If your ministry can't work without you, then it is no longer Christ-centered. Minister toward Jesus, not yourself.

Part of leadership is preparing those who follow to someday go on ahead without you.

We need to be the church that serves and loves people now, today, exactly where they are. Until then, we are simply managing decline.

Don't just cry over your 10 or 20 member church. Sometimes, God gives you your future first. The ones you call little carry in them every possibility you desire of the future. God would send you leaders but they may come as weak men and women first. Don't be so 'gift' conscious that you fail to realize that certain things are results of growth.

If you want your ministry to have ‘it’, more important than anything else we’ve discussed, you must have ‘it’. When it has filtered through your heart - the rare combination of passion, integrity, focus, faith, expectation, drive, hunger, and God’s anointing - God tends to infuse your ministry with ‘it’. He blesses your work. People are changed. Leaders grow. Resources flow. The ministry seems to take on a life of its own.

It's helpful to remember that God doesn't belong to Christians, Jews, Muslims or anyone. We belong to God, not the other way around.