Five Ways Female Leaders Undermine Themselves
In our culture, power accrues more easily to men than women, so women need to be especially savvy about how to use their power. But instead, women leaders often undermine themselves.
PERSPECTIVES articles
How Do We Best Serve Our Neighbors?
As a strategic planner, I encourage congregations to look for places where their gifts and skills can meet the particular needs of their neighbors. As a human service provider, I watch my clients trudge all over town, piecing together services they need. I worry that despite our good intentions, sometimes congregations make life harder for our neighbors than we should.
Taking Time to Get from Here to There
In a time when polarized opinions are rampant and vigorously defended on social and other media, we need to intentionally invite each other to show up at congregational meetings with more than our opinions.
How to Delegate So Things Get Done
If you are an exceptionally bright, talented, attractive person, you can energize a congregation quite a bit by doing everything yourself. But if you want to make more happen than you personally can lead, you need to learn to delegate.
Want Less Conflict? Look Out the Window!
Congregations that started a “new community outreach” in the previous five years were much less likely to report a significant conflict than similar congregations that did not.
Am I Relevant?
“My worry is that I am not relevant.” I asked fifty denominational leaders to share their deepest worries, and only one brave soul had raised his hand. “No matter what I do,” he said, “the church is likely to continue its decline. My deepest worry is that I have chosen to invest my life in something insignificant—that my vocation has become irrelevant.”
Asking Millennials to Give
“Boomers at our church don’t understand how we give.” I hear this from young people around the country. In a striking example of how generations can see things in opposite ways, boomers say, “Millennials don’t know how to give the way we do.” Let’s unpack these conflicting perceptions of millennial financial support for the congregations where they worship.