From Thom Rainer, president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources.

… in our studies of churches that are reaching people and retaining them through biblical discipleship we have seen a very clear pattern develop, especially in contrast to leaders in other churches that did not meet our criteria.

Keep in mind that it is the total and the composition of these traits that distinguish the effective leaders from other leaders. Many of the less effective leaders share some, but not all, of these traits. I will refer to these leaders as pastors, though some of the churches used other nomenclature, such as ministers.

1. Fierce biblical faithfulness. Without exception, these pastors held to the total truthfulness of God’s Word. Not only did they believe the veracity of Scripture, they passionately lived out their beliefs.
2. Longer tenure. The leaders we studied are willing and even want to have long-term ministries at one church. While longer tenure itself is not the key to effective leadership, a series of short-term pastorates rarely allows one time to establish lasting leadership in a church. In one of our national surveys of pastors, we found the average pastoral tenure to be 3.6 years. But in different studies of effective leaders, those pastors had an average tenure ranging from 11.2 to 21.6 years.
3. Confident humility. In our subjective interviews with effective church leaders across the nation, our interviewers repeatedly reported that the leaders had a clear and compelling confidence about their own leadership. But that confidence was not arrogance. To the contrary, their confidence centered more on what God was doing and less on their own inherent abilities.
4. Acceptance of responsibility. We did not hear of excuses for ineffective ministry from these effective leaders, even though many of them experienced prolonged periods of struggles. Instead, these pastors accepted the leadership responsibility that comes with their position, and they refused to blame circumstances or others when the inevitable times of conflict and challenge occur.
5. Unconditional love of the people. Ministry can be dirty and Christians can be jerks. It is often difficult to love those who complain and attack you. But these effective leaders, with no claims of perfection, still expressed an intense love for the members of their congregations. In some measure, they have learned to love as Christ loved us.
6. Persistence. Because these leaders have a long-term perspective of their ministries at the churches where they serve, they are able to lead toward progress one incremental step at a time. That is not to say they have a laissez-faire attitude; to the contrary, these pastors are incredibly persistent.
7. Outwardly-focused vision. An integral part of the lives of these effective leaders was their passion and vision to reach people who were not Christians and who were not a part of their churches. To say that these leaders are evangelistically focused would be an understatement. They are passionate about reaching the lost and unchurched, and the visions they communicated inevitably reflected this priority.
8. A desire for a lasting legacy. The ambition and drive of these leaders cannot be denied. But that ambition is not limited to their personal successes. They are ambitious for their churches to be thriving and healthy well beyond their ministries and even their lifetimes.

From Jared Kennedy at SojournKids.com via Bryce Butler and all the material is from Covenant Life.

Parenting Ages 19 to 22

By Bob Kauflin | May 16, 2009

• Hopes and Goals | Audio
• Rules and Relationships | Audio
• College and Careers | Audio
• Question and Answer Session | Audio
• Overall Outline (PDF, 160kb)

Parenting Ages 15 to 18

By Kenneth Maresco | April 18, 2009

• God’s Role and Our Role | Audio
• A Teen’s Relationship with God | Audio
• The Importance of Relationships in a Teen’s Life | Audio
• Question and Answer Session | Audio
• Overall Outline (PDF, 232kb)

Parenting Ages 11 to 14

By Greg Somerville | March 14, 2009

• Changing Relationships | Audio
• Emerging Convictions in a Changing World | Audio
• Changing Bodies and Minds | Audio
• Overall Outline (PDF, 244kb)

Parenting Ages 6 to 10

By Kenneth Maresco | Jan. 17, 2009

• Biblical Principles of Parenting | Audio
• Shepherding Toward Conversion | Audio
• Shepherding Your Child’s Heart | Audio
• Overall Outline (PDF, 168kb)
• Additional Resources: “Sowing Plan” (PDF, 56kb) | Plan to Overcome Complaining (PDF, 54kb)

Parenting Ages Infant to 5

By Brian Chesemore | Nov. 15, 2008

• Training, Discipline, and the Rod | Audio | Outline (PDF, 136kb)
• Biblical Principles of Parenting | Audio | Outline (PDF, 104kb)

When I visited Capital Hill Baptist in Washington, DC last September for a 9Marks Weekender, I was struck by the amount of silence in the service. There actually was silence, which stands in stark contrast to most churches where there’s always sound and background music. I really enjoyed it and found it helped me to focus, contemplate, and seek God. Here is Senior Pastor Mark Dever’s explanation of why CHBC works at silence

One of the most frequently commented upon aspects of the morning Lord’s Day service here at Capitol Hill Baptist Church is nothing we do.  Or rather, it is the nothing we do.  It is our moments of silence.

