The Reclaimed Leader Podcast: Helping You Lead Change Without Losing Your Roots

You've probably heard the phrase “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” But, why? Because culture is about who you are, not just what you do. And, if the culture is bad, strategies will suffer. Today we talk about why your church's culture is more important than strategy.

Sometimes you have to make hard ministry decisions. What makes it harder is if you're deciding based on emotions. If you know your why, it will lead you to clearer, better decisions and, in the end, can be a huge source of unity. It's about ruthlessly sticking to your why.

Do you ever feel discouraged because you don't have enough people, money or resources? Then, you'll want to listen to our interview today with Pastor Randy Gaumer, whose church began with 3 people and no paycheck, and has become a flourishing church of over 100. Maybe God can do a lot more than you think.

According to Barna's research, Gen Z is turning the tide on church participation in America. Today we get the chance to talk with the co-hosts of the Broken Made Beautiful Podcast – Hailey Walden and Kat Villaluz, about life, faith, and how to help the next generation win.

How in the world are you supposed to get it all done? There are high expectations for pastors today – dare I say, demands that we feel every day. How do we cut through the noise and budget our time for what matters most. A few time-management tips for over-worked and over-whelmed leaders.

There's a disease that plagues Elder Boards across the country. You may recognize it as Action Deficit Disorder – where information runs rampant but action and implementation are frozen in place. The good news? It can be cured. We're talking about how to help our Boards move forward.

Well, the Easter eggs have all been found, and the marshmallow peeps eaten up, but what happened to all those church visitors? Getting people to come once isn't as difficult as getting them to come back. So, how do you do it? By paying attention to these 10 things.

I know we talk about forward movement on the other side of Easter – outreach, discipleship, and summer plans. But, are you feeling like you just don't have it in you? Have you lost the joy in your sense of call? Maybe you don't just need a vacation. Maybe you need to discover joy again.

Research shows that only 30% of Christians in mainline churches read their bibles once a week. If scripture is sufficient for what we need to know about faith and life, how do we handle the ripple effect of Christians not engaging with scripture? Here are some ideas to help.

Last week, we started unpacking how to use good questions to get moving forward on adaptive change. It's not just about best practices but about the right practices for us. Today we continue with part 2 of our series on using a question-based framework for leading change.

Leading adaptive change in the local church can be pretty disorienting and discouraging. Why? Because we don't have all the answers. Today Jesse dives into a framework to help ask the right questions to start working on the right solutions.

No matter what size church you lead, small groups are a great discipleship strategy. Maybe you're just thinking about developing small groups in your church. Or, maybe you just want to start one. The point is, that once you start reaching people, you'll want to help them grow. Here are 5 key decisions that lead to better groups.

We're just a few weeks out from Easter, which is the perfect time to start thinking about how to make first-time guests feel at home. We're talking with our Dir. of Guest Services & Communication, Suzanne Duffy, about how to build and develop a welcoming environment.

Have you ever experienced “death by meeting” or at least mortally wounded by meeting? Meetings can be a drain, but what if you could have greater impact with fewer meetings? Today we jump into how to optimize your meetings for mission movement.

Every church leader I know is looking for best practices for ministry. But one of the most important doesn't sound that exciting: having a healthy governing board. If they can't work together on the big mission and vision, it's really hard to have a healthy church. 5 Moves to cultivate a healthy board.

Last week we talked about how to help Gen Z find Jesus. Today, we welcome the Dir. of Next Gen Ministries at Tower Hill Church, Lindsey Larkin, as she discusses what she's seeing in ministry to teenagers and young adults. And, what to do if you're struggling to reach them.

Last week we talked about how to reach young families, and we continue today by talking about reaching Gen Z. How are we calibrating our churches to speak to them? How are we including them in the life of the church? How are we translating Jesus into their language? A few ideas to get started.

So many of our older, established churches, have given up reaching young families. They say, "We're just a small church, we don't have the budget to reach them." But, they're assuming it's a resource problem - when in fact, it's usually a willingness problem.

Pastors talk a lot about having healthy churches. But, what exactly does that look like? It's not just about numbers it's about fruitfulness. So, how do we discern the good fruit from the bad? The answer to that question is everything.

How do you know when a ministry is actually working? If it's not, how do you know when to pivot to something else? Often, we don't have good ways to measure the outcomes so we keep doing things in perpetuity. But, what if we got better at it? It just might help revitalize our churches.

Power tools are incredible – they can shorten a project exponentially, and, won't tire you out like doing it by hand. And yet, pastors, for the sake of expedience or ease, tend to keep doing things without power tools.Today we're reminding you about 3 leadership tools to help you move forward.

A lot of ministry challenges can afford to get put on the back burner. But, what happens when you have one that can't wait? Today we walk through a challenge my church is facing so I can share the process we'll be using to address it – so that you can apply that same process to whatever challenge you're facing

One of the biggest challenges I hear from pastors (and that we are working through at my church) has to do with volunteers. Are we inviting, equipping, and appreciating them or do they leave feeling a little used and abused?

It's resolution season, and it's the perfect time to do a little inventory before jumping into the new year. Cleaning out the garage – what are you holding onto, letting go of, and making room for? We're talking about how to get a great start on New Year's opportunity.

Happy New Year everyone. It's almost 2025 and before we look ahead, we have an annual tradition of looking back on our top 5 episodes of 2024.

Merry Christmas everyone! If you're listening in real time, it's Christmas Eve. Right now we have a short episode talking about some last minute reminders and encouragement for this next week.

