Coaching For Pastors - Daily Coaching, Encouragement, and Support for Pastors

In this episode, Dave made the following statement, that I thought was the MONEY line: "Fear has killed a lot more dreams than failure ever will." So true! Fear keeps us from failure, so that's good right? Yeah, except that fear also keeps us from... you guessed it... success! Failing forward, as I describe, is failing, then assessing the failure, learning from it, adjusting for the...

Dave Bush joins me to talk about the hard choices we all have to make to move our lives our of "ordinary" and into extraordinary! In this episode he uses nutrition as an example, but we will have to make hard choices in every area of our lives if we truly want to live extraordinary lives! Enjoy! This is for YOU. Support the show For more great content and conversations for pastors, check...

When we were kids, we had all kinds of dreams! We dreamt of flying, running faster than a train, knowing all the answers to every test, being a pro-whatever sports player, etc. When we entered ministry we dreamt of building a megachurch.  Do you dream anymore? What is your dream for you life? Not ministry, just your life? Jeff and Dave Bush talk about dreaming, not losing the power to dream, and d...

This is part 1 of 6 with Dave Bush as we explore how to live an Extraordinary Life! Today's commitment is to LIVE YOUR CALLING. Are you doing what God has called you to do in the world? What does it look like when we do? And, why would we continue to do anything else? Enjoy! Get Dave's Book - LIVE AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE here ! Support the show For more great content and conversations for...

Pastor, you would like to grow and change, but it seems like you're mostly spinning your wheels. You listen to podcasts like this one, watch webinars and online conferences, attend conferences and trainings, maybe take an online course or two, or subscribe to Audible to listen to books. But, you forget what you've heard or watched within the week. It's all good while it lasts, but t...

Politics, Race, Economy, Pandemic, Gas Prices, Polarization, Crime, Guns, Drugs, Pornography, Alcoholism, Pills... shall I go on? All this plus church change, imploding pastors, churches, and ministries - and we can easily get discouraged! You've been discouraged, confused, and frustrated at times over the past two years. I wanted to share with you how I handle the discouragement and stress o...

We had spent months crafting a vision for our church. As a mission team we had prayed and did the hard work as a group to collaborate together to come up with something that made sense, evoked passion, called out mission, and was true to the biblical vision of a church.  The night came when we would roll out the vision. We had materials, powerpoint, and a 42 page vision book. We presented to about...

Jeff talks about https://www.multiplication.org and https://www.exponential.org - Two great resources for pastors, if you haven't heard of them. Search for "exponential learning community" and see what Jeff was able to participate in during 2020-2021. His event cities were Kansas City MO, Indianapolis IN, and Nashville TN. It was through being a part of this Exponential Learning Com...

It's summertime and you might have some margin to gather a group together to work ON the business instead of IN the business. Maybe Kid's and Youth Ministries as quieter in terms of programming this summer, or your volunteers might get some team time to reflect, process, or plan -- and you get the chance to have a brainstorming session, or an assessment discussion - what kinds of questio...

Jesus' life would not be considered successful or fulfilling by any human standards. He died young, never married, no kids, no fortune, no following when he died, disgraced and humiliated.  Before his death, he spent several hours in an upper room with his few disciples teaching them for what would be his last opportunity. They call it the upper room discourse, or the farewell discourse. In J...

Josh and I talk about leaving behind disappointment and learning to dream again, which is actually the subtitle of his book. Josh Gagnon is the lead pastor of Next Level Church , a multi-site church in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Florida. Josh wrote his book, It's Not Over - Leaving Behind Disappointment and Learning to Dream Again , and released it just weeks before COVID closed all ou...

Ever feel like you need to somehow get to the next level in your life, but don't know how? You have church peeps and friends but not anyone who is challenging you and pushing you in a healthy way to grow and seriously better yourself. Ever think, "I need to stop coasting and set sail on a serious goal or mission"? This episode just might be for you - if... you are motivated you have...

