Vision Has Its Price – Andy Stanley

This speaks right into my heart today… Any vision worth pursuing will demand sacrifice and risk. You will be called upon to give up the actual good for the potential best. You will find it necessary to leave what is comfortable and familiar in order to embrace that which is uncomfortable and unfamiliar. And all […]

Why We Junked Mission Statements

Four years ago we had an elders/staff retreat to discuss the future direction of Northwest. In these types of retreats, we would collectively work through a number of things in regard to vision, mission and purpose as a congregation. As a part of this discussion we decided it was time to re-think our mission statement […]

Making Vision Stick by Andy Stanley

One thing I have noticed in my first ten years of ministry is that vision is easy to cast but hard to make stick. There are so many good and godly ideas that we can talk about. There are so many biblical directives and directions we can take. Communicating those things is easier than doing […]

Communicating for a Change – Developing a Single Point

The second half of chapter 12 is all about how you develop your one point to its fullest. Here is his process of developing a one point message (p.106): Dig until you find it Build everything around it Make it stick Dig until you find it: He uses the term dig because he sees sermon […]

Communicating for a Change – Pick A Point

One of Andy Stanley’s strengths is his ability to laser beam focus on only one point and really drive it home. In the last post on this book I mentioned that you have to know where your goal is. Notice I didn’t say what your goal is but where. The point in that is you […]

Andy Stanley – Liberating Your Organization

Andy Stanley tackles changing dysfunctional organizations in this DVD from Catalyst called Liberating Your Organization. He gives some really good nuts and bolts that can practically help leaders reclaim the direction and focus on a congregational level. This goes really deep into what the real issues of the organization are, how they really work, and […]

Best Book on Ministry I Have Read in a While

I read Andy Stanely’s 7 Practices for Effective Ministry in the airport last weekend and I just have to pass this resource on. I really wish they had titled the book better in order to get across what this book is really doing as I think it would get more people’s attention. This book lays […]

Five Things God Uses – Andy Stanley

Our men’s class is going through Five Things God Uses to Grow Your Faith by Andy Stanley. It is some really good material. He believes that just about everything God uses fits into at least one of 5 categories. Let’s see if you can think of something that wouldn’t fit into any of these: Practical […]