Posted on November 17th, 2008 by Dr. Lyle Schrag There has been a lot of talk about Church Transformations in the past decade. In the 1990’s I was intrigued by a denominational development. Quite a few resources had been invested by one particular denomination toward Church Planting. While there was a level of success in the planting of churches, a question was raised “what [...]
Posted on November 14th, 2008 by Dr. Larry Perkins The Carver Policy Governance model requires both the church board chair and the lead pastor to understand their respective roles clearly and be supportive of each other in those roles. This is especially important when a local church seeks to implement the Policy Governance model.
Carver states very clearly that the Board chair’s primary role is [...]
Posted on November 5th, 2008 by Dr. Larry Perkins John Carver states with absolute clarity that "Policy Governance offers not a mere improvement in board leadership, but a revolution in boardroom behaviour" (Reinventing Your Board, revised edition, 17). These are strong words. Any church board that might consider adopting Policy Governance as its framework for governance leadership must discern very carefully whether it wants to [...]
Posted on October 24th, 2008 by Mr. Loren Warkentin Wordpress is an amazing platform for churches to use for their websites. A strategic feature in the power and versatility of Wordpress is the distinction that is made between Wordpress Posts and Wordpress Pages. Understanding this distinction is a vital key to unlocking the potential of using Wordpress as a content management system.
When I first [...]
Posted on October 20th, 2008 by Mr. Mark Naylor In the Cross-Cultural Impact article, Confessions of a Failed Church Planter, I related the following story of an incident during our ministry in Pakistan:
Nathaniel (not his real name) told me one day of his favorite chapters in the Bible. Most of them were the expected ones (Ps 23, Rom 8, 1 Cor 13, etc.), but [...]
Posted on October 14th, 2008 by Dr. Lyle Schrag In the last two decades, technology has opened opportunities that Churches have embraced with interesting results. In 1999, one of the pastors at the Sherwood Baptist Church of Albany, Georgia realized that their sound room had become a media room. Looking at the cameras and sound equipment, he realized that cost was no longer a [...]
Posted on October 8th, 2008 by Mr. Loren Warkentin WordPress gets continually easier to use as a CMS (Content Management System) which is good news for churches who want an easy to use platform for their internet presence. Yesterday I upgraded the Northwest website to the latest version (WordPress 2.6.2) and the upgrade went very smoothly. With the size and [...]
Posted on September 22nd, 2008 by Dr. Larry Perkins According to John and Miriam Carver the person who chairs the board "ensures the integrity of the board’s process and,…occasionally represents the board to outside parties" (Reinventing Your Board, revised edition (2006), page 110). Within the context of a local church the board chair usually has very few specifications to provide guidance in discharging this [...]
Posted on September 10th, 2008 by Dr. Lyle Schrag I’m not sure exactly why, but it seems that there has been one word repeated incessantly over the last few week: Change. Maybe it’s due to the political season. Possibly it’s due to the initiation of Fall programs. Whatever it is, and wherever it’s used, it seems to carry a sense of urgency. As the [...]
Posted on September 8th, 2008 by Dr. Kenton Anderson With election fever across North America, it might be helpful for us to consider how we guide our listeners from the pulpit. Traditionally, preachers have understood that while we should feel free to speak broadly about issues that are relevant from the perspective of the Scriptures, we should draw the line at telling our listeners [...]
Posted on August 27th, 2008 by Dr. Larry Perkins One of the key principles embedded in Policy Governance is that the board holds one person accountable for achieving the institutional ends — the Chief Executive Officer. For the CEO this is double-edged sword because on the one hand it gives tremendous flexibility within well-defined boundaries, but on the other hand puts great responsibility on [...]
Posted on August 25th, 2008 by Dr. Larry Perkins William Young writes an interesting novel (as the title page describes this book) — and we have to remember that The Shack is a novel! According to the foreword Young is telling the story of Mackenzie Allen Phillips and his encounter with God at “the shack”, the place where Phillip’s youngest daughter was murdered. Young [...]
