Church Leadership

March 6, 2018

Links We Love

Four Ways I’ve Made It Through Difficult Seasons of Ministry —Ronnie Floyd

Disappointment leads to discouragement in ministry. As I have shared with pastors before, you must see these times as seasons, meaning they come and go. Nevertheless, how do you make it through the difficult seasons of ministry?

Three Intentional Steps to Reaching Your Goals – LifeWay Pastors

The crowd at my local YMCA is getting thinner. And I’m not talking about waistlines. Approximately six weeks into the new year many who set the goal to “lose weight and get in shape” are no longer working on that goal. The thinning crowd is one example of how stating a goal is easy, but reaching a goal will require more of you than you thought. The same is true for your pastoral ministry. Someone, somewhere once said, “Goals are dreams with deadlines.”

5 Ways to Honor God Through Work – LifeWay Men’s Ministry

God has indeed made us, by gifting and by calling, for certain tasks. As we fulfill those tasks, we flourish, our families are strengthened, others are well served, and Christ is honored. We need, then, to discover and pursue our vocation.

Another Year of Fighting the Same Old Sin – LifeWay Women’s Ministry

As a ministry leader, do you ever have those seasons in ministry where you feel so frustrated when someone you care about confesses to you that they’ve once again given into sin? Why can’t they stop? Why must we have this conversation again? Or I thought we dealt with this a year ago—or 5 years ago or 15 years ago! What do you mean that sin is back and better than ever?

2 Underlying Beliefs that Make Us Drift from Grace – Michael Kelley

if you’re a Christian you might have once believed that it’s by grace alone that you are saved, apart from anything you can do. But self-justification is a slippery slope. Most of us have, at one point or another, drifted into believing that though we might have been initially made right with God only by His grace, we are kept in good standing with God based on our works. It’s easy to get there.

Church Leadership, Group Leadership

March 5, 2018

Why You Should Customize Your Bible Studies

By Caroline Case

Choosing the best Bible study for your small group is like trying to find the pair of shoes that fit just right. You need a Bible study that will both support your members and enable them to go the distance in their faith journey. LifeWay offers a myriad of Bible studies for groups of all shapes and sizes, but there’s one brand that’s sure to fit your group just right.

Smallgroup.com is an online subscription service that offers customizable, discussion-driven, and video-enhanced studies to fit your church’s needs, preferences, and tastes. With a library of over 3,000 Bible studies, if our website doesn’t have a study you need, then the team at smallgroup.com will write one for you—custom. Our studies enable you to customize your discussion for any small group to have a discipleship experience consistent with your church’s vision. Our team has a passion to serve the people of God in their mission of making disciples, and we strive to do that by providing the best online tool for building the highest quality Bible studies for small groups.

So what are the benefits of a customizable Bible study? Below are three factors to consider when choosing your next study to enhance your group experience:

Customizable Bible studies are personalizable. These studies fit the context of your specific church. Every church is different, and customizable studies provide the flexibility to both edit and enhance your group experience.
Customizable Bible studies incorporate the specific vision and mission of the church in connection with the Scriptures. Although our commitment to Scripture is our first priority, we realize that there are multiple tools that can supplement your time in the Word of God. Smallgroup.com‘s studies are written by seminary-trained, degree-laden professionals from LifeWay Christian Resources. Everything we publish has the “stamp of approval” of being biblically accurate and theologically sound. You shouldn’t settle for less in your Bible studies.
Customizable Bible studies that are supplemental to the sermon give the church a cohesive topic to study together. Through discipleshipincontext.com, we offer a subscription service that writes sermon series that align with your church’s messages. This lends to greater focus for discipleship within the church, especially when including studies for youth and children.

Caroline Case is a proud Nashville transplant from Naples, Florida, who serves as the Production Editor for LifeWay’s SmallGroup.com and Discipleship in Context teams. Caroline has a Bachelor of Communication from Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, FL. She is pursuing her Master of Arts in English at Belmont University in Nashville, where she will go on to pursue her doctorate and teach.

