Category Archives: Leadership

The Reveal Study and Transformation

I just finished reading the Reveal study that was released by the WCA in August 2007. I was personally challenged by their courage to ask the question in a brutally honest fashion about whether we are really transforming lives in the church. Few of us as pastors and leaders have that kind of guts to actually look at the hard data. We owe Willow Creek a debt of gratitude for modeling characterand good leadership for us. Some of their insights very helpful. For example, the study revealed that increased involvement in church activities does not equal increased love or maturity in God. The connection between church activity and spiritual growth appears to be limited. 25% of people in our churches are stalled. People (80,000 surveyed) showed their top 3 needs were to understand the Bible in depth, get help for their emotional needs and help developing relationships that encourage accountability (from p. 38 Follow Me). There is a. Read more.

Contemplative Strategic Planning

Over my 22 years of pastoring NLF, we have contracted with an outside coach to lead our pastoral staff in a strategic planning process at least 5 different times. I was reluctant to do a strategic plan again. The church was doing well. Yes, we were at a transition in a number of areas. We were growing. But I carried bad mem0ries of striving, about internal my own motivation (e.g. Was this really for God, or was this really about me and the need to prove something?), and of tensions between staff that I had been unwilling to address. This is my first time since my journey into the contemplative almost six years ago. It has been a wonderfully relaxing, enjoyable process. Why? I think the answer is the addition of contemplative spirituality and deeper integration of emotional health into our leadership. What has been different? The following is my short list. 1. God’s will is really what matters. Something. Read more.

Building Healthy Multi-Ethnic Churches – Reflections

I wrote a brief article recently for Mark Deymaz that will appear in a book he is writing on diverse, ethnic Churches (Zondervan). It forced me to think through our history and what we have learned. The following is most of the what I wrote: Twenty-one years ago, when my wife and I planted New Life Fellowship, we chose Elmhurst/Corona, Queens, as a strategic location for the church due to the fact that individuals from more than 120 nations live in the area. So while we recognized the benefits of such a location and desired to bridge the racial, cultural and economic barriers for the sake of Christ, we underestimated the suffering this commitment would require for all of us of in leadership. For instance, I soon realized that our evangelical discipleship/spiritual formation model was too superficial to bring about the kind of in-depth transformation we would need to live in authentic community. There. Read more.

What is Success?

As thirty churches have finished up the EHS Church-Wide Initiative and I have continued to interact with Pastors around North America, I am now convinced that defining success is a critical question for us in leadership. Sadly, it has been defined narrowly as numbers and budgets. I don’t think I am going too far in saying that may be idolatry and the very antithesis of the mustard-seed nature of Jesus’ kingdom. To do leadership in the church differently is no small challenge. The following is my first draft for success as a Senior Pastor (for me): 1. Walk in Integrity – with God, self, and others. This is reflected in a sense of peace, rest and a life filled with communion with Him. 2. Experience a joyful marriage with Geri where our we serve our children and others out of a cup that overflows. 3. Provide leadership in short, mid and long range issues that is thoughtful, prudent,. Read more.

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Conference Online

We are now in the midst of our Pastors/Leaders Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Conference at New Life Fellowship in Queens, NY. Geri, myself, and the rest of our staff had a wonderful time with Pastors/Leaders and their spouses yesterday at our pre-conference. We are looking forward to the next couple of days in journeying together toward healthy God-centered lives and marriages. I have asked Drew Hyun, one of our associate pastors who also serves on our Teaching Team, to connect you with the blogging/twittering that is going on at the conference. If you’d like to follow real-time updates on our conference (as well as updates from the pre-conference yesterday), you can click below at the following link: www.twubs.com/ehsconf For those of you on twitter who would like to join the discussion, you can use the hashtag “#ehsconf” and include it in any tweet that you post. Meanwhile, there is a list of blogs found at. Read more.

Sexuality, Leadership and Spirituality

This past weekend Geri and I led another weekend for our small group around sexuality and spiritual formation. Once again, it confirmed to us that our sexuality lies at the heart of our spirituality and walk with Christ. We began this journey in early 1996 when we launched into emotionally healthy spirituality and remain convinced, that “as goes the leader’s sex life, so goes the church.” It is a startling conclusion, especially when we consider the state of discipleship aruond our sexuality in the church today (it is virtually non-existent for married couples). When I read a few months ago, for example, that spouses were encouraged to have sex for 30 days straight in order to improve their marriages, I was aghast. That is very long way from the biblical view of our sexuality, our humanity and God’s purposes. The following are a few thoughts we considered this past weekend: Our sexuality is all. Read more.

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