Showing results by author "Greg L. Hawkins" in All Categories

Leading from the Second Chair will raise awareness of the need for strong leaders in secondary positions. It will describe the value they can bring to their organization and to primary leaders when they are serving at their full potential. It will reshape the way they view their role, with an emphasis on their own responsibility as leaders. It recognizes the unique challenges and frustrations of serving in a subordinate position and equips these leaders with the attitudes and skills that they will need to survive and thrive in this new paradigm.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. We start out with hearts brimming with hope and excitement. And that energy carries us for a while, maybe even years. But one day we suddenly find ourselves like the man in the prodigal son story: half dead, going through the dreaded motions, hoping no one around us notices. But they do. It's not that we've stopped loving God; it's just that things have happened along the way that have caused us to settle for small lives defined primarily by activity for God.

One of the church's primary responsibilities is to foster genuine spiritual growth in people's lives. Today's pastors bring tremendous effort and passion to this task, but they are often disappointed by people who sit in the pews for years, knowing about Jesus but never really knowing him. In 2004, Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago undertook a three-year study to measure spiritual growth called the REVEAL Spiritual Life Survey. Over the next six years, additional data was collected from over a quarter million people in well over a thousand churches of every size....