear yourself out by preaching every week. It's bad for the people. If you're the only speaker your people will be robbed of hearing from multiple perspectives. It doesn't allow for contingencies. If you're the only one speaking you'll never be able to miss for vacation or being sick. And here's some of the benefits of sharing the preaching calendar: The quality of your … [Read more...]
You Get What You Preach
One of my mentors once taught me "You get what you preach" and it's true. A couple years ago I taught on tithing. We saw a $19,000 a month increase after that message. Today Andrew is preaching on water baptism. Guess what people are doing after each service? Signing up to be baptized! When I teach on evangelism leading up to Easter guess what our people do? They invite their friends! I could go on but I think you get the point. You get what you preach. If I'm not seeing people get saved … [Read more...]
Setting Goals
The value Some people are really down on setting goals. To some people goals are simply things they will later feel bad about next year for not achieving. But I believe setting goals is a wonderful thing to do. While I love it when I 100% hit a goal, I don't set goals or like goals because they help me do everything I want to do 100%. I like setting goals because by setting a goal, I do better than I would have without setting a goal. For example: By aiming for a weekly date night I might … [Read more...]
Six Categories for Goal Setting
I love the fresh start a new year brings. I love the possibilities a new year represents! And most of all, I love setting some goals for a new year. Here are the categories I set goals in: Faith. How will I deepen my personal relationship with Jesus this year? Family. How will I deepen my relationship with my spouse and children? Finance. What's my plan to be a good steward of the resources God's entrusts to me? Fitness. What's my plan to be a good steward of my temple (my body)? Friends. … [Read more...]
Problem or Opportunity?
Sometimes our greatest opportunities in life are disguised as our greatest problems. For example, I once visited LifeChurch.tv - of the largest churches in the country. Know how they got so big? It started with a problem. LifeChurch.tv had merged with another church in the area and Craig, the lead pastor was preaching at his church, then traveling across town to preach at the other church. Well, when his wife had her 5th baby late Saturday night Craig had to call both churches and say "I won't … [Read more...]
The Key to Writing
The key to writing is rewriting. I usually type out the first draft of my sermon on Tuesday. After preaching the message to my staff on Thursday, I rewrite it in light of the feedback I received from my team. After reviewing it 1-2x on Saturday I rewrite again. After reviewing it Sunday morning I rewrite again. Then I break each point down into a blog post which makes me rewrite each section yet again. Why do I go through all this? Because each time I rewrite, it gets better. In Jeremiah 36:2 … [Read more...]
Write Thank You Notes
This is the time of the year where, as a pastor, you will be receiving Christmas cards from parishioners stuffed with movie tickets, gifts cards to your favorite restaurant, or maybe even some cold hard cash. When this happens, make sure you hand write a thank you note. We read in Luke 17:11-17, Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a … [Read more...]
One Approach to End of Year Bonuses
If you decide to give out end of year bonuses to your staff, here are several things you'll have to decide: What kind of bonus will it be? Is it simply a Christmas bonus? Or is it an end-of-year performance based bonus? The Christmas bonus is given simply because it's Christmas and you want to be generous. The performance based bonus is determined by...you guessed it...how well that staff member did their job that year. I don't think one is necessarily better than the other. But you have to … [Read more...]
Compensation Handbook for Church Staff
Richard Hammar's book Compensation Handbook for Church Staff is a super helpful resource I use to help me determine salary ranges for my staff at New Day. Here's how it works...First, the book evaluates a variety of factors such as: Position (i.e. executive pastor, worship pastor, associate pastor, kids pastor, etc.) Church income Worship attendance Longevity (how long the staff member has been in your employ) Education (i.e. bachelors degree, masters degree, doctorate or none of the … [Read more...]
How to Determine Compensation (Subjectively)
If you have staff (or plan to have staff one day) one of the many things you must decide is what you will pay them. There are both objective and subjective factors that will go into determining this. In my previous post (click here to read) I covered the objective factors I use to help me determine salary ranges for my staff. In this post I will cover some of the subjective factors that help me determine where exactly my staff will land within their salary range. The subjective factors … [Read more...]
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