By now, most of you have heard that after years of offering a 4-week assimilation program called Next Steps, we launched a 1 week version of this program called First Step that concludes by inviting people to serve on a ministry team.

But what you may not have heard is that the results were less than what we wanted to see for the first 7 months.

My New Year Encouragement to you in 3 words: Clear, Focus, & Fill. Here’s how.

One chapter in Chip and Dan Heath's book The Power of Moments blew my mind.

They discuss why time seems to go faster as you get older.

Here's what they said (and why it's a great thing to be mindful of this Christmas).

I have been contemplating a radical thought that could change how you and I do church much less how we connect people. Inspired by the far away island of Iona Scotland, read on to find a powerful way of reaching and engaging others.

Traveling in Italy isn’t always peaceful and easy, especially when you’ve checked out of your Airbnb and dragged your luggage to the train station only to find our that your train has been cancelled due to a railroad strike. Here’s what I learned and what I make of it as Sherpa Leaders for our churches now:

When was the last time you were “wowed” when you went somewhere new? When it happens to you, you never forget it. While I was in Italy, I experienced something like that multiple times. I want to share four of them here that not only blew me away, but have some obvious application to how we serve guests at our churches.

Here are 3 powerful things to do with your guests that I learned from our Airbnb hosts on Italy. These 3 things not only made the trip for us, but made us want to return to the same Airbnbs on our next trip (the same feeling we all want the guests at our church to feel when they visit for the first time).

On my 6-week Sabbatical, I ended up learning 3 things that will help all of us who are leaders in churches actually “Sabbath” in a rest-producing way. You could even begin practicing them on your next day off to increase your need to be replenished physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.