Posted on August 12th, 2008 by Dr. Larry Perkins What is the essential principle or presupposition that guides the Carver Policy Governance model? A volunteer board in a non-profit institution must “provide strategic leadership, it must clarify policies and expect organizational activities to give them life.”1 The key question the board must answer, according to Carver is this – What human needs are satisfied [...]
Posted on June 25th, 2008 by Dr. Lyle Schrag There is a book that has developed something of a cult following among frustrated pastors and bloggers who yearn to be “organic” Christians. It has a controversial title that is guaranteed to stimulate discussion: So You Don’t Want To Go To Church Anymore. Written by Jake Colsen [actually by Wayne [...]
Posted on May 8th, 2008 by Dr. Larry Perkins Dan Allender has provided a provocative look at several serious aspects of ministry leadership in his book “Leading with a Limp.” He writes primarily out of his experience as the founder of Mars Hill Graduate School located near Seattle. His thesis is clear: “to the degree you face and name and deal with your failures [...]
Posted on April 4th, 2008 by Mr. Mark Naylor In the book UnChristian (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), which deals with research from the Barna group, David Kinnaman refers to a survey which asked the participants to agree or disagree with the statement, “Christian churches accept and love people unconditionally, regardless of how people look or what they do” (p. 185). 20% of [...]
Posted on March 12th, 2008 by Mr. Mark Naylor Best Practices for Church Missions Workshops Photos
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Immanuel Abbotsford
“Thank you for the great workshop. Our missions focus is struggling and we found it to be so helpful and encouraging. The questions and exercises were well thought out and gave us good direction, as well as the prayer focus throughout. We [...]
Posted on February 28th, 2008 by Dr. Lyle Schrag One of my greater joys comes from time shared with my “A-Team” which I affectionately call the tiny band of brothers and sisters in our CLD Affinity Group. The group has grown over the years to several dozen, each called by God into a wide array of ministry in the church. They study hard. The [...]
Posted on February 15th, 2008 by Dr. Larry Perkins When you are seeking additional people to serve as part of the church board, what aspect should receive most attention – skill, experience, character or attitude? Certainly Paul warns us not to ask a novice in the faith or someone who has not had experience in leading a family to fill this role. So experience [...]
Posted on February 12th, 2008 by Mr. Loren Warkentin WordPress is a great CMS (Content Management System) platform for a church website and web design as it is extremely flexible and very easy to use. Part of this flexibility comes from WordPress’ ability to take advantage of the programming skills of people from around the world who have designed various small add-on applications for [...]
Posted on January 25th, 2008 by Dr. Larry Perkins In 2007 Amal Henein and Francoise Morissette published Made in Canada Leadership. Wisdom from the Nation’s Best and Brightest on Leadership Practice and Development. They argue that "in each of us rests the potential for leadership, but the response and measure depend on us….We are all called to lead"(58). They discovered that parental influence and [...]
Posted on January 15th, 2008 by Mr. Loren Warkentin You may have noticed the new look to the Northwest website this month. Over the past several months I have been testing a number of new possibilities for our site in order to make it more friendly to navigate, more functional in terms of accessing the information and resources we provide here and hopefully more [...]
Posted on January 8th, 2008 by Dr. Larry Perkins Behaviour will often make the difference between just being a church board member and being a productive church board member. People may know the rules about playing volleyball and participate in the game, but without passion, concentration, commitment and desire to work collaboratively, they will rarely excel and be productive with the team. Similarly a [...]
Posted on December 3rd, 2007 by Dr. Lyle Schrag
As full disclosure, I should confess that I’ve been a fan of Willow Creek before Willow Ceek was Willow Creek. In the mid-1970’s the youth pastor of my home church in Park Ridge, Illinois was a Trinity College student named Bill Hybels. I always enjoyed coming home on holidays from Seminary just to see [...]
Posted on November 25th, 2007 by Mr. Loren Warkentin WordPress is a web authoring software package that is designed to be easy to use and free for the downloading. The creators of the software describe WordPress as follows: "WordPress is a state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. What a mouthful. WordPress is both free and priceless [...]
