About six days ago, John C Maxwell, someone I follow a bit, tweeted about a book called “Amplified Leadership” by Dan Reiland. Knowing that John Maxwell never suggests books that truly aren’t phenomenal I was quick to hit the “Add To Cart” button on Amazon.com and within days the book was in my hands.
Dan Reiland is the executive pastor at 12Stone Church in Lawrenceville, Georgia which was noted as the #1 fastest growing church in America in 2010 and in his book he shares some incredible truths on leadership development.
Dan’s book right now has me evaluating my own leadership in regards to “relationships”. Relationships are what I believe to be at the core of leadership and while I can say that the relationships that have been formed amongst our children’s ministry team are the catalyst behind our growth and are the motivation behind the huge steps we have taken this year, I could also say that those relationships aren’t as deep as they could be. Sometimes we as leaders miss the mission. As Dan says “People don’t exist to help us accomplish the mission; they are the mission.“
One of the biggest struggles in ministry, especially in children’s ministry, is to get people connected and serving. Relationships are the answer. You will never grow as a ministry unless you develop relationships within your team. Another bulletin announcement or a beg from the pulpit isn’t going to help. It’s the relationships that you develop. It’s you being transparent and sharing the burden as a friend. As Dan says in his book “Relationships are not linear; they are cumulative and exponential in nature.“
I literally just finished “Part One” of the book and wanted to get online quick and tell you about it. I guarantee you will hear me talking more about this book over the next week or so and I encourage you to get yourself a copy of it yourself. You can get it as low as $10 on Amazon and it is so worth it. This book is a must read for anyone and everyone serving in ministry.
Click here to find out more about this book, read what others are saying about the book and order your very own copy. If you order the book or if you have read the book I would love the opportunity to connect with you.
This app is one of my focal apps. Our children’s ministry (and worship ministry) utilizes “
I am known for two things, one is my love of bleach (meaning, I like things sanitized) and two is for my love of Google products. Of all the products that Google has made available, I use Google docs is the product I use almost as much as Gmail. As a matter of fact, as I write this post I am looking at my January website usage stats and I can tell you that 22.1% of my time online is spent in Google Docs. Google docs is heavily used in our ministry because of its collaborative functions. Everything from attendance records, ministry budgets, and even curriculum is prepared and shared on Google docs. Obviously, having this information on hand as you are busy changing the world makes everything so much easier. Google is helping our ministry impact the world BIG TIME!
This app is a little secret of mine … well was a little secret of mine. I love this app because I am able to send out a mass text message to my entire team but yet have each text message sent out as a personalized message. This is great for showing appreciation to your team or even reminding everyone about an important meeting coming up. I recommend this app to every leader because it’s easy to use and is a great tool for sharing information to your team via SMS.
I am a visual person so this app has saved my life many times. There is nothing that drives me nuts more than when I receive a call from someone but yet I can’t picture who they are. This app is easy to use and searches for photos on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google and other social networks based on your contact list. If you see a photo of the person you’re looking for, all it takes is a tap on the picture and it will save it to your contact list which helps me BIG time when they call or text me. Like I said, this app has saved my life many times! A must have for leaders!
This app recently has helped me stay focused. I am that guy that feels that every text and every phone call needs to be taken care of right away and so my phone doesn’t go far from my side HOWEVER there are times when you really need to focus on what you are doing without any distractions. I have used this app for many things recently including meetings, prayer time, and even while sleeping. For those of you who have a hard time silencing your phone this app will help you BIG TIME!!