Earlier this year, Austin and I had the opportunity to lead a one-day event and a couple workshops at the Preaching & Teaching Convention at Ozark Christian College. In the workshop I led about “Developing a Mission-Minded Congregation,” I had some great back-and-forth with the pastors in attendance.

So this week, we wanted to share the live audio from that session, including part of the teaching from our one-day conferences, along with some Q&A.

I went down a lot of roads I don’t usually talk about in workshops I lead. We discussed leading change without offending people (which as you may know, isn’t actually possible), how you should track vision, signs your church might not actually want to reach your community, why many leaders struggle to cast vision, and a whole lot more. Plus, Austin and I spend a little time upfront sharing why we’re thankful as we close out 2020.

Excited to hear what you think of this type of episode on the podcast!

 

Key Takeaways

1) Too often I see pastors say if a church isn’t growing, it’s cause we’re not praying or preaching hard enough. That’s not true.

2) You are God’s finest. You’re not less than.

3) We complicate mission and vision too often. Mission is why we exist and vision is what it looks like in the future.

4) When tension comes, we can’t compromise just to create “peace.” Change is hard, but it’s necessary to lead a church into the future.

5) Too often, instead of considering what the people we want to reach value, we only consider what we want them to value. Strategy starts with actually knowing the people you want to reach.

Links to Resources Mentioned or Related

• Read Stalled: Hope and Help for Pastors Who Thought They’d Be There By Now
• Check out VisionDay and VisionBox
  

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