Friday Five

As churches are beginning to resume physical services, it feels like a lot of things are changing and changing quickly. If you’re a leader, you might be feeling the pressure of this and beginning to feel tired of this last season but also physically and emotionally exhausted. If that’s you, below are some posts that I hope will be helpful to you.

Here are my favorite podcasts, books and blogs in our Friday Five:

Favorite books:

Katie and I are doing a zoom book club on Managing Leadership Anxiety: Yours and Theirs with the author Steve Cuss. I read the book last year, so it has been helpful to re-read it and interact with Steve Cuss and others on it. If you haven’t read it, I would encourage you to read it, especially in this season where anxiety is on the rise. 

Favorite podcasts:

Speaking of Steve Cuss, he did a great interview with Carey Nieