Posts by Mark Howell
5 Ideas You Ought to Be Testing This Fall
5 Ideas You Ought to Be Testing This Fall I have never been more proud than when my prospective boss at Parkview was told, “If you’re okay with a mad scientist, Mark will be a good hire.” And no other statement has rocked my imagination like this one from Craig Groeschel: “If you want to…
Read MoreTake a Fresh Look at LifeGuide Bible Studies
Looking for some easy-to-use Bible studies you can recommend to your small group leaders? You might want to take a fresh look at IVP Connect’s LifeGuide Bible Study series. Although the LifeGuide Bible Study series is not new, it will be to many small group leaders and group members. While more than 15 million LifeGuide…
Read MoreHow Keen Is Your Cross-Cultural Awareness?
If you’ve been following the conversation here for very long you know that I believe all signs point to a rapidly shifting culture, quickly moving to a post-Christian America. Hopefully, that is not breaking news for you. Clearly, there have already been massive shifts in culture with more to come. And that leads me to…
Read MoreHas Blind Spot #1 Limited Your Small Group Ministry?
Blindspots. I think we’ve all experienced what happens when you’re driving, maybe changing lanes, and suddenly a loud horn honking from a car you did not see breaks up what was a perfectly uneventful commute. At a minimum, it’s embarrassing! And at its worst…well, it can end up costing you a lot of money. Blindspots.…
Read More10 Worst Small Group Ministry Decisions…Ever
We all make a lot of decisions. Sometimes we make good or even great decisions. Sometimes we decide to do something and immediately regret our decision. Other times we make a decision and really don’t figure out it was a bad one until months or even years later. When the decision affects us (and rarely)…
Read MoreMy Top 10 Favorite Posts on Small Group Coaching
Over the last 10 years I’ve written a lot about small group coaching. A LOT! I tried determining the actual top 10 posts (according to Google Analytics), but realized after the fact that many were written in 2008 and 2009…and there are some big ideas that have emerged in the last two or three years.…
Read MoreMove Toward the Mess Is a Book You Need to Be Reading
I came home from North Point Ministries re:group conference with a copy of Move Toward the Mess: The Ultimate Fix for a Boring Christian Life in my swag bag. Honestly, I didn’t really even notice it until I got home and went through the contents of the bag (and decided what to do with it).…
Read MoreNew “Double Shot” Mini-Course: Basic Training for New Coaches
Basic Training for New Coaches – 2016 If you’re using my strategies to build an effective coaching structure, you may have wondered how to train the coaches you’ve identified and recruited. After all, it’s possible to end up with the great coaching candidates who simply don’t know what to do. It’s possible to end up…
Read MoreDo You Know How to Give Group Members a Life-Changing Experience?
Do you know how to give group members a life-changing experience? What do you think are the most important things you can do to influence the experience of a group member? What do you think is the single most important thing? Do you know? I can tell you what I think. Of course, it is…
Read MoreFAQ: How Do You Train “Launch-Phase Coaches”
I get questions. A lot of questions. Some come by email and others begin as comments or questions on a blog post. I get a lot of questions, too, when I’m speaking at a conference or giving a workshop. When I get a question I think you’d like to know the answer to…I often simply…
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