Today we continue our series on Dreaming Big for 2025. How do you develop and launch a vision for your church? One of the biggest challenges is overwhelm. There are so many possible targets, which one do we do first? How to prioritize the vision.

We continue our series on Dreaming Big for 2025. How do you develop and launch a vision for your church? How do you discern together what God is calling you to do? Today we talk about how one of the best things you can do is simply get started (easier said than done).

Today we continue our series on Dreaming Big for 2025. How do you develop and launch a vision for your church? How do you discern together what God is calling you to do. Today we talk about how to utilize your church budget at a tool for vision.

Today we start our series on Dreaming Big for 2025. How do you develop and launch a vision for your church? How do you discern together what God is calling you to do. Today we talk about the 2-sided vision approach.

The department stores have all their Christmas stuff on display - and we should be close behind. Today we continue talking about strategic Christmas planning with Nathan Teegarden from Church Fuel. We cover common mistakes that churches make with Christmas as well as key elements that effective churches share.

Christmas planning is in full effect. Today we start a 2-part series about how to leverage Christmas for engagement and discipleship. We have 5 practical tips for helping your congregation engage with the community and bring outsiders in.

It's Election Day and let's just say “tensions are high Maverick.” This is a short episode about how we're thinking about our congregations in the middle of all this: 4 thoughts to consider post-election

Today we conclude pastor appreciation month as we interview pastors (like you) in the trenches – what they're doing, what they're learning, and how God is showing up. In this episode have a great conversation with Pastor Dave Burke as we talk about pastor self-care, avoiding burn out and more.

As we near the end of pastor appreciation month, we distill what we learned from our pastor interviews. While we walk away from October feeling very encouraged we also discovered 7 important truths from the trenches. We're share those with you AND giveaway our free month of coaching.

Today we continue pastor appreciation month as we interview pastors (like you) in the trenches – what they're doing, what they're learning, and how God is showing up. In this episode, we have a great conversation with Pastor Robbie Ytterberg from Toms River NJ– as he talks about helping a church look forward instead of backward.

Today we continue pastor appreciation month (the best kept secret) by focusing the next few episodes on interviewing pastors like you in the trenches – what they're doing, learning, and how God is showing up. Today we have a great conversation with Pastors Austin and Sara Hill

Today we start pastor appreciation month (I think pastors might be the only ones that know about it). But we are kicking off a few episodes interviewing pastors like you in the trenches – what they're doing, learning, and how God is showing up. Today we have a great conversation with David Kling from Covenant Presbyterian Church

No matter what new church vision or ministry comes along, there's always a guy in the back of the room saying: that's great, but how do we pay for it? Today we finish up our momentum series by talking about how to fund the vision: capital campaigns, weekly giving, and more.

Have you ever eaten at a restaurant and it was such a great experience, you told all your friends about it? Did you have to strategize and think about it? No. It just came up in normal conversation. What if, that's the key to sparking momentum in your ministry?

Momentum is a bit of a mystery. How do you capture it? How do you know you have it? Is there a way to drive it? When it comes to church life, if you focus on this 4-legged stool of ministry, there's a good chance you'll generate momentum.

It's launch time in our churches as we adjust to the new rhythm of back-to-school life. And some pastors have been asking: what are the most important things we should be working on this time of year? Today we have 4 critical focal points as you consider how to faithfully approach this Fall.

Today we're talking about a real time ministry challenge at my church, how it happened, and what we're going to do about it. Healthy bodies sometimes get infections. It's all about early treatment so it doesn't compromise overall health.

In this digital age, why is it so hard to find great worship resources like sermon illustrations, and liturgy? Well, it just got a whole lot easier. Today we talk with the Founder of The Pastor's Workshop, Stuart Strachan, about how his non-profit can make your weekly worship prep life easier.

It's one thing to realize you need to have a hard conversation with someone at church. Yes, you can try to just ignore the situation, but if you do, you may find people stop following you as a leader. 3 steps to handling difficult conversations NOW.

What do you daydream about in the life of the church? If you could wave a magic wand and move the ministry forward, what would need to happen? And, what if those dreams are God-breathed? We're talking about putting dreams into action by cultivating strategic vision

Do you sometimes wonder how to plan Sunday mornings or seasons of the church a few weeks or months out? It's tough when you feel you're trapped by the everyday grind. But, it may not be as complicated as you think. 3 ways to strengthen your planning - and your leadership

It's summer time! And, it's not the time to worry about the details of your Thanksgiving sermon. But, it's the perfect time to think about the direction you want to go this Fall. The art of mid-range planning - and the 3 benefits of knowing what's next.

When was the last time you really evaluated the ministry programs you offer? Maybe this summer it's time to ask: Is what we do matching what God is calling us to do? 7 practical questions for your ministry programs. (Adapted from Dan Reiland's blog post on danreiland.com)

Most mainline churches don't have many 18-25 year-olds. Why have younger generations largely rejected the Church? Because to them, the Jesus of Church doesn't match the Jesus of Scripture. In today's episode, we talk about ideas to cultivate gospel hope for our young adults. Check out https://reclaimedleader.com/shownotes for more

Today we welcome back Rick Lawrence to the podcast. In his new book, "Editing Jesus: Confronting the Distorted Faith of the American Church," he argues that the primary reason for church decline isn't cultural – it's spiritual. It's because we have edited the message of Jesus to fit our own religious and political agendas - and have failed to preach the gospel.