Posted on November 23rd, 2007 by Mr. Mark Naylor Joy’s (1) emotional pain was evident as she related her move from her family’s mono-ethnic Chinese church to a multiethnic congregation. She felt guilt as if she had somehow betrayed her home church.
Bob pastored a multi-ethnic congregation but was frustrated by his inability to recruit leadership from certain groups.
Jane enjoyed belonging to a church [...]
Posted on November 16th, 2007 by Dr. Larry Perkins At our recent "Best Practices for Church Boards Workshop" held in Langley, one of the groups attending had also participated in the first workshop we presented two and half years ago. What was remarkable to note was that none of the members of that church board were the same. Over that short period of time [...]
Posted on November 15th, 2007 by Mr. Loren Warkentin You have a message you want to deliver; you have a specific audience that you want to target; you develop a cool website for this purpose and then you do a search - and if it shows up at all, your shiny new church website is buried 20 pages deep into the search engine’s list. [...]
Posted on November 7th, 2007 by Dr. Larry Perkins Dr. Lyle Schrag, director of our Northwest Centre for Leadership Development, led our sixth Best Practices for Church Boards workshop this past weekend. Seven churches participated. As I gave one of the presentations and facilitated a conversation among one of the church boards, the centrality of relationships to good Church Board operations became absolutely clear. [...]
Posted on November 6th, 2007 by Mr. Loren Warkentin …where does one start when planning a church website?
Today I am launching a series of articles for churches on the topic of church websites. Have you grappled with how to start, develop and maintain a good church website? Have you learned some great secrets that you would be willing to share? I hope to add a number of [...]
Posted on October 25th, 2007 by Mr. Mark Naylor The following is a response from my wife, Karen, to a couple of recent blogs found on this site:
In his Oct 17 blog "The Foundation for Hearing God," Loren Warkentin wrote:
We Christians have become acculturated to this [fast-paced] style of living and I believe it has affected our spiritual lives. We are easily bored. If [...]
Posted on October 24th, 2007 by Dr. Lyle Schrag Quick note, helpful tool: Check out the resources of Leadership Transformations, Inc. Actually, go directly to their ministry resource outlet entitled HealthyChurch.net [just add the www. before the title, and you’re there.]
One of the things that I’ve discovered in the last two years is that most churches wait until a crisis to assess the health [...]
Posted on October 22nd, 2007 by Dr. Brian Rapske It’s that time of the semester once again. The Registrar’s office has asked each professor to indicate whether they are requiring an examination that needs to be scheduled into the examination week for their courses. The schedule is out and professors and students are all now aware of when each examination will need to be [...]
Posted on October 18th, 2007 by Dr. Larry Perkins In a recent issue of Mcleans a lead article raised the alarm that our Canadian commitment to multiculturalism may be eroding. The key question that Canadians are debating is this: what reasonable accommodations should Canadians make to cultural and religious minorities? Where should the limits be drawn? The writer claimed that many in Canada are [...]
Posted on October 9th, 2007 by Dr. Larry Perkins According to Robert Quinn in Deep Change a legitimate vision must exceed perceived resources. If our vision fits neatly within our current resources it is merely a plan, not a vision. Planning is important, but it will not result in "deep change", according to Quinn. Only vision enables an organization to discern a future that [...]
Posted on October 4th, 2007 by Dr. Lyle Schrag I posted a note back in July with a bit of a warning – that the Middle-Adult ministry today is not the same as it was 30 years ago, and that if the church doesn’t address the aging Boomer generation, it is missing a huge opportunity [July 5, 2007: Here They Come.] I don’t know [...]
Posted on September 25th, 2007 by Dr. Lyle Schrag Christianity Today International publishes the result of an annual survey on church salaries. This year’s copy of The 2008 Compensation Handbook for Church Staff has not yet been published, but a few of the results have been reported – as surprises. Senior editor, Kevin Miller, has posted an article in Leadership online entitled 3 Surprises [...]
Posted on September 21st, 2007 by Dr. Brian Rapske My daughters, who’ve recently left home and struck out on their own, are searching for a home church. Sunday they tried out a young congregation meeting at a local movie theater. When we asked them, they described what had gone on that morning during the service. It was great! Earlier in their search they’d found [...]