There has been a need for innovation in the area of preaching for many years. It's long past due for us to take a serious look at it. So many older (over 40) pastors simply assuage the masses in their church (even if it's only dozens) and simply stand and give a Bible speech each week.  Too often these speeches contain no follow-up, no application, no discussion, no opportunity for quest...

Sometimes in ministry leadership someone, it seems, way overreacts to something we say or do - and we do not know why! "What in the world just happened?!" we say to ourselves. But we are unaware of the systems in the church, and the buttons we might have just inadvertently pushed. In their book, Leading Congregational Change , Herrington, Bonem, and Furr talk about how everything in a ch...

On Leadership Tuesday, Jeff talks about the difference between a shepherd and organizational leader. Which one are you? Neither is right or wrong, but our wiring and gifting usually drives us toward one more than the other. Either way you go, there are challenges. How we confront and deal with the challenges determines the effectiveness of our ministry.  You are doing a great work Pastor! Never co...

We get caught up in our culture of doing more, moving faster and further, achieving, and acquiring... and sometimes we forget about rest, replenishment, renewal, refreshment, recreation, and sabbath. Jeff speaks about Sabbath and disrupting our current way of doing things in order to produce a different result. Plus, a quick clip from Ken Shigematsu always helps! Support the show For more great co...

My friend Rob Douglas told me, last September, that I should read the book, Spiritual Multiplication in the Real World - Why some disciplemakers reproduce when others fail , by Bob McNabb. I bought it, read it, shared it with my elders, had many discussions on the book in our elder meetings, and then led a disciplemaking team through the book and workbook this calendar year of 2022. And then... Br...

I had some pretty big defining moments in the summer of '92, the summer of '02, January 2010, Fall of 2014, the summer of 2017, etc. These were times where some defining moments in my life changed the course and direction of my entire life! But, I had to make a decision to step into each one of them. At every juncture, I could have sidestepped those moments, and at every one of them, I w...

You have things from your past that are limiting your success in the present. Your perspective must change as you replace faulty thinking with God's truth. What fears, hangups, limiting beliefs, or wrong assumptions have you been hanging onto that you need to jettison and replace with God's truth? Jeff will challenge you to replace bad thinking, fears, and failure with biblical truth, co...

Your kids will view the church through the lens of your parenting, and the "caught" experience they receive from you. How are you doing in your relationship to the church you lead, and how are your kids experiencing it because they are in your family? You want your kids to love the Lord, love his church, and be an active part of a healthy church family. Jeff talks with you today about ho...

Martin Luther King Jr.'s iconic "I have a Dream" speech rings down through the ages with its clarion call for justice and equality. King had a dream that was so contagious - and so many others caught his dream as theirs. It is still being fulfilled and dreamed today as many fight for justice and equality for not just African Americans, but many other people of color. Whatever your i...

Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse, wrote a blog post on The Top Five Regrets of the Dying . It's quite sobering, and if you're like me you'll find a little of yourself in each regret. Today I talk you through them, from a pastor's point of view. My goal is that you will connect with at least one, maybe two, and begin to turn things around just enough that you can go from regret...

Zach Zehnder's story of calling into ministry, and the twists and turns around it, are inspiring! God used a need in Zach's ministry to birth a Kingdom business in his and his wife's hearts that moved them from Florida to Nebraska. This is Zach's story of his quest to disciples God' people. Jeff and Zach did not know each other and do not come from the same denomination. T...

John Mark Comer has written a wonderful book that I absolutely love called: The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. After hearing so many rave about it, I recently ordered it for myself and today I want to share with you the 20 ways that Comer gives us to practically eliminate hurry from our lives... ruthlessly! I hope that these 20 suggestions from Comer strike a chord in your heart and encourage you...

A chance encounter at the grocery store ignited a new friendship for Jeff that he admits he needed. This is the story of a pastor who reached out and connected in a significant way to both be encouraged as well as to encourage! Maybe you're just like Jeff today - maybe you need a friend and you don't even realize it! Listen to Jeff tell this story, and maybe you can be the pastor who rea...