Reggie Joiner's Blog, page 59

How to Lead Up and Introduce the Orange Strategy

Orange Strategy places a strong belief and emphasis on several different things that all point to making a greater impact on the next generation. We believe and emphasize that kids and students need the voices of consistent adults to provide a safe space for them to explore their faith and how it intersects with their lives. We believe and emphasize that what we do for kids and students is more important than what we do for adults. And overall, we believe that two combined influences make a g...

Setting Boundaries for Social Media

Instagram recently rolled out a new feature on their app: a handy “you’re all caught up” notification in your feed when you’ve seen all of your new posts. It seems that our apps are giving us nudges to get offline more! Now I’m the biggest social proponent fan out there, but even I am an advocate for some boundaries with our usage of these platforms. If you’re struggling in that area, it’s good to have some starting points. 

Know yourself. 

The first place to start is to know yourself well en...

How to Effectively Pass the Baton of Ministry Leadership

“So, who will be taking your place?” Dana said. She had just heard the news about Anderson’s impending transition. “Rashad will,” replied Anderson. Smiling gladly, Dana responded, “I am not surprised.” 

Seamless transitions are essential in ministry. Whether we are being promoted, retiring, or joining another industry, our roles involve relationships that have been invested into deeply; and therefore requires intentional preparation. You do not have to take my word for it though. 

We have see...

It’s Time for Something New!

So, we made a decision recently at Orange that is pretty exciting to us. Since we put a lot of effort into traveling throughout the fall on Orange Tour we decided to maximize our time and do something new in each city. Those of you who have participated in past years probably know that we typically do a training event for small group leaders on the evening before the tour day called Lead Small. That training will be a priority this year as well, but starting this fall, Orange Tour will get a...

6 Ideas on Making Church Welcoming for Skeptical Parents

Did you know McDonald’s is one of the largest toy distributors in the world? It’s true. They’ve realized the key to getting people to come back to their restaurants is to get kids excited about coming back. McDonald’s understands that parents will go where their kids want to go. For them, a great kid experience is the come-back effect. 

Guess what? For most parents visiting your church, this same dynamic exists. Parents will go where they feel like their kids will be happy and get the best ca...

How Demographics Provide Your Ministry Context

One of my favorite Reggie Joiner ideas from A New Kind of Leader is that what we are doing only matters, if it matters right now. While this is certainly true of the ministry we do for kids and students, this is also true of the ministry we do with adults. Our communities are full of clues that provide us information regarding what matters to those in our churches. Family make-up, gender, age, economic status, educational background, professional experience, and even race all color how we see...

Using Hashtags to Generate Ministry Conversations

Hashtags can sometimes be confusing and other times they can be useful. The information we send out from our ministries often reaches the right audience because of effective hashtag usage. In the world we live in today, we are oversaturated with information, which means we have to try to find a way to make our message of hope stand out from the crowd. Hashtags are not a fool-proof plan for doing so, but they certainly are a good starting point for helping us get out in front and to engage pro...

How to Create a Social Media Policy for Your Church

The world is in a very interesting state right now. There definitely seems to be a lot of animosity and hostility toward people who believe or think different things. We often see this played out in social media. Just scroll through your Facebook or Twitter feeds and you will see all sorts of arguments going on. No matter what you say or like, someone can be offended and have no problem arguing different points of view. 

It is really unfortunate that there are less discussions and conversatio...

Combatting Spiritual Warfare with Wisdom and Boldness

When it comes to angels and demons, I have more questions than answers. Have you ever wondered why angels always had to say, “Do not be afraid,” even though they’re on our side? Why did cartoonists illustrate the devil with a pitchfork? Why is it that most of our modern day stories of intense interaction with the spiritual realm come from missionaries serving in countries where some kind of voodoo or black magic is practiced?  

Every account of the spiritual realm given to us in the Bible is...

3 Tips for Entering a New Position Smoothly

I was a pastor for 20 years. In that time, I served many churches in many different roles. You could say I am an expert at starting new jobs. It’s definitely a trend in the greater workforce. Jobs are becoming more transient in the workforce as a whole. Gone are the days of people retiring from the same job after 30 or 40 years. Although I have no solid statistics, and it probably depends largely on the size and demographic of the church, at least in my experience, jobs in the church world ha...