Posts Tagged ‘D2MC’

4 Ways to Keep Your Church a Fort

By: Jock Ficken

American churches are like forts. 30% of the members ride into the fort once a week and then they ride back out of the fort intending not to be influenced…or to influence…the people who live out on the frontier. And, frontier people have no interest in discovering what fort people do inside their forts or … Continue reading →

Leave Behind & Take Away

By: Sarah Greiner

We Can’t Stay Here

By: Jock Ficken

Leaders articulate vision! A preferred future. They also articulate WHY WE CAN’T STAY HERE. My early leader years? Lots of Vision! I ignored WHY WE CAN’T STAY HERE, and then I couldn’t understand why nobody wanted to leave…HERE! I was like Moses trying to convince the Israelites to exit Egypt before anyone realized it wasn’t … Continue reading →

5 Ways to Disciple Young Leaders

By: Jock Ficken

You may have noticed there aren’t many young leaders in most congregations today. Ain’t many young “anybodies” in most churches these days. We risk the death of the church in the U.S. in a single generation. My heart aches with every congregational leader’s lament: How did this happen? How did we get here? But we … Continue reading →

Exploiting Opportunities

By: Jock Ficken

Opportunities abound for most of us, for most of our congregations. Seriously!  But, most of us and most of our churches find it difficult to exploit those opportunities.  A gap exists between what we say we value…and what we actually value!  Leaders and churches oftentimes know it, believe it, but just don’t act on it. … Continue reading →

Good Leaders Create Pain

By: Jock Ficken

Good leaders create pain for themselves and for those they lead from time to time. I was challenged a long time ago not to reduce my ministry leadership to the lowest common denominator where No one gets upset, It costs no one anything, Irrelevance and ineffectiveness get a passing grade. What a gift! It’s not … Continue reading →

CELEBRATE ALL GOD HAS DONE

By: Sarah Greiner

Pass this on to a friend who would enjoy celebrating with us.  Please like it and share it on Facebook or Twitter too.  Thankful for you.  Rejoice!  

Nebo…Mount Nebo

By: Jock Ficken

The invincible walled city of Jericho was across the Jordan.  Entry point to the Land Promised.  Moses had lead the Israelites on the journey of a lifetime but he would not be leading there.  This was it for Moses.  Moses could see it. He just wouldn’t get to lead it. “Because you did not trust me … Continue reading →

Will freelancing become normal for pastors and other ministry leaders in the church?

By: Jock Ficken

,Last week I referenced a “broken” or “soon to be broken” ministry/business model and that churches will be faced with how to: Aggressively live out the Mission of God to an emerging generation AND Cut the costs of operating congregational ministry. Very few churches do these two well… Very few churches do these two well and secure or maintain … Continue reading →

Time to Grit your Teeth and get in the Local Mission

By: Jock Ficken

So many–pastors, churches, women, men–who intentionally enter some slice of their community to represent Jesus and respond to the mission of God start by gritting their teeth and finally giving it a try. They’ve heard about it, talked about it, prayed about it, but never did anything about it. There is a lot of talk, … Continue reading →