Culture is the complex whole of knowledge, belief, art, ethics, custom, and probably many other elements in which we live and breath and have our being. Every organization has a culture, intentional or otherwise, and that means your church has a culture too. These days successful business leaders are very intentional about their culture. We […]
I have a friend who is Pastor of a big Church. He says it “sleeps” 700. This is a sadly common description of many Catholic congregations: asleep. Churches that need waking up have prevailing cultures of detachment and shallow commitment which almost always includes large numbers of people coming late and leaving early for weekend services […]
A big factor in our growth at Nativity was getting over our unwillingness to learn and borrow methods from growing, often non-Catholic, churches. But in the process we also had to learn what to look for. We realized that adopting successful methods from other churches required first paying attention to their ministry’s purpose-driven strategy, not […]
Everybody has found themselves caught on a team with an ineffective team member. Maybe it was somebody who didn’t want to be there and passive-aggressively resisted the team’s efforts, or worked against them. Maybe it was just someone who was ineffective, lazy, uninterested, or miscast. On the other hand, we have probably also had the […]
Every parishioner can tell you what a pastor should do. Most would be more than happy to do so. And just try and stop some of them. But rarely is there a great deal of unanimity about what those things are. Sometimes there is, in fact, opposing views about what we should be doing. And […]
Everybody could probably tell you what a pastor should do. But the list of what a pastor, or parish leader of any kind, shouldn’t do is actually much longer. And it is as important to know what not to do as knowing your to-do list. Here are a few, in no particular order. #1. The pastor […]
Easter is the great feast day of the Church, giving life to all our hope. There is no end to what else could be said about it, but I have never really heard much said about this: the Easter story teaches us about leadership, and specifically the kind of leaders Christ wants in his Church. […]
We’re all looking for the silver bullet, the magic formula, the secret sauce that is going to take our church to the next level in terms of health and growth, discipleship and evangelization. Of course, there is no substitute for hard work and sustained effort, and you need a healthy team of leaders to make […]
When it comes to building a healthy parish (and a healthy parish will be a growing parish) the Eucharist is the source and the summit of our life together. Beyond that are the habits of discipleship: prayer, giving, ministry, evangelization. These are a given for a church to even be a church. But from a […]
Our parish is healthy and growing, which is great. We love the energy, the excitement, the sense of strong team ties, good morale, successful efforts. But leading through a season of growth brings its own challenges and problems too. #1. Change That Brought Growth Might Not Sustain It In our church we experienced growth in […]
