ALLOW ME TO HELP RE-ENERGIZE YOUR LAY LEADERShiP in support of HGHLY EFFECTIVE CHURCH MINISTRY!

Pastor, are you ready to inspire, challenge, and re-energize your Lay Leaders with dynamic training designed to spur increased leadership, personal, and spiritual growth? If your answer is “absolutely!”, then I would love to share my training program -- The Leadership School: Practical Tools for Highly Effective Lay Leaders.

The Leadership School is a series of four advanced, intensive, and interconnected educational workshops focused on the "wholistic" growth of your lay leadership.

The workshops are: Expanding our Leadership Capabilities, Reimagining the Missional Church for Today and Tomorrow, Developing our Financial Excellence, and  Building Marriages That Last.

Why these four themes? Because after 30 years of pastoral ministry training hundreds of lay leaders in multiple settings, I have come to the following conclusion -- the active and committed practice of these four interconnected themes are unequivocally essential non-negotiables in the wholistic development of highly effective church lay leaders. 

The Leadership School workshops are comprised of practical, theoretical, and theological elements interwoven with real-life applications. The most common model used to hold The Leadership School is a Saturday conference consisting of a six-hour workshop (plus a one-hour lunch break). The following are general descriptions for each of the four individual workshops. 

In the workshop “Expanding Our Leadership Capabilities,” I posit that a highly effective lay leader is one who is self-aware of his or her leadership traits, practices transformative spiritual disciplines, and is adept in the art of conflict resolution. In this workshop, students will study a diversity of leadership qualities, preferences, and styles in order to identify and cultivate their own sets of transformational leadership traits. By being exposed to a diversity of leadership traits, students will be able to transcend from a transactional to a transformational model of leadership that will immensely serve them within their faith communities, families, and professional settings. This workshop will also include the two key topics of the importance of developing spiritual disciplines and effective conflict resolution methods that students will add to their “toolbox” of highly effective leaders. The fundamental premise of the workshop is simple: No one is “born” a “great leader,” but rather a “great leader” is one who “gives birth to and then nurtures,” over the long term, his or her own set of transformational leadership traits!

In the workshop “Reimagining the Missional Church of Today and Tomorrow,” lay leaders will explore ways, means, and tools that transformative congregations use to reimagine their mission and ministry in the 21st century. The goal of this workshop is to inspire students to adopt a missional spirit that may inspire and lead to the formation of authentic and transformational communities of faith in the Living Christ. The fundamental premise of the workshop is simple: how we've "done church" the last 60 years no longer works in the "unchartered territory" we're now in so it's either we adapt to our new landscape or we die. The second premise of the workshop is that at least every seven years or so, congregations would do well to pause to be challenged and encouraged to rekindle their passions for ministry, gain new missional perspectives and innovative ideas, and equip the church to have a lasting impact among “the harvest” (Matthew 9:37-38). This workshop is not intended to be that pause, as that process is more intense, but the workshop can be a good catalyst for deeper exploration.

The “Developing Our Financial Excellence” workshop is designed to help lay leaders develop financial knowledge and practices that lead to financial freedom (without having to be financial “experts”). The workshop focuses on my presentation “The Five Rules of Financial Excellence from a Pastoral Perspective” that I have shared with over 650 students, both individually and in small groups, as well as in congregational ministry and military chaplaincy settings. Key topics include: the importance of starting with a healthy understanding of money and biblical stewardship…exploring what are the fundamental rules, principles, and disciplines of true financial success…how to break free from the bondage of debt…understanding the five fundamental rules of “amazing credit”…practicing the “investment ladder”…and how working families can invest like a millionaire (without the millions!) in one of the best and safest investment strategy. The fundamental premise of the workshop is this: Yes, God desires for all of us us to prosper in “all” things (3 John 1:2), including financially, without becoming greedy slaves of money!

The Leadership School Marriage Workshop -- "Building Marriages That Last” -- is co-led by my wife Zaida and me. It is designed to offer married couples the opportunity to discover a transformational model of marriage of absolute equality, deepen their emotional connection, grow healthy intimacy, and learn practical conflict-solving strategies. In our immersive marriage workshop, we weave 44 years of our own mutual experience and discovery with the practical insights of some of the best resources in the marriage growth community. Our goals are to inspire students to ... create loving relationships built on openness and trust ... hone new skills in loving and sharing life together ... learn our "love language" ... and share insights which foster healthy physical intimacy and emotional affection. By the end of the day, couples leave the workshop with a renewed sense of commitment and a stronger foundation that will help them "build marriages that last" a lifetime.

Although the initial workshop in the series of four is ideally Expanding Our Capabilities in Leadership workshop, you have the option to choose any one of the four as the starting point. If desired, the other three workshops can be held during any future time and schedule.

I am always available to help you plan The Leadership School using other options that take into account your pastoral preference or what works best for your lay leadership team. 

Let's connect and plan for a transformational workshop! CLICK HERE to start the conversation, answer your questions, and begin the planning process.