Innovation Step Two: Become a Student, Not a Critic

Once you’ve acknowledged what’s not working, you need to take another step.  You need to become a student.  You need to become a learner.  Of everything.  Or maybe, almost everything. Now…I have to tell you, it will not come naturally.  Most of us are far more comfortable being a critic.  We come fully equipped with…

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Always True: God’s Promises When Life Is Hard

Looking for a study that will take your group deep into God’s word?  Always True: God’s Promises When Life Is Hard is one you ought to take a look at.  A DVD-driven study by James MacDonald, provides both a powerful group learning experience along with a challenging and encouraging personal daily assignments.  Published by Lifeway,…

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What To Do…When You Wake Up in the Future

Today I want to string together three statements to help you start a conversation that will shift your ministry from hum drum to impact.  It will only start the conversation…but it is a necessary beginning. Here’s the first statement In one of the greatest insights that Peter Drucker ever dropped on all of us ordinary…

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Is It Time for a System Update?

Finding yourself unable to break through certain grouplife barriers?  Maybe you can’t find enough leaders?  Or try as you might, you just can’t start enough new groups to keep up with the number of people looking for a group? It could be that you’re using a system that just isn’t designed to do what you’re…

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Pursuing God’s Love: Stories from the Book of Genesis

I had the chance this weekend to work my way through a very good DVD-driven study from Margaret Feinberg.  New from Zondervan, Pursuing God’s Love is a six session study that takes a look at several of the major themes of Genesis. Feinberg, named one of the “Thirty Emerging Voices” of Christian leaders under age 40…

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Ben Reed’s Latest Learning

In Switch, brothers Chip & Dan Heath (http://www.heathbrothers.com), write about the difficult process of change.  One principle they drive home is that in order to bring about change in others, you’ve got to script the step people need to take and shape the path you want them to travel. _____________________________________ In a recent post, I pointed out…

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Start with the End in Mind

This diagram has been at the heart of a lot of my consulting work for the last several years.  There is so much meaning in it. I used a version of the diagram for yesterday’s presentation in The Twelve…a Global Online Gathering.  There’s a lot to it.  Way more than I can show in a…

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