On today’s Whiteboard Wednesday, Eliza Cortez Bast, Coordinator for Local Missional Engagement for the Reformed Church in America, speaks on how churches can be missionally minded from the Start. What it means to be missional from the onset? What does it look like for a church to be more than just Sunday? What does it look like for a church …
The F.A.I.T.H Filter
On today’s Whiteboard Wednesday, Mike Gafa describes the F.A.I.T.H. filter and how utilizing this tool helps enable successful strategic planning for leadership teams. Before you lock down strategic plans, I recommend that you ensure that your plans pass through a tool called the “F.A.I.T.H. Filter.” F stands for flexible, because plans need to be held loosely, being flexible to adapt …
Biblical Principles of Multiplying Multi-Ethnic Churches
On today’s Whiteboard Wednesday, teacher, writer and minister Agshin Jafarov speaks about how scripture informs planting multi-ethnic churches. For a more detailed post on this subject, go to Agshin’s blog at http://www.biblicaltransformations.com When multi-ethnic churches are planted, certain principles can be followed that come from scripture. The first principle is the centrality of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the unifying principle …
What is Deep Change?
On today’s Whiteboard Wednesday, Rick Veenstra emphasizes the importance of deep change in your ministry and the level of effort and time it takes to achieve transformational systemic change. The church in America has basically two choices: deep change or slow death. Slow death is kind of obvious. Deep change is not so obvious. Recently, someone asked Rick, “What is …
Fostering Kingdom-Oriented Prayer in the Congregation
To kick off our second season of Whiteboard Wednesday, we have Jon Sherrill, who serves as the lead pastor at Fifth Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, discussing kingdom-focused prayer and how to foster it in your church. Kingdom-focused prayer has taken a greater priority for Jon and his community recently. Through collaboration with other churches to plant a new church …
Finishing Well
On today’s Whiteboard Wednesday, Rick Veenstra talks about the importance of finishing well as a Christian leader to ensure a smooth and positive transition in your ministry. Rick Veenstra is nearing the end of his journey as a vocational Christian leader, having served as a pastor for over 40 years. To help prepare for the next chapter of his life, …
Show Your Work
Today, we have Rick Veenstra share with us about the importance of “showing your work.” Recently, our team was asked to read a book titled Show Your Work. As a result of reading that book, we became convinced it was important to do the kind of thing we are doing right now. We believe that because we are Christians, we …
Reactive Management to Adaptive Leadership
Mike Gafa presents some steps to move a consistory from managing to leading in today’s Whiteboard Wednesday. Everyday brings a new crisis for church leaders. In turn, too many consistories find themselves playing “leadership whack-a-mole” as they attempt to solve the latest crisis. Similarly, leadership in the church can sometimes feel this way, but this is not a good method …
I Hate This
This week’s Whiteboard Wednesday, we have Rick Veenstra, who’s been serving as a minister for more than 40 years, and shares one of the life lessons he’s learned, entitled “I Hate This.” My mom told me that I should not use the word “hate.” But I don’t know what other word to use regarding this particular leadership lesson, which has …
Institutional Management to Missional Leadership
On today’s Whiteboard Wednesday, Mike Gafa shares a few thoughts about the importance of missional leadership for moving a consistory from managers to leaders. To move from managing to leading, we must pull away from institutional management and embrace missional leadership. What do we mean by “institutional management?” Institutional management encompasses the daily operations of a church – staff management, …