You know the phrase “widen the circle”? Well that’s exactly what happened when a juvenile justice system went searching for classes and resources for the parents of children in the system. In their search, they stumbled across a Parenting Beyond Your Capacity class at a local church. A class designed to pour into parents, love on kids and walk alongside them. In today’s episode, you’ll hear how Brian Fuller, a NextGen Minister from Texas, partnered with the his local juvenile justice system to not only strengthen his church family… but his community.

Are the ministries in your church competing? Are the various age groups working to be intentional and strategic... but are actually pulling in different directions? An increasing number of churches are realizing the importance of identifying an specific person whose job is to be committed to developing a discipleship strategy from cradle to graduation. In this episode, Nina Schmidgall, director of family ministry at National Community Church in Washington, DC, walks us through the role of a NextGen pastor.

Every church has a unique culture. Culture can be an underestimated and rarely evaluated element of your church, yet it’s vital to the church mission. The wrong culture can impact the best vision and strategy as it's more about who you are, than what you do. Whether it's a new family or regular attender walking into your church, the culture is what they sense, feel and hear. Here are five keys to keep in mind as you start as you look to identify and evaluate your culture from Pat Rowland, Executive Pastor of Ministries at Woodside Bible Church.

Ministry silos happen when people and ministries share the same roof but do nearly everything in isolation. Outside of Sundays, they rarely combine their efforts. This usually happens because the church’s systems do not encourage unity or instead of systems, your processes are built on people. How do you go about diagnosing and treating a ministry silo mindset in your church or ministry? Listen for some practical steps from Tony Morgan, Chief Strategic Officer and founder of The Unstuck Group.

What’s the culture of your church or ministry? This is one of those questions that we know is hugely important but is so difficult to answer. Culture is important. It’s one of the keys to building transformational ministries and churches. In this episode, Aaron Buer shares four ideas for creating a transformational culture inside your church or ministry.

We all know the important role small group leaders play in the lives of every kid and student in our ministries. We also all know the challenge of recruiting and training those new small group leaders. In today’s episode, Kendra Fleming shares five of the most important qualities you should look for in every new (and current) small group leader.

Leadership is a privilege but it also has its challenges. One of the more common challenges is leading yourself. It takes intentionality and it’s something that doesn’t happen by accident or as a by-product of another kind of leadership. It’s something you must focus on and work at consistently. Jim Wideman walks through six “H Factors” that will help us know where to start and what to prioritize.

If you’re a typical church leader, you probably feel a twinge of guilt every time you recruit someone into your area to serve, but have you ever found yourself apologizing while you’re asking? After all, these people work forty (or more) hours a week and you’re asking them to give away extra time for free. Listen to this episode to hear Carey Nieuwhof’s thoughts on not apologizing for asking a person to give a portion of their lives to something as powerful and potent as the kingdom of God.

Everybody understands the need for children’s ministry and everybody understands the need for students. The problem is that when they say “students” what they mean is high school. That leaves middle-schoolers stranded in the middle with no leadership or resources. In this episode you'll hear 5 reasons your church should have a separate middle school ministry from North Point Community Church's multi-campus director of Transit (middle school), Tom Shefchunas.

Having a strategy and a plan is important. Even more important is being able to measure if your strategy is working! On today's episode, Ryan Bicker outlines the five ways you can measure the effectiveness of your small groups. If you and your ministry are on the journey of embracing this strategy, keep going! It’s worth it!