Church Leadership, Group Leadership, Start New Groups

February 19, 2018

Leaders Can’t Do Everything

By Reid Patton

Most people look for leaders in the church like they are trying to fill a job—they look for the most competent person available. This may seem like a good idea at first, but it excludes people who may not appreciate the gifts they have. Having strong competent leaders is a blessing, but if you only seek out people who are ready to lead right now you are missing a great opportunity to build leaders through groups.

The reality is that not all leaders come to us fully formed. The best future leaders of your groups may be those who don’t show an ability or even a desire to lead right now. So how do we equip and identify leaders who do not come to us ready to hit the ground running?

We do it by equipping our current leaders to share the responsibility of leadership with others.

We build future leaders by refusing to do everything. Such an approach cultivates a culture where new leaders are continually being trained and sent out. This type of shared leadership is effective for at least a few reasons.

The best leaders are actually the ones who defer to others. Good leaders let different people lead in different areas. Most small groups include the following elements—teaching, praying, and cultivating relationships. Someone in your group is likely better at one of these things than you. As you identify this, encourage them to take ownership in that particular gifting.

Developing leaders gradually allows group members to grow in their calling. Jesus didn’t send the twelve out immediately. They only went out after they spent time with Him and observed what He did. Gradually, Jesus gave the disciples responsibilities in the mission. They grew in their calling, as well as their ability to depend on Jesus.

Refusing to do everything helps group members see that community is not dependent upon leadership or personality. Everyone loves to have a dynamic group leader, but groups are not about the leadership gifts of one person. Rather, groups are a conglomeration of individual members of the body of Christ coming together. Refusing to do everything trains the people in groups to take responsibility and see that a group is about everyone—not just the leader.

We build leaders by not doing everything.

Reid Patton is a Content Editor for the Short-Term Discipleship Team at LifeWay Christian Resources. He is the thankful husband of Kristen and proud father of Ceile and serves with the Life Group leadership team at the Church at Station Hill in Spring Hill, Tennessee. In his free time, Reid likes reading, watching NBA Basketball and Auburn Football, and going to record stores. You can find him on Twitter @jreidpatton.

Church Leadership, Group Leadership, Uncategorized

February 16, 2018

The Lord is Close to the Brokenhearted

By Group Ministry

Psalm 34:18 teaches us that the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Scripture also tells us that Jesus has overcome the world.

In light of the recent tragedy in Parkland, Florida, group leaders across America now have an opportunity to speak life and the truth of the gospel into members of their group that are hurting and broken or wondering how to feel. Click the links below to download two free Bible studies we hope will be helpful to you as you navigate this time with your groups this week.

God’s Embrace in Our Grief

Suffering Well with Others

Church Leadership

February 12, 2018

The Bible is a Crock-Pot, Not a Microwave

By Michael Kelley

If you’re not a great cook, there are two 20th century inventions that have probably positively impacted your life.

The first is the microwave. In 1945, Percy Spencer was working for a company called Raytheon. He noticed that while he was near a radar set, a candy bar melted in his pocket. The idea occurred to him that microwaves from the radar were responsible for the melted candy bar. To test his theory, he tried to cook popcorn and then eventually exploded an egg. With some modification, Raytheon filed a patent for the cooking process later that year.

The second is the slow cooker. Irving Naxon developed the “Naxon Beanery All-Purpose Cooker” after his Jewish grandmother told him how her mother would cook a stew for several hours in an oven. The invention gained popularity in 1970 when it was reintroduced under the name “Crock-Pot” when, after many women began to work outside the home, it allowed them to start cooking dinner in the morning before they left for work.

It’s easy to cook in both the microwave and the slow cooker. The only difference between the two is time. Well, time and taste.

Because what you’ll find is that you can cook a steak in the microwave, but it won’t taste great. Neither will it be tender. But if you put the same piece of meat in a Crock-Pot, it’s going to come out with a ton of flavor and much easier to chew. Simmering, it seems, changes the composition. It just takes a little longer.

While almost every Christian would acknowledge that reading the Bible is important, most treat the Bible like a microwave. We want an immediate answer to some issue in our life or our world. Or we want to have an immediate boost of good vibes. Or we think that reading the Bible is like a rabbit’s foot—that by looking at a few verses we are motivating God to give us what we want.

