Essential Skills: Managing Checklists
There are many skills that ministry leaders need to develop. Among them are skills like teaching & preaching, leading meetings, planning events, caring for people, responding to crises, and so on. However, there are some less fashionable skills that are just as essential. Here are five of them that have been on my mind lately. Managing Checklists […]
Essential Skills for Ministry Leadership
There are many skills that ministry leaders need to develop. Among them are skills like teaching & preaching, leading meetings, planning events, caring for people, responding to crises, and so on. However, there are some less fashionable skills that are just as essential and are just hard, dirty work. There are five in particular that have been […]
Using Basecamp to Manage Church and Ministry Projects, Event Planning, and Key Processes
We use Basecamp to manage all our ministry’s major projects, plan events, and manage some key processes. It’s an intuitive, simple online
The NextGen Way
NextGen and Family ministry models are a rising trend in the world of ministry to children, youth, and families. We’ve recently made this shift ourselves. Previously, our children’s ministry, youth ministry, college and young adults ministry, and marriage and family ministries all operated with separate leadership, separate values and vision, and separate strategies and language. We’ve […]
When Driving with Students
We’ve all been there. Whether it’s the kid who needs a ride home after youth group or the kid who can’t get a ride to come meet you at Starbucks, the scenario is the same. You and a teenager alone in a car. Should you be concerned or is it no big deal? I say it’s a […]
Mission Trips
The Problem: How I Did Missions Then For years, I took students on annual mission trips. Some were domestic (in the U.S.) and some were international (outside the U.S.). They were always great experiences. But one day I realized a few things that made me really uncomfortable with doing them anymore. I think we were guilty […]
The Power of Ableton
If you have a pretty good worship band or youth band and you want to help them move from good to great, Ableton Live will help you get there. Of course, nothing can replace the importance of your musicians’ personal proficiencies. But, if they’re already pretty good at their instruments, Ableton will help your band […]
Drums too Loud? Here’s the Silver Bullet!
The Problem Those drums can be way too loud…even for youth. It’s hard to have a great musical experience when the drums are overpowering everything in the room. Some have tried to solve this by Turning everything else way up. But then your eardrums start bleeding because the human ear cannot handle that kind of volume. […]
Get Your Band to Start Playing to a Click Track
If you’re tired of your band speeding up and slow songs and slowing down on fast songs or speeding up and slowing down on any song, get ’em on a click.Most of the pros play to a click. Every great worship band plays to a click. Pianists and other classical musicians have played to clicks (metronomes) […]
Get Your Band to Start Using In Ear Monitors
You should consider getting your band to get rid of those monstrous stage monitors and get some IEMs (In Ear Monitors). Once you do, you’ll be amazed at how much better your band sounds. Benefits Using IEMs has made a huge difference in our sound. It has significantly reduced the stage noise. The noise from traditional floor wedges […]
A Relational Approach to Staff Reviews
Here’s what I try to do when it comes to doing staff reviews. Pave the Way First, write the into the “Terms of Hire.” This is the document that accompanies the job description that outlines the details of pay, hours, employment status, expected working days (even hours if appropriate) and special events, termination rights and process, […]
6 Things I’m not doing at Youth Group Tonight
1. Leading Worship – I used to do that, but now someone else is doing that. 2. Giving the Welcome and Announcements – I used to do that, but now we have 2 student hosts each week giving the welcome and announcements. They’re doing great as long as we give them cue cards. 3. Teaching/Speaking […]
Best Format for Youth Group
Over the years I’ve experimented with a variety of formats for running youth group. And, I see a lot of other people experimenting, as well. Of course, you have to experiment until you come up with what feels the best for you, for your group, and your context. But, IMO, this is the best format for our […]
A New Way to Manage My Work Schedule
I’ve decided to develop some new routines in my schedule. Along with these routines, I’ve decided to take a new approach to keeping on track with these routines in my calendar. If you’re good at just looking at a picture and figuring it out from there, go ahead and skip the detailed explanation below. But be sure to […]
Getting Our Teams Set Up
With all the changes to our staff and ministry teams, we had a lot of work to do clarify our roles, responsibilities, goals and objectives, and values. It was a lot of administrative work. But it was worth the time we put into it. We now have a pretty good idea of what we’re doing and […]
Our New Governance: Leadership Team Model
Making Decisions & Getting Things Done How do decisions get made in our church? How do things get done? These are two very important questions and we’re working hard on making the answers very clear and appropriate to our identity as a church. Congregational First of all, it’s important to know that we are a […]
My New Role as NextGen Pastor
Okay, so a lot of things have changed at our church and in my job. Over the summer (2014) we 1) made some major changes to our church governance and 2) restructured our staff. It was an extremely full summer keeping up with and adjusting to these changes on top of the normal summer craziness. Changes to our Church’s Governance […]
Jim Murphy