Starting and building a ministry requires growing your leadership team in both quantity (number of leaders) and quality (ability + spiritual maturity).

Inevitably a ministry leader needs to take some risks on younger/less qualified people in order to increase the number of leaders, which ultimately grows the size (and health) of the entire ministry.

But how do you determine who to take a chance on and who to fire (or more commonly who do you choose to NOT select for a leadership position)?

Jack Welch shares the answer in this one minute (literally) clip. He describes four managers in relation to the amount of results they achieve and the amount of behavior that’s aligned with the values of the company:

1. Results and Behavior

2. No Results and No Behavior

3. No Results but Behavior

4. Results but No Behavior

Here’s the clip:

This was my takeaway:

1. Results and Behavior–Easy to Keep

2. No Results and No Behavior–Easy to Fire

3. No Results but Behavior–Hard to Keep

4. Results but No Behavior–Hard to Fir...

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Every once in a while I am reminded that there are people who have the gift of teaching. They are not necessarily teachers by profession, but they teach….having an amazing ability to connect to the heart of people in a way that is unique and powerful.

My brother Todd is like that. He is able to subdivide anything he is talking about into bite-size morsels that are easily digestible. Just last week, my 14 year-old listened to him share the physics and movements behind a particular knee-board trick. The first time my son tried to execute it, he performed it! Yes, he did a great job, but his teacher also connected with him, giving him everything he needed to know to learn effectively.

This afternoon I saw a video on TED that moved me….as much for the teacher’s skill as for the topic. If you have 20 minutes to spend, I think this video would be worth the investment.

A friend from Hungary told us Kindles for the kids would be a good idea, as it might be tough to find kids books in English. I’ve been mulling it over, thinking about how to fit it in the budget, wondering if there are acceptable options that would cost less. At the same Amazon has [...]

“Braddock changed when the world started to change”

The way the townspeople spoke about the past deeply struck me. I’ve heard those same sentiments in the church and in Campus Crusade–a desire for the good ole days, and a resistance toward newness or renewal.

I’m excited about the young entrepreneurs I see in the church and in Campus Crusade, eager to renovate and transform people and systems. I’m afraid of getting left behind not to be the tool for school Christian but because there are so many opportunities to lead redemptive change. Social media has provided an unprecedented set of tools for getting it done than now–we can get help from people across the street, state, and globe.

I’m committed to leading change. You?

Thanks to Chris Brogan for drawing attention to a significant effort.

Can’t see the video? Click here to watch it.

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We’re in Prineville, Oregon this week connecting with some of the families that partner with our ministry. This means limited internet access, so I brought along all the books that I’m working through right now. Here you go…

• God Space – Doug Pollack This was a freebie at our national staff conference that I’m just getting around to. I think the evangelism principles could be helpful as we launch a ministry in post-Christian Portland. Brian Barela just happened to post an interview by Doug here.
• Making Ideas Happen – Scott Belsky This is the book of the summer for me. I can’t get enough of the principles in this book, but I’m also wired to eat this stuff up.  I think every operations minded person should read it…scratch that, every person who leads a team should read this.
• The Speed of Trust – Stephen Covey This is the son of Stephen Covey of 7 habits of highly effective people fame. Staff in our region are about to start discussing this book via a private facebook group, should be fun! So far in the firs...

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We watched this at our commissioning. It brought tears to my eyes.

If your staff team is planning a trip or if you are planning a MPD trip, you might like to use the My Map feature on Google maps.

This video is easy to understand, so after watching it, log in to Google and follow the video’s instructions to make a “My Map”.  To adapt this for a MPD trip, try the following ideas.  (You will, of course, want to make your “My Map” private.)

• Decide if you want one large MPD map or regional maps.
• Just cut and paste your addresses from TntMPD or from your online motel search into the Google Map search area labeled “search maps.”
• Choose from the list of dropdown maps and click “Save” (upper left from the map area).
• Click the “more” option if you need to move the marker.
• After you add all the addresses, I recommend saving your map.
• Open the map back up and all your locations are listed down the left side of the page.  Click on each one.  Move the street address down into the information window and change “title” to your donor’s name.  You can change the icon if you want to...

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small groups and programs worship services that mix traditional and contemporary styles with an emphasis on relevant sermons pastors who work hard on mentorship and cultivation of the laity an emphasis on effective lay leadership.

The Methodists concluded a study of 32,000 of their own congregations and noted that these four were true of every healthy congregation. After reading the article it was hard for me to feel like this was money well spent–if you ask any semi-solid, 25-45 year old believer what they want at church these four would seem to come up every time.

