The Reclaimed Leader Podcast

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.

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.

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.

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