Throwback

Here’s advice from an expert on how not to burn out your retreat speaker.

When you recruit feedback from your students at the end of a Bible study year, don’t forget to solicit feedback from your leaders. If you are blessed to have dedicated leadership returning year after year, you may want to keep it short. Here’s an example we’ve used at Wednesday in the Word. This example survey is geared to a Bible study with a large group, small groups and homework. Customize it to fit your programs.

How do you know when a ministry is working? Numbers do not always reflect an accurate picture. These questions will help.

Church women’s retreats offer one of the best opportunities of the church for women to step away from their daily responsibilities, rest and connect with other women in the church and spend some concentrated time learning more about the Lord. While retreats require a lot of planning, they are worth it in the long run.

As a ministry leader, you often do surveys. But what questions should ask? Which questions solicit the best input? After 30 years in ministry — and countless surveys! — these are the questions I’ve found most helpful.

After Jesus was captured in the Garden of Gethsemane, the soldiers led him to the high priest. Mark is very careful to point out that these two situations — the trial before the Sanhedrin and the denial of Peter — occur side by side. The contrast between these two situations gives us an illustration which is the answer to the question Jesus asks on the cross.

Since churches moved online in 2020, I took advantage of the opportunity to “attend” about 10 different Good Friday services. This was my favorite. Why was it my favorite? Because this service concentrated on telling the story of Good Friday.

Commentaries can kick-start your thinking when you hit a dead end but should not be a substitute for your own work. Here’s my two rules of thumb.

Multi-volume encyclopedias are good sources for historical and biblical themes. But background information does not impose meaning.

Lexicons & dictionaries can reveal what might be “lost in translation” but they also tempt us to fall into the trap of “I learned a fact about a word and I must use it.”