Sabotaging with hope by N. Graham Standish “Tim, will you please stop sabotaging this meeting with hope?!” I couldn’t stifle my guffaw as a clergy client shared his recent finance committee experience. Incredibly, it’s what a committee member yelled at him before walking out of the meeting. Tim has been leading his church through revitalization… Read more »
June 5, 2019
Hopeful Church
Sabotaging with hope by N. Graham Standish “Tim, will you please stop sabotaging this meeting with hope?!” I couldn’t stifle my guffaw as a clergy client shared his recent finance committee experience. Incredibly, it’s what a committee member yelled at him before walking out of the meeting. Tim has been leading his church through revitalization… Read more »
Building on a Blessed Community Recognizing the Church’s True Center by Graham Standish Years ago I read a quote by the Quaker mystic, Thomas Kelly, that changed my ministry: “Yet ever within that Society, and ever within the Christian church, has existed the Holy Fellowship, the Blessed Community, an ekklesiola in ekklesia, a little church… 
Church leadership bedrocks Are we leading out of expectations or principles? by N. Graham Standish I’ve been working with a pastor for a number of years, helping him invigorate a somewhat stagnant church. We’ve talked about a lot in the process, and the results of our conversations are showing signs of breathing new… 
Is Our Leadership Stuck on Chapter 5? … or are we stuck writing the same church story? By Graham Standish How are you at writing gripping stories? Are you like me? Do you get author envy when you read great stories? While reading certain authors such as C.S. Lewis,J.R.R. Tolkien and J. K. Rowling I’ve… 
Leading Like Water, not Like Lava: Is our church leadership fluid or frozen? by N. Graham Standish For a number of years I’ve been advising people to “lead more like water and less like lava.” Whenever I do people often look at me as dogs do when they hear a funny noise — ears… 
Maybe We Just Don’t Get It! … or teaching old dogs new tricks by Graham Standish “Dad,… you just don’t get it!” How many times have I heard that refrain from one of my daughters? “Okay,… help me get it,” I reply. They just roll their eyes and mutter, “Never mind.” Not getting it is the… 
Summer Projects Use the summer to make improvements by Richard Hong We are almost at summer. Time to exhale, right? Relax – a little. But September is coming, and now is when we should start making the changes we want to have in place for the new program year. I don’t know where I… 
What Good Is a Vision without a Path? You can’t tell a congregation where to go if you don’t tell then how to get there by Graham Standish In the King James Version of the Bible, there’s a lovely phrase that’s been quoted often by those teaching church leadership: “Where there is no vision, the… 
Not Yet Do you have a ‘growth mindset’? by Richard Hong I’m seeing a lot of decisions made at all levels of the denomination, as we struggle with negative overall trends. What distresses me about the decisions are that so many of them seem to presume that continued decline is inevitable. I don’t…