Having an incredible weekly worship experience is awesome. There is most definitely power in having the people of God gathering together to praise and celebrate. But most often, the real work of helping people become more like Christ — become true disciples of Jesus — happens when smaller groups of believers get together to study, to serve, and to really experience life together.

There are thousands of churches across America that have beautiful facilities — and that’s awesome! We love talking with church leaders who are looking at expanding campuses and building new buildings and making room for more new faces. Growth is fun and exciting, and we’re grateful we get to be a part of it for so many churches.

As a leader — whether at home, at work, at church, wherever I am — I’ve got one job that’s more important that any other. I need to replace myself.

As church leaders, we are (or should be) continually focused on discipling the people God entrusts to our ministry. However, we often forget that the discipleship process should begin with us and how we lead our staff. We must disciple them well and teach them how to do the same before we earn the right to make disciples of others.