Posted on September 17th, 2007 by Mr. Mark Naylor I received a good question from Missions Catalyst e-Magazine. Shane Bennett writes,
So, how have you seen short-termers transformed into long-termers? I’m thinking of good examples in which sharp people end up in significant, well-fitting roles. I’m imagining non-manipulative methods in which people are invited to recognize their gifts, are provided with proper stepping stones to [...]
Posted on September 14th, 2007 by Dr. Lyle Schrag The work we’ve been working with Church Boards over the last year has created a number of opportunities to expand our ability to help raise the levels of congregational health on a more personal level. To do that well, I have been getting trained in various Church Coaching systems. Along the way, one of my [...]
Posted on September 10th, 2007 by Dr. Larry Perkins Great interest now focuses upon fostering spiritual formation within all segments of Christianity. In its best forms, Christian spiritual formation uses various exercises and disciplines to form us to be like Christ, in thought, word and deed. Jesus himself taught his followers to pray, to resist evil, to love, to serve, to pursue righteousness, to [...]
Posted on September 5th, 2007 by Dr. Lyle Schrag I might as well admit it, I am a fan of George Bullard. I am consistently stimulated by his writings. In fact, it’s been suggested that since I frequently post thoughts from his journal or blog that I should just post his link on my regularly scheduled posting on this blog and have done with [...]
Posted on August 30th, 2007 by Dr. Larry Perkins In their book Leading from the Second Chair Mike Bonem and Roger Patterson have provided an excellent discussion of the challenges and opportunities people in associate ministry leadership roles face on a daily basis. Their goal is to help such individuals thrive and discern good, creative ways to cope with tensions that inevitably define this [...]
Posted on August 28th, 2007 by Dr. Lyle Schrag I might as well admit it. I hate sticky notes. Those little slips of paper with just enough glue on them to stick to your fingers really annoy me. And yet, I might as well admit it, I am addicted to lists! I live by the list and, more often than not, die by the [...]
Posted on August 20th, 2007 by Mr. Mark Naylor At the beginning of August Karen and I visited the Bridal Veil waterfall outside of Hope. At the foot of the falls there is a fenced off area for observers with a large “CAUTION†sign warning people to keep back and enjoy the falls from a distance. The falls are beautiful – almost [...]
Posted on August 10th, 2007 by Dr. Larry Perkins Referee? Dictator? Coordinator? Coach? Parent? The role of the chairperson in a church board gets stereotyped in many unfortunate and misleading ways. Perceptions of this role will significantly affect how people act when appointed and how individuals respond to a person in this role. As Jesus framed it, every role in his kingdom is a [...]
Posted on July 26th, 2007 by Dr. Larry Perkins George Cladis, Leading the Team-Based Church. San Fransisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1999. vii-xv, 1-189.
According to Cladis the best of kind of leadership model for the North American church in this postmodern era is the ministry leadership team. He begins by grounding his model in Trinitarian theology. Then he defines seven specific characteristics, based on his understanding [...]
Posted on July 24th, 2007 by Dr. Brian Rapske Our house has been a-hum with guests most of this month. But as busy as we’ve been, the joy has been greater. Sitting around the crowded dinner table laden with good things this week, I’ve been reminded of how many times in the past my family and I have been the beneficiaries of God’s great [...]
Posted on July 16th, 2007 by Dr. Larry Perkins The missional church movement calls the church to rediscover its kingdom identity and purpose as the people of God. Now we hear that churches will require a new kind of leadership – missional leadership – to guide their re-development as missional congregations. Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk in The Missional Leader. Equipping Your Church to [...]
Posted on June 21st, 2007 by Dr. Kenton Anderson There’s a lot of talk out there about some high profile “emerging†churches. We’re hearing about “progressional dialogue†preaching, worship stations, and other innovations. The implication seems to be that these things will characterize the way we all do church in a few years.
I’m not so sure. I tend to think of these kinds of [...]
Posted on June 20th, 2007 by Dr. Larry Perkins