Two more interesting stats:

“One (problem) is clearly economic pressure of the cost of the infrastructure, which is increasing at a rate that is greater than the giving.”

“According to the data, it did not matter whether ministers held seminary degrees; whether pastoral ministry was a first or second career; or how long the minister had been engaged in pastoral ministry.”

Props to the Methodists for seeking to learn about their ministry cu...

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When working in Operations, it can be easy to be holed up in a room and do everything virtually, especially when the people you support, collaborate with, and enable are all over the country. However, I have found that interacting with the people I support and help out in the organization on an operational level on a physical, face to face, personal level does a lot to bring trust and goodwill into the working relationship.

This can be achieved in many different ways including giving seminars at a conference, eating meals together with the staff, playing teams sports and having an impromptu question and answer time with the people you help out with. However, I found that playing a game of RISK 2210 A.D. the most effective and enjoyable time to build trust and goodwill.

What are some ways which you find helpful in building trust and goodwill with clients and staff who you support and help?


Photo credit: Matt Sklar

Lots of free (legal) music for you.

Get some good Christian music (wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to put the “good” adjective there to clarify?) from upcoming albums.  You have to give them your e-mail but they don’t spam you:

Jars of Clay

Caedmon’s Call

Some Free Summer Samplers from Amazon.  In the left hand column there are Sampler Albums from 10 different Music Labels.

I’d highly recommend the sampler from Matador (if only for the incredible Cat Power and Shearwater songs; oh, and go ahead and delete the Girls song.  You’ll thank me later.)

A really cool commercial featuring Jonsi’s (of Sigur Ros) song Go Do from his great solo album Go:

In the previous 3 parts of our series on the Facebook (FB) social plugins, we’ve shown you

• How to prep your Thesis themed WordPress site so that you can use all of the social plugins
• How to install the Like Button
• How to install Comment Boxes

In this last tutorial, we’ll show you how to install the Like Box, which is like a small window to your FB Page. It shows visitors to your blog a quick snapshot of the activity on your FB page, and which of their friends are already fans of it. The best part is that if they’re not already a fan of your FB page, they can become one by clicking on the Like button inside the Like Box.

This plugin gives you an easy way to integrate the content and audiences of your website and your FB world. Now your Facebook page has another avenue of gaining viral popularity as the popularity of your website goes up.

For this tutorial, we’ll show you two different ways to get plugin to show up on your site. We’re also assuming that you’re using version 2.9 or later of WordPress...

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I’ve been seeing/hearing more conversations around Doug Pollock’s book God Space and found a short video interview where Doug talks a bit about the book.

Have you read God Space? Are you using it in a training or discipleship context? Would love to hear about it!

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This is part 3 in a series of posts inspired by the book Souls in Transition.

Young people are sharing their faith less, but why? My gut is they do it less because they believe (& have been told) a myth.


Keith Davy reports on an interesting survey called “How teenagers faith practices are changing” (link to a great summary on the survey – a quick, must-read for college ministers):

“The study suggests a significant decline in believing teens attempts to witness.  Believing teenagers were asked if they had attempted to explain their religious beliefs to someone else with different religious beliefs with a hope that they might receive Jesus Christ as Savior. In 1997, 63% of “born-again” youth answered affirmatively. In December 2009, that number had dropped to 45%.”

Here’s my 2 cents on what causes students (and all of us) to share the gospel less:

1. Lack of understanding of the gospel. If we really understand it, we can’t help but share it.
2. They’re gun shy. We’ve all heard the doom and gloom of “post-...

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Some links (all videos today) for your weekend enjoyment:


Great words from Matt Chandler on Suffering:

Some quotes (via Justin Taylor):

“Lauren asked the doctor, ‘What’s best-case scenario and what’s worst-case scenario?’ He said: ‘Best-case scenario is that God heals you. . . . Worst-case scenario, honestly, is that you get killed in a car wreck on your way home today.’

“He was the first one to say to me out loud, ‘Nothing’s really changed for you—you just get to be aware that you’re mortal. Everyone is, but they’re just not aware of it. The gift that God’s given you is that you get to be aware of your mortality.’

“So if this goes bad for me, if my MRI scan shows that . . . I have a short amount of time, I can talk to my wife, talk to my children, shoot videos. . . . Most guys who die in their 30’s kiss their wife goodbye in the morning and never come home. ...

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I’ve added a few pages of good resources divided into Books, Sermons, and Online Resources (I’ll add a list of articles at some point).

