Failures

I never in a million years dreamed I would be leading New Day Church in a capital campaign. I grew up hearing the horror stories of capital campaigns (i.e. the senior pastor was hospitalized during the process due to the stress, the church ran out of money in the middle of the project so construction had to stop, the church became completely focused on begging people for money, etc. etc. etc.). As a result of these horror  stories, I had no interest in moving within 1,000 miles of a capital … [Read more...]

I only make an appointment with my doctor when something is wrong. If I have an ear ache I make an appointment. If I grow a lump on my leg I make an appointment. If I'm sick and can't shake it I make an appointment. But if everything is good with my health, it never crosses my mind to speak with my doctor. I don't call to chat on the phone. I don't swing by the office with a coffee to catch up. I don't send texts or emails. Sometimes I have a tendency to interact with God as … [Read more...]

One of the many mistakes I've made as a leader is implementing something at New Day that's not scalable. For example, when we first started I chose a website that couldn't grow with us as the church grew. This resulted in a lot of wasted time because once we grew and I needed more features than the current website could offer, I had to rebuild our site from scratch with a new company. After this happened two or three times, I realized, the hard way, that I don't want to use anything that's not … [Read more...]

One of the many mistakes I've made as a leader is to ignore a problem hoping it will go away. But I've learned the hard way that if you see a problem within the church (i.e. problem people or situations) you need to run to conflict. Things only get worse, not better - and problems NEVER solve themselves. Let me illustrate what I mean... I remember not shoveling my driveway one time after a snow storm. Well, after a couple days of driving over that snow, combined with freezing temperatures, my … [Read more...]

I know everyone in ministry has a different schedule so while I don't want to make a blanket statement I think it's a mistake for many pastors to take Monday off vs Friday. Let me share four reasons why: When you take Monday off you're playing catch up the rest of the week. Instead of getting ahead, you start the work week off one day behind. When you take Monday off you're pushing sermon prep to later in the week. And as we all know, the closer we get to Sunday without the sermon finished, … [Read more...]

A couple months ago I went to a leadership intensive at Church of the Highlands in Birmingham Alabama. It...was...awesome! But sadly, I could relate all too well to the following three comments by Chris Hodges: One of the side effects of not spending enough time in prayer is that you'll begin loving crowds, but not people. We ought to have a relational prayer life with God and not just a rescue prayer life. In a relational prayer life you spend time with God just to nurture the relationship. … [Read more...]