5 Ways to Invest In Your Ministry (And YOU) This Year

By Jon Nicol

Here are some ways to grow yourself and your ministry this year...

5. Read at least 3 books this year...

...one on worship, one on leadership, and one on developing teams. Here are a few recommendations:

A great book on worship: I'm reading How to Worship a King by Zach Neese right now. It's incredible and easy to follow teaching on Biblical worship, how we are all priests, and what that should look like for us as leaders (and really, all believers).

Leadership books: there are uber-number of leadership books that I'd recommend. Good to Great is a must have for organizational leaders (and if you're a worship leader, you're an organizational leader.

EntreLeadership by Dave Ramsey is about how he leads and has built a great organization. 90% of it can be applied to ministry.

If you want a fast, practical read that helps you develop a leadership team, check out my Try (Tri)Leadership.

For team leadership and building, the quintessential book is The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. If you've already read that, Maxwell's The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork is good stuff, too.

Disclosure: the links above are Amazon affiliate links. I only endorse stuff that I've found helpful, and think you might, too.

4. Commit to reading/listening to worship and leadership blogs/podcasts.

Besides the blogs posts at WorshipTeamCoach.com, here are several I'd recommend:

David Santistevan - David is a young worship leader with great insight into ministry.
Chris Vacher - Chris gives us a view from up north in Canada
Rob Still - Rob brings a depth of theology and heart for missions into worship
Bob Kauflin - Bob is like the godfather of worship bloggers.
Musicademy - a mixed (but great) bag of content related to worship and music.

And here are some leadership blogs and podcasts I listen to:

Catalyst Podcast Catalyst is the boys from Georgia serving up incredible interviews with leadership and ministry leaders.
Andy Stanley Podcast - Andy Stanley. Leadership. Enough said.
Michael Hyatt blog and podcast - Michael Hyatt delivers straight forward stuff on leadership, productivity and developing your own platform.
Entreleadership & Chris LoCurto podcast - Dave Ramsey's team serves up this awesome companion to the book, Entreleadership. They interview who's who in leadership and business. LoCurto's blog features an the extended interview from the Entreleadership podcast. Worth the subscribe.

3. Attend at least one conference this year.

I've written why I think conferences are important before. They're just good investments - both for skill and leadership development, and personal refreshing. If you're in Ohio or the surrounding states, check out Worship424 coming up in a few weeks. I also like CMS. You can catch several of the those around the country.

2. Create your own training event.

As awesome as it is to go away, sometimes it just makes more sense to stay at home. You can host your own workshop or seminar for a lot less money (and sometimes "no" money). Teach something yourself, or have one of your musicians or techs teach from their expertise.

Unfortunately, there's the the "prophet/hometown" factor at work. So you could bring in someone local from another church to teach. The "outside" voice can be effective at saying the same thing, but with better results.

If you'd want to create workshop or seminar for your team, or even your whole community, WorshipTeamCoach.com has a variety of workshops and can work within your budget. Here are some of the options: guitar workshops, worship team workshop, building a healthy team, heart attitudes, biblical worship, etc.

1. Coaching.

If you really want to hone your leadership and team building skills, consider coaching. WorshipTeamCoach.com offers three coaching experiences right now:

One:One Leadership and Ministry Coaching: this is one:one customized coaching. We'll dig into where your at and figure out how to take your team and leadership to the next level relationally, spiritually, musically; and then help create a culture that can make that happen. This is more affordable than you think.

Exceptional Worship Ministry - This is a coaching group experience that dives into the leadership skills and systems you need to grow your team and yourself. Much of what would be covered in the 1:1 coaching is covered here. But it adds the perspective of group of like-minded worship leaders, all learning from each other.

There's a EWM coaching group starting in February. And right now, there's an early bird registration that allows you to get two months free.

Small Church/Big Worship - This is geared for worship leaders/pastors/directors or senior pastors of churches that have less than 200 in attendance. It's designed and priced with the smaller church in mind. We'll dive into many of the same concepts and systems that we talk about in one:one coaching and EWM group, but we'll look at them through the lens of a smaller church.

We've got another SCBW group beginning in February. And that also has early bird registration discount.

You can see dates/times, prices and more details on both coaching groups when you click through to the pages.