Blake presented a District Superintendent Q&A session as part of a 2022 training series for local church leaders
PowerPoint Slide Links:
Trustees Job Description (PDF)
Link to Blake’s Recorded Zoom:
Recording of Blake’s Zoom Workshop for Trustees and Finance
Links to recorded 2019 Cabinet & Conference Staff Interviews:
Finance Committee and Treasurer Orientation: https://youtu.be/AWnKlQf1Cwg
Trustees Orientation: https://youtu.be/PFRj7FykYGE
Blake presented a District Superintendent Q&A session as part of a 2022 training series for local church leaders, linking the Q&A sessions to pre-recorded interviews with other DSs and Conference Staff.
Links to 2019 Recorded Interviews with Conference Staff and Cabinet:
Pastor/Staff Parish Relations Committee Orientation: https://youtu.be/yB26FUtBTrY
Church Council Orientation: https://youtu.be/f1GNsFyCCFA
¶ 252.1. Purpose - The church council shall provide for planning and implementing a program of nurture, outreach, witness, and resources in the local church. It shall also provide for the administration of its organization and temporal life. It shall envision, plan, implement, and annually evaluate the mission and ministry of the church. The church council shall be amenable to and function as the administrative agency of the charge conference (¶ 244).
¶ 258.2. There shall be elected annually by the charge conference in each local church a committee on pastor-parish relations or staff-parish relations who are professing members of the local church or charge or associate members (¶ 227), except in cases where central conference legislation or local law provides otherwise. People serving on this committee must be engaged in and attentive to their Christian spiritual development so as to give proper leadership in the responsibilities with which the committee is entrusted.
In conducting its work, the committee shall identify and clarify its values for ministry. It shall engage in biblical and theological reflections on the mission of the church, the primary task, and ministries of the local church.
The committee shall reflect biblically and theologically on the role and work of the pastor(s) and staff as they carry out their leadership responsibilities. The committee shall assist the pastor(s) and staff in assessing their gifts, maintaining health holistically and work-life balance, and setting priorities for leadership and service. It is the responsibility of the committee to communicate with the committee on nominations and leadership development and/or the church council when there is a need for other leaders or for employed staff to perform in areas where utilization of the gifts of the pastor(s) and staff proves an inappropriate stewardship of time.
Leading from the porch swing, not the board room!
The smaller the church, the more the pastor’s leadership exists outside the committee meeting room or even behind the pulpit. Instead the leader rests on the metaphorical porch swing. In my home state, Arkansas, especially in the evening, we enjoy banter from the front porch swing. You sit side-by-side on a porch swing. You can’t sit in the adversarial position across from someone, hoping to win them over or tire them out. Side-by-side it is, looking in the same direction, leaning over and talking with each other, loving each other as fellow servants of God.
Read the full article on “Ministry Matters”:
https://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/11074/leading-the-small-church-from-the-porch-swing
We’ve all heard about SAS, the Simplified, Accountable Structure. But what is it? During this session, SAS experts Kay Kotan and Blake Bradford will discuss:
Understanding What SAS Is
The Three Phases
Important Shifts in the Model to Know
Most Common Mistakes in its Practice to Avoid
During this one-hour session, Kay and Blake will focus on ministry while making meetings fewer in number but larger in meaning. In this session, aimed at clergy and congregational leaders, particularly United Methodists, the authors provide practical, tested steps to simplify your church structure and unleash more people into ministry.
Too often churches try to simplify their structures by just having fewer people at the meeting table. But real simplification and accountable leadership means that meetings – and leaders – are transformed. Kay and Blake walk you through both the technical and adaptive changes to simplify your structure for missional effectiveness.
ClergyEducation.com is a resource for clergy and church leaders, offering CEUs accepted by most United Methodist annual conferences. ClergyEducation.com is a division of Market Square Publishing LLC.
Tuesday, October 5
2:00 – 3:00 PM Eastern
Most congregations in the nation have a membership under 100, but most books and workshops are created by mega-churches. In this webinar, Dr. Blake Bradford shares how smaller congregations can use their unique giftedness to fulfill God’s mission. He says smaller churches can enhance their vitality by clarifying their purpose, engaging their local community, leveraging small church relational intimacy to reach people and nurture disciples, rightsizing their leadership and governance structures to empower laity, and strategically utilizing pastoral leadership.
Download a PDF of the Workshop Slides
Practical Resources for Churches (PRC) is an ecumenical resource center ~ https://www.prcli.org/
Blake Bradford: Tips for Cultivating Fruitfulness in Ministry
The enormous challenges of today’s world require clergy leaders to encourage new seeds of creativity and innovation, prune back ministries that are no longer effective, and cultivate ministry fruitfulness in a post-COVID world that feels shockingly different than it was just a few months ago.
In this webinar, United Methodist District Superintendent and co-author of Mission Possible: A Simple Structure for Missional Effectiveness and Impact: Reclaiming the Call of Lay Ministry, will share tips on pastoral leadership in this strange new era.
ClergyEducation.com is a resource for clergy and church leaders, offering CEUs accepted by most United Methodist annual conferences. ClergyEducation.com is a division of Market Square Publishing LLC.
Having recently moved into a new office in the Northwest District, I did some unpacking, some recycling, some giving away, and some outright tossing in File 13. Also, I needed to do some redecorating!! My wife Kerri has told me that I needed to make sure my office was not decorated with the style sense of a mid-1990’s TGI Fridays. “Flair” begone! so, now I will be shifting things around and this (blog?) page will be the landing spot for recorded presentations, old articles, etc.
I led a session on innovation at the training for new DCMs at the annual training held by GBHEM, Discipleship Ministries, and Global Missions
Church leaders want to equip more people for ministry. They long for a simpler decision-making process focused on discipleship, not endless meetings. But simply having fewer meetings won’t inspire more people to live into their calling. What will? Creating a clear and focused accountability structure that places the church’s disciple-making mission front and center.
This two-session 2021 webinar series with leadership coach Kay Kotan and District Superintendent Blake Bradford looks at how simplified, accountable leadership structure (often called the “one-board” model) can empower, equip, and set laity and clergy free to focus on the mission of making disciples of Jesus who change the world.
What is a Simplified, Accountable Structure (SAS)?
Participants will discover:
What simplified, accountable structure is
Why churches should consider this model
How accountability plays a significant role in simplification
Watch the video archive of this webinar:
WEBINAR TWO (08/19/21):
How to Implement a Simplified Structure in Your Church
An overview of:
The three distinct phases of simplified, accountable structure
What players are involved in each phase
The elements of each phase and what the timeline looks like
Watch the video archive of this webinar:
In this Leading Ideas Article for the Lewis Center for Church Leadership, Blake Bradford shares how smaller congregations can use their unique giftedness to fulfill their mission. He says smaller churches can enhance their vitality by clarifying their purpose, engaging their community, leveraging relational intimacy to reach people and build disciples, and rightsizing their leadership and governance structures.