We want what we want now. Immediately. Microwaved. But the Bible doesn’t work like that. It’s less like a microwave and more like a Crock-Pot:

How I love your instruction!
It is my meditation all day long (Psalm 119:97).

As Christians, we aren’t meant to only turn to the Bible when we need some kind of quick spiritual fix. Instead, we are meant to simmer in the Word. To have our lives marinated by the truth we find there. To have the composition of our hearts and minds reformed according to the Bible. And that takes time. It’s a slow-cooking process. It’s not just getting in a quick 10 minutes here and there, but instead reading. And reading again. Thinking. Praying. Slowly.

Take your time, Christian. Simmer in God’s Word. Don’t rush through the truth. Memorize it and bring it to mind over and over again. Make sure, as you can, that your heart and soul have time to cook.

For one resource that can help you and your group simmer in God’s Word, check out the Daily Discipleship Guide from Explore the Bible. The Daily Discipleship Guide will allow you and your group to have daily devotions from the same biblical passage you study each week in your group.

Michael Kelley lives in Nashville, TN, with his wife, Jana, and three children: Joshua (10), Andi (7), and Christian (5). He serves as Director of Groups Ministry for Lifeway Christian Resources. As a communicator, Michael speaks across the country at churches, conferences, and retreats and is the author of Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God; Transformational Discipleship; and Boring: Finding an Extraordinary God in an Ordinary Life. Find him on Twitter:@_MichaelKelley.

Church Leadership

January 22, 2018

The Global Gospel: The Case for Diversity in Our Churches

By Rob Tims

I had the privilege of visiting one of the churches I work with from time to time. I’m something of a student of church culture, so I always treasure the opportunity visit, talk with leaders and volunteers, and just generally get a feel for what God is doing in and through a local congregation.

This church is in a southeastern state. The city is 65% black, but the suburb the church sits in is 90% white. Interestingly, in visiting every Sunday school class for all age groups, I saw only two African Americans. You can do the math. To accurately represent the demographics of their suburb, I should have seen approximately 90 people of color among the 1,000 people present, and as many as 600 to more accurately reflect the city.

There are lots of reasons why this was the case, but it’s not the purpose of this post to examine all those reasons. We all wish that our churches looked more like heaven, and this church longs for it, too. And that is what I want this post to do for us: long for our churches to look like heaven.

In Genesis 12:2-3 (CSB), God announced the subject of the entire biblical narrative. To Abram the Lord said:

²I will make you into a great nation,
I will bless you,
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
³I will bless those who bless you,
I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt,
and all the peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.

This reality is brought to fruition in the Book of Revelation, where we see a picture of God’s people from every tongue, tribe, and nation worshiping before His throne.

⁹After this I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰And they cried out in a loud voice:

Salvation belongs to our God,
who is seated on the throne,
and to the Lamb!

¹¹All the angels stood around the throne, and along with the elders and the four living creatures they fell facedown before the throne and worshiped God, ¹²saying,

Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and strength
be to our God forever and ever. Amen (Revelation 7:9-12, CSB).

The idea that God’s people are a blend of all peoples is not a secondary or tertiary issue when it comes to the gospel. Rather, diversity is core to the gospel. God invites His people to join in His overarching plan to redeem all people. As a redeemed people, we are included in His work to share the gospel to those who are lost. Jesus urged His followers, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt 28:19-20, CSB).

May we feel the weight of this, and may we make a concerted effort as individuals and as churches to live out the gospel in this way.

Rob Tims has been married to Holly for 17 years. They have four children: Trey, Jonathan, Abby, and Luke. He has served in the local church for 20 years as a children’s pastor, student pastor, and senior pastor. He currently serves on a team at LifeWay Christian Resources that develops customized Bible studies for groups and teaches two classes for Liberty University School of Divinity Online. He is the author of the book Southern Fried Faith: Confusing Christ and Culture in the Bible Belt.

Links We Love

Why You Should Customize Your Bible Studies

The Lord is Close to the Brokenhearted

The Bible is a Crock-Pot, Not a Microwave

The Global Gospel: The Case for Diversity in Our Churches

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