Reggie Joiner's Blog, page 45

Is it Possible to Find Balance Between Your Job and Your Personal Life?

The balance between our work and our personal lives will always be what Andy Stanley calls a “tension to manage.” We need to strive for balance, but we will never fully find it. What we can do, is be as intentional as possible in fighting for this balance. It’s in this daily fight that we can discover how to manage the tension appropriately.

Here are three ways we can fight for balance between our work and our personal lives.

Fight for balance by giving yourself permission to say “good enough...

An Often Overlooked Measure Of A Successful Sunday

It’s Monday morning and the weekly debrief meeting is about to happen. You know the normal questions that are about to be asked. How many people showed up? How much money was given? Who was missing as a volunteer? How many guests did we have? How many views did we get on our online campus? How many likes or retweets did we get? How many people accepted Christ this weekend?

These are all of the measurements that your typical staff at a church will look at week after week. These are not bad ind...

Build A Legacy, Not Just A Great Service

Remember, what you’re doing now matters more than it feels like it does. That’s why this week and every week is really important. ~Reggie Joiner

I still remember the moment like it was yesterday. We drove along the rutted orange clay roads that led to a small village in eastern Uganda. It was Sunday morning and I was there to help document the work of Arise Africa – an organization that provides support to pastors and vulnerable children. We could hear the music as we approached the mud and d...

5 Ways To Know If Small Groups Are Working

Having a strategy and a plan is important. Even more important is being able to measure if your strategy is working! For my team and me, one of the best places we can measure to see if the Orange Strategy is having an impact is in our Small Groups. We fully identify with the benefit of “putting a trusted adult in the life of children BEFORE they need them, so they will be there when they need them.” Here are five ways you can tell if Small Groups are working for you!

Parents respond to their...

True Rest May Look Differently Than You Think

I sat tucked away in the corner of a church and listened to the pastor confess to his congregation, “I might need to take some time away because I’m just exhausted. I’ve not rested in years.”

Those listening to his words cocked their heads in curiosity. The pastor always took yearly vacations, and his passion for the outdoors found him often enjoying God’s creation. His schedule was protected to provide him plenty of time to study and write—even staff requests were filtered through other exe...

Power Up Day 2.0 is March 14!

We had such a great time connecting with leaders and giving away prizes in January, so we decided to do it again this month! Power Up Day 2.0 is happening, and we hope that you’ll join us to get your VBS planning jump-started.

DATE: Thursday, March 14, 2019
TIME: 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. *

It’s the perfect time to put in those orders for your supplemental products that make VBS even more amazing. And every order placed by that day—and throughout the day—will be entered into live drawings for some awes...

For A Strong Team On Sunday, Invest In Them On Monday

Making the time to invest in relationships in ministry can be difficult with all the other things on our to-do lists. It can become easy to define people by how they serve our ministries and our purposes rather than who they are as people. I have made this mistake before and it is a big one! People know when you are just filling volunteer slots and not really seeing them individually. That’s how you lose great volunteers and employees and have to go back to the drawing board with new team mem...

Kids Need Love (Over Time)

Maybe we didn’t always wipe our wet, filthy feet before entering the house, but you loved us anyway.

Thanks for the fun celebrations after countless graduations.

During many moments of utter sadness, your bony shoulder was a major comfort as tears dripped from our tired eyes.

Your kind words and generous acts of kindness did not go unnoticed during the best sleepovers at your house.

The discipline hurt in the moment, but I sure needed it after almost burning the woods down behind our house.

W...

3 Ways Your Church Can Leverage Facebook Groups

Often confused with Facebook Pages, Facebook Groups are described by our friends at Facebook as a “place for small group communication and for people to share their common interests and express their opinion.” They even mention that Facebook Groups are perfect for church groups! So, while it is important for your church to have its own Facebook Page, Groups serve a much more specific purpose — connection for a smaller group around a specific cause.

So how can your church leverage Facebook Gro...

How to Incorporate Healthy Pastoral Self-Care into Your Routine

I grew up in Sherman, Texas. Most of you have never heard of Sherman, but I can tell you it was a wonderful place to grow up. It was a middle size town in North Texas full of trees (despite what many think about Texas), with a laid-back atmosphere, and a love for the Dallas Cowboys. What more could you want in a hometown?

Sherman is actually a sister city to Denison, Texas. If you grew up in a big city then it probably wasn’t strange to have cities delineated only by a few blocks of neighborh...