2024 Connections Confab: Apply Today!
The application window for the 2024 Confab has closed. But don’t give up hope! Email me if you’re interested in being put on the waiting list. Back in 2015 we launched a coaching network called...
Latest posts
Hospitality is a Thermostat
In Terry A. Smith’s delightful book The Hospitable Leader, he shares this remarkable insight: A hospitable leader creates home wherever he or she is. Many of us lead in inhospitable places. We must be thermostats,...
How (and Why) to Mise en Place Your First-Time Guest Workstation (part two)
In a recent post, we talked about the concept of mise en place, a French term used by chefs that means “everything in its place.” And I argued for mise en placeing our first-time guest...
Top Ten Quotes: From Strength to Strength
For the last couple of years I’ve been on a bit of a “next stage” kick. Maybe it’s becoming a Pops, maybe it’s turning 50 earlier this month, maybe it’s that I keep running into...
How (and Why) to Mise en Place Your First-Time Guest Workstation (part one)
Disclaimer #1: this post is only for the super-nerds, the people driven by processes, and the detail-oriented among us. If your happy place is a cluttered junk drawer, just skip it. It’s too much. You’ll...
How to Make Change (When You’re Not Allowed to Make Change)
This is the next installment in our ongoing “Small Church” series, which looks at guest services through the lens of the smaller congregation: those with 150 or fewer people in attendance each week. See the...
You Can’t Have Both.
When you get serious about creating inviting environments for your guests, you’re going to face difficult choices. You can make the insiders comfortable: they talk to friends they already know, they gravitate towards parking spaces...
A Solid “Why” Leads to a Better “What”
We’ve long used the saying “The Why is More Important Than the What.” It’s one of our five Guest Services plumb lines, and the gist of it is this: if we know why our role...
How to Kill Your Darlings in Ministry
Many of us have heard the phrase “kill your darlings,” a saying that originated from William Faulkner. Or maybe Oscar Wilde. Or possibly even Stephen King, which makes sense because of the whole kill thing....
4 Reasons Consistency Matters in Multi-Site
I’ve long said that there are as many ways of doing multi-site church as there are multi-site churches. In fact, I’ll do you one better: take 100 multi-site churches, put them in a room, and...
