Writing
Essays and working ideas from more than fifteen years of writing about faith, leadership, discipleship, the church, family, and life in Austin.
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A few essays that introduce the questions and convictions behind this site.
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Basic Training for Missional Communities
After five years of trying nearly every training method available, the most useful thing we learned was to train the whole community rather than the leader alone. Leaders trained by themselves struggled to pass the material…
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The Basic Qualifications for Leadership
Our bar for leadership is five things: attend the four week training, tell your story to an elder or deacon, name who you want to reach, gather three or four people to that mission, and launch.…
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Questions to Ask When Considering a Leader
Before placing someone who has volunteered into leadership, five questions need answers: what our ministry is for, what we are asking of a leader, what that person actually wants to do, whether the two visions are…
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Two Ways to Identify Leaders
There are two ways to find new leaders, and most of the advice on offer is theory rather than practice. Selection sets a high bar and produces alignment at a slower rate. Self-identification sets a low…
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Top 5 Posts for May
For the month of May, these are the most visited posts here: Gospel, Community, Mission and Summer Missional Community Practices – Life Transformation Groups Missional Community vs. Small Group Missional Community vs. Bible Study Missional Community…
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Discipleship and Leadership Development
Leaders are made primarily through intentional, life on life discipleship, and only secondarily through the systems that help a church accomplish ministry. That distinction gets tested when the numbers do not cooperate, when 500 people want…
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Leadership Development Systems for Missional Communities
Systems do not make disciples, people do. What most churches diagnose as a systems problem is usually a culture problem, and a good system practiced in an unhealthy culture will not produce results. This introduces the…
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Missional Community vs. Small Group
A small group is roughly twelve people meeting weekly to connect, study, and pray, and success is usually measured by attendance at the event. That is the limit of it: small groups attempt community and mission…
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Matt Carter Catches a Bird Barehanded
This post is on the lighthearted, non-missional side. My friend and pastor Matt Carter was filming for his book The Real Win, and happened upon a bird…check out what happened: I also appreciate a good mashup…someone…
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Missional Community vs. Community Group
Community groups tend to make community the destination, and once the friendships are established that is where they stay. They die out when circumstances change, because they lack the imperative of mission. In John 17 Jesus…
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Missional Community vs. Bible Study
A missional community is not a bible study, but a missional community studies the bible. The difference is expectation. People come to a bible study to consume something and come to a missional community to contribute…
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Assessment of Missional Communities – Coach Assessment
If the mantra “what you measure is what you value” is true, then we need to have a way to measure and assess the health and effectiveness of missional communities. The series that follows will summarize…