Home Pastors Articles for Pastors 7 Key Leadership Conversations Every Church Team Should Have in 2015

7 Key Leadership Conversations Every Church Team Should Have in 2015

So … what conversations are you planning on having with your team this year?

One of the things I love about a new year is the Top 10 lists that help us reflect back and plan ahead. They can certainly provide fodder for worthy leadership conversations.

In that spirit, I’ve already shared my Top 10 Posts of 2014 and the Top 5 Podcasts from my new leadership podcast. Here are a few other lists worth checking out from Brian Dodd, Thom Rainer, and David Kinnaman and the Barna Group.


It’s great to measure what’s resonating (usually top 10 lists are based on views or listens), but there’s also another category of conversations every leader should take seriously: the conversations you should have, not just the conversations you want to have.

To some extent, it’s the difference between what’s urgent and what’s important.

The best leaders figure out what conversations they need to have and then do whatever it takes to ensure they happen.

In my view, here are seven conversations every church leader and their teams should have in 2015.

You might already be having some of them, and if so that’s amazing. Maybe the posts can help.

And if you’re not talking about these subjects yet, let me just encourage you to begin. Maybe the posts below can act as a springboard.

The Seven Conversations

These topics below are in no particular order, and they’re based on what I think are some of the most pressing issues church leaders face (or should be facing).

A few notes:

1. I frame each conversation as a question because questions, not statements, make for the best conversations in my view.

2. I frame the conversation briefly and then offer between two and 10 posts I’ve written in the past that might be helpful in assisting you and your team in the conversation. Naturally, you’ll find some more relevant than others, but it makes for a quick guide to what I hope will be helpful posts on the subject in question.

3. The team you discuss this with might be different, depending on your circumstance. In a big church, it would be your key staff and perhaps elder board. In a smaller church, likely all staff, the elder board and maybe a few volunteer leaders would be involved. If you are super small and barely have a structure, I’d just pull in a few key promising leaders and start there. I would strongly recommend NOT making these conversations the stuff of congregational meetings. If you’re puzzled about that, here’s my reason why.

So with that in mind, here are seven conversations I’d love to see every church leadership team have this year.