Paul Benger

A conversation for pastors, leaders, creators, entrepreneurs, cultural architects

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Pastor, Creator, Leader, Author, Entrepreneur, Cultural Architect, Leadership Coach

Category: Church

  • 3 Helpful Steps For Setting Good Targets

            In the last year our network of churches (Groundlevel) has begun a process of developing, alongside partners in South Africa and the USA, a program for churches which we have together called GHK. GHK stands for: Great Leaders, Healthy Churches, Kingdom Advancement.  The first wave of this program involves an evaluation…

  • Why Changing Perception Is Critical

    “Action is not the result of intentional reasoned thought but passion.” – James K A Smith. Smith who is a philosopher and theologian is making the point that we are primarily shaped more by the imagination than the intellect. Therefore it is the stories that we inhabit and not the arguments we believe that give…

  • Our Need For We

    We are the I Generation. Sociologists call what is happening in our world, ‘The Rampant Individualisation of Society.’ The focus is me. This posture has crept into our Spirituality and today, on my 50th Birthday, I thought I would write about my passion, The Church and specifically OUR NEED FOR WE. Aristotle believed that unless we can…

  • My Plan To Be A Better Leader As I Grow Older

    I turn 50 in a few weeks, and there’s nothing I can do about it. In a culture that celebrates youth, it’s easy to believe the only key to impact is to be young. Just as we can misspend our youth, it’s just as easy to blow your decades past age 40/50. What Does Age Predict? Your best…

  • 6 Habits Of Growing Churches

    In the March edition of Inc. magazine, Leigh Buchanan interviews Stanford professors Robert Sutton and Huggy Rao about the practices of companies who successfully grow and scale.  You can read the interview HERE. I found their insights quite applicable for some of the things that are needed for churches to grow. While this is obviously not…

  • Stop The Self Deprecation

    This blog post is from Cole Nesmith, I really enjoyed it… CHRISTIANS ARE PRETTY GOOD AT SELF DEPRECATING. We value it as some sort of symbol for holiness. I suppose the idea is taken from the likes of Paul who makes statements about his suffering being gainful. But we take these words of a man…

  • 7 Changes Driven By Church Growth

    Last monday I posted on 8 Reasons Most Churches Are Below 200. It drew lots of interest and comments from all around the world. One of the main reasons for posting was to raise the leadership awareness that as Churches grow our leadership style changes and grows too. Tim Keller says, “Every church has a…

  • 8 Reasons Most Churches Are Below 200

    While social media, and even traditional media, are still preoccupied with megachurches and multisite churches, the reality is that most churches in North America & Britain are quite small. The Barna group pegs the average Protestant church size in America at 89 adults, in the UK average attendance is 84 (inc children see chart at…

  • How to Coach: Ask These 5 Questions And Listen!

    I think the leadership world knows that coaching is in. When it comes to developing and empowering leaders nothing is has powerful as a great coach who knows their craft. One of the biggest mistakes we make when it comes to coaching is our mental model. We think that coaching means me (the expert) telling…

  • 7 Ways The Leader Sets The Bar

    The leader sets the bar for the organization. If you are a leader of an organization then you have the awesome responsibility of establishing the parameters by which your organization will be successful. Now, as I feel the need in every post like this, Jesus sets the bar. Period. He is our standard. But, it…