For many years, I’ve had the privilege of coaching Executive Pastors who were new to the role, or just needed a second set of eyes during a season of personal growth. I’ve also enjoyed coaching Lead Pastors who were not in a place where they could hire an Executive Pastor. With a heart for new church planters, it’s been my privilege to find ways to provide this coaching to you for practically free. For others, I’ve offered myself up at a nominal cost to offset the time borrowed from my family. Since coaching is not my main gig, I’ve been able to provide executive level coaching for much less than those who do it full time. If this is something you are interested in pursuing, keep on reading and then reach out to me. It would be my privilege to help you grow in your ability to lead your church and staff well. Send additional questions or customized requests to [email protected]. 

Over the next couple of months, I have the privilege of being at several conferences. Some of them will include teaching sessions, and others are just ones I’m attending on behalf of PlainJoe Studios. If you are going to be at any of these, let me know by emailing me at [email protected].

The Advantage Launch Day-9.14.23 The Advantage is a new ministry serving pastors in the largest churches in Pennsylvania. I’ve had a blast this past year helping them clarify their values, then determine an appropriate name and then a great logo/brand, all through PlainJoe Studios. If you are planning on being there, let’s connect!

Ignite Online Conference-9.20-21.23 Ignite is an online only conference for one of the largest church software companies in America. I’ll be leading two sessions. One will be on “A Year In The Life of Staff Development” and the second will be on “Storytelling through Spaces In Your Church”. It’s free! Hope to see you in the chat room!

Missio Nexus-9.27-28.23 Missio Nexus is one of the largest gatherings of Christian non-profit leaders. This years conference is in Orlando so it made sense for me to attend even though I’m not teaching at all. If you’ll be there, let’s plan to grab a meal together, or just some time chatting in the hallways.

Harbor Network Conference-10.3-5.23 Harbor is a great network of church planters and I’m excited to be sponsoring it this year through PlainJoe studios. In addition to sponsoring, we’ll also be leading a social gathering time for Executive Pastors on Thursday afternoon at 3:45PM. The conference will take place in Louisville, KY.

Recently, I had the opportunity to represent the great company I work for full time (www.plainjoestudios.com) on Tony Morgan’s Unstuck Podcast as we talked through five mistakes churches make with their physical space. You can listen to the podcast (episode 305) on your favorite podcast app or at the Unstuck website. Tony was a great host and we had a great conversation! If you want to take the conversation further, reach out to me at [email protected].

For the last couple of years, I’ve had the privilege of working with PlainJoe-A Storyland Studio. We’ve helped a ton of churches and non-profits tell their story well through branding, new church buildings or updating existing buildings. This spring we decided to give away 200 hours of design time to one deserving church or non-profit. No strings attached. No catch! A church or non-profit will be able to utilize this for just about anything that we do. For example, if a non-profit really wanted to update it’s branding and website, that would be a great use of this. Or let’s say a church really needs to update it’s lobby and kids space and wants to raise money to do the work, they could utilize this to get blue sky design work done and then use the imagery that emerges from that time to raise the needed funds to implement the designs. If you want to enter, you’ll need to do so by July 3rd. It’s not hard, just upload a video. It could even be on your phone. You’ll find everything you need on www.plainjoestudios.com !

Church buildings are incredible tools for ministry, but often times they need a few tweaks to make them even more effective. Here are six questions to ask about your building—and how well it is actually meeting your goals as a church.

Recently, my good friend and fellow author, John Stange, asked me to contribute a chapter to a book he was editing called “My First Years In Ministry”. It was fun to take some time to think back on those early years post seminary around 2002-2005. If you know someone who is new in ministry, you’ll find the book on Amazon!

Eight Practices For Effective Online Giving

I’ve spent a lot of time on church websites recently. Like, dozens of hours on hundreds of websites! Along the way, I noticed some trends about online giving. Having grown by 21% in 2020 alone, this is an area of leadership that deserves our full attention. Here are eight online giving practices that effective churches are doing right now. 

Have you ever tried to read the Bible in a year? How’d that work out for you? I tried it once. I got behind after a few weeks, got discouraged, and stopped. Then I found a two-year plan. I stuck with that one a little longer, but still found that it left little time to wander into other passages that were not in the plan. Finally, I decided to look for a three-year plan and I’ve been doing it for almost ten years!

Having spent 17 years in the Executive Pastor role, I’ve had the privilege of getting to know many of my peers in ministry. At the risk of oversimplification, I have noticed that most XPs (shorthand for Executive Pastor) fall into one of two categories.

There were ferns and moss growing in between the tiles that had long since come detached from the concrete floor. Sunlight streamed through the leaking roof creating interesting shadows in this massive 78,000 sq. foot space. The smell of mold was overpowering even with the required mask. It was quiet, desolate even—the calm before the storm. Exactly one year later, on December 10^th 2017, 3800 people piled into this building for the grand opening of our new church home.

Recently, I was talking with a friend who taking his first position as an executive pastor. He asked me for input on what his first few months should look like. I remembered that a few years ago, when I was new at a church, I had jotted down a few simple notes on what my first few months would look like. I shared that file with him and he found it to be very helpful, so I figured I’d share it here as well. Here it is, unfiltered.

The second book in the “Backstage Pastors” series is available on Amazon.com. Eldership Development-From Application to Affirmation can be purchased in E-book and Paperback formats.

There have been many great books written on the need for biblically qualified elders in the church. They do an excellent job unpacking the pertinent scriptures and theology to explain both why we need elders and what they should look like, act like, smell like, etc. once we have them. This is not one of those books.

A few years ago, I was out running one morning with a guy in my church who has helped me a great deal in thinking through the discussion that surrounds generosity. In between strained breaths, he recounted for me some of the things that he thought our church was really good at. I knew that a “But” was on it’s way. And then he said it. “But you know what our church is not so good at?”