I think the Sermons page is particularly helpful because I have no shortage of books I want to read, but whenever I’m picking out a sermon to listen to I’m kind of flying blind.  Sure, I have my favorite pastors (Tim Keller, Tim Keller, and Matt Chandler) but I’ve never found a good way to find recommended sermons.  So, check out my favorites and tell me your favorites in the “Sermons” comments.

For those of you in ministry, do yourself a favor and start with Tim Keller’s “Preaching to believers and unbelievers” (at the bottom under “Ministry”).  Mind-blowingly-good.

Just hover over “Resources” at the top of this page and you can click on a category.

Photo courtesy of San Jose Library via Flickr

This is part 2 in a series of posts on the book Souls in Transition.

First the bad news: College-aged young people are “the least religious adults in the United States today.”  Only 20% attend religious services at least once a week.  They are morally adrift and alienated from religion.

These are a few of the findings of the Authors of the book Souls in Transition.

Based on five years of academic research, Souls in Transition presents the best information to date on the spiritual beliefs of the current generation of college students.

Here is what they report about how Emerging Adults (what they call those age 18-22) line up spiritually (and I find this to be less “doom and gloom” than I’d feared):

• 15% are Committed Traditionalists who “embrace a strong religious faith, whose beliefs they can reasonably well articulate and which they actively practice.” (p 166)
• 30% are Selective Adherents who “are not that interested in matters religious or spiritual” but do hold to certain aspects of their religious tr...

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Over many years, I’ve bookmarked Campus Crusade for Christ websites on Delicious.com.  I now have almost 300 sites bookmarked to share with you.  Click on any of the bundled or unbundled tags in the right sidebar to narrow down your search for Campus Crusade for Christ websites by categories.  For example, try these “clicks:”

1. Go to my CCC bookmarks.
2. Click on “Resources” under “Tag Bundles” in the right sidebar.
3. Go through the pages of resources and you’ll find the location for the Transferable Concepts, the Paul Brown letter, the CoJourners training series, et cetera.

Bundled tags are related tags.  So, “For Women” includes multiple tags, such as, family, marriage, parenting, school, Vonette, and more.  For “CCC Leadership,” I limited the links to people I know are on a global or a national leadership level.

I decided not to do very many blogs.  This website, eQuipping for eMinistry, has links to many blogs.  So, the blogs I include in the bookmarks would be those from a ministry site or of a na...

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As I swim through a clear blue rooftop pool in the heart of Washington, D.C., I feel a sudden inspiration to write.  The topic, appropriately titled “The Swimmer” floods my mind.  But I realize the pool merely poses as a threat to the familiar and yet seemingly archaic paper and pen.  A sudden splash could submerge my vulnerable ramblings in a watery grave.  So I scan the pool deck before spotting my cell phone.  Then I climb aboard to a fairly dry landing and begin to text my latest blog entry before saving it into “drafts”.  If I were more up to date, I could save this fleeting inspiration in the notes of an iPhone.  But in the meantime I text and save, text and save only to publish this poolside inspiration on my blog at a later time:

The Swimmer

She swims in unfamiliar places, from shallow water to deep, navigating her way through a new world.  But although her world is new, she knows it is right, so she keeps diving deeper.

“Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your...

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Interesting new Barna study on "How Teenagers Faith Practices are Changing". The study suggests a significant decline in believing teens attempts to witness.
Believing teenagers were asked if they had attempted to explain their religious beliefs to someone else with different religious beliefs with a hope that they might receive Jesus Christ as Savior. In 1997, 63% of "born-again" youth answered affirmatively. In December 2009, that number had dropped to 45%.
What does this suggest to those involved in campus ministry? Is the culture's aversion to dialogue about matters of faith taking its toll on youth witness?
My experience suggests that Christian students still desire to witness, but not necessarily in the "forms" that have been handed down from previous generations. This was a large part of the motivation behind the development of CoJourners.

I love resource sites; I hate downloading content that’s too long, not what I wanted, or extremely long. Solution: My Top 5 Page

No it’s not perfect but here are some features that I hope you will like:

Preview the text documents on the page before downloading

Print right from the page

All have been shared or recommended from leaders on the field that I trust–no sketchy content

Audio and Video resources as well

A Facebook comment section where you can share links, and connect with other ministry leaders from around the world

What’s Missing?

More content from YOU! There are so many better and awesome resource sites (Desiring God Beta, The Resurgence, etc) that share all of their content. The Top 5 is meant to be a highly curated and filtered source when you only have 2 minutes and want something that other people use and like.

To share something you can:

• Leave a comment on this post
• Share the link on the Top 5 page
• Email me: resources   [at]  brianbarela  dot com

Hope this helps you spend less tim...

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