There’s silence between various aspects of the service. I encourage service leaders to NOT do the “no-dead-airspace” TV standard of busy-ness. We LIKE “dead air space.”  “Dead air space” gives us time to reflect.  To collect our thoughts.  To consider what we’ve just heard or read or sung.  The silence amplifies the words or music we’ve just heard.  It allows us time to take it all in, and to pray.  We have silence to prepare ourselves.  We have silence between the announcements and the scriptural call to worship.  We even have a moment of silence AFTER the service!  I pronounce the benediction from the end of II Corinthians, invite the congregation to be seated.  And then, after about a minute of silence, the pianist begins quietly playing the last hymn that we had just sung.  During those few moments, we reflect and prepare to speak to others and depart.  We do business with God.  We prepare ourselves for the week ahead.

I’m a sound addict.  Even as I write about silence now, I’ve got Paganini blasting in my study!  But yesterday morning in church during one of our silences, I became aware of how corporate a labor such public silence is.  Everyone works to be quiet.  People stop moving their bulletins or looking for something in their purse.  There’s no movement.  We, together, hear the silence.  It engulfs us.  It enhances our unity.  It is something we all do together.  Together we consider what we’ve just heard.  Together we contribute to each other’s space to think.

Why has the church forgotten this?  Our culture knows it.  At the most solemn moments, we have a minute of silence.  And everyone listens to the silence.  And thinks about why we’re being silent.  Why don’t we do this in the church.

In the last century, E. M. Forster, in A Passage to India, referred to “poor little talkative Christianity”.  Perhaps there was a day when all Christians did was gather to listen to the Bible read and preached, and to prayers.  But that day is long gone in most evangelical churches.  These days we gather more to watch than to listen.  And to sing.

But in all the noise of our choirs, and drums, and electic guitars, and organs, and praise bands, where is the solemnity?  Where is the dignity and majesty that is so often indicated in the Bible by a stupified silence, soaked in awe and covered with wonder?

Ecclesiastes 3:7 tells us that there is a time to speak and a time to be silent, but we seem to have forgotten today that there is a time for silence.  God calls his people before Him in silence:  “the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him,” (Hab. 2:20).

Certainly as Christians we have much to rejoice over–loudly and joyfully and expectantly!  But is no part of our regular assemblies to reflect the weightiness of our sinful selves before a holy God, the silence of conviction, even of sorrow?  Furthermore, is no part of our regular assemblies to reflect the stunning weightiness of our forgiveness in Christ, the silence of marvel, and even the humility of some incomprehension?

We silence ourselves exactly because God has not kept silent.  We silence ourselves in order to hear God speak in His Word (cf. Deut. 27:9)  We silence ourselves to show our assent to God’s charges against us (cf. Ps. 39:9).  We silence ourselves to show respect and obedience and humility and restraint (cf. Zeph. 1:7;
I Cor. 14:34; I Tim. 2:12).  We silence ourselves to search our hearts (cf. Ps. 4:4).

We silence ourselves in our own times of prayer, reading and meditation on God’s Word.  And we should also silence ourselves in our periods of corporate worship.  Making silence together builds and unifies the church, witnesses to the majesty of God and tacitly proclaims His greatness to all who hear.

From Michael McKinley at the 9Marks Blog

Recently, the elders at Capitol Hill Baptist put together a process for recruiting and sending out church planters.  I found it interesting and helpful, you might too.  Here’s a link for you to download a one-page summary:

Download Candidate Recruitment Process

If you’re interested in being a CHBC church planter, just call the church office and ask for Matt Schmucker. Don’t be discouraged if he doesn’t call you back, just keep calling.  It’s the way they weed out the uncommitted.

This is a very helpful form and a process that should be duplicated at every church