One of the soft skills required when helping people engage in crucial conversations is the skill of facilitation. A definition of facilitation that is simple yet helpful is "to make easier or less difficult." What do we as coaches and transitional leaders help make easier or less difficult? We help... Read More..

This past week I had a request from a church in transition to comment on this idea of possibly hiring the Transitional Pastor (Intentional Interim) as the next Senior Pastor. The lay leader I spoke with was wanting to help guide the team who is in the middle of hiring the Transitional Pastor in ans... Read More..

I was talking to two different couples I know who are attending a church currently in transition (one couple is retired while the other has two small children). My question was simply, "How is the transition going?" I was curious to see how the transitional principles were being implemented in thei... Read More..

There have been various studies done on how retention increases as engagement increases during the learning process. Vidakovik in his study found that people retain: 20% of what they hear 30% of what they see 50% of what they hear and see 70% of what they see, hear , and say (discuss, explain to ot... Read More..

If you look up "hope" in the dictionary you will discover there are two parts to the definition: a) " desire or expectation " for something in the future to occur; and b) " grounds for believing " that something in the future will occur. We run into trouble when we have one without the other - when... Read More..

Have you ever found yourself trying to balance optimism with some tough stuff that takes you to places you'd rather not go? Have you ever worked with a congregation where the only thing people wanted to hear was the "good news" and refused to have conversations about the brutal facts of their dysfu... Read More..

Sometimes getting from here to there seems impossible! You are trying to help a church that has just experienced a messy pastoral exit move through it but the mess seems impossible to clean up. You've witnessed or been in the middle of a broken relationship with deep scars that don't seem to be hea... Read More..

This month I want to focus on leadership. In particular, I want to share some of what I've been learning from the Jesuits on leadership. This learning is relevant for those of us called to be courageous, adaptable, and able to help others change and grow through transition. The source of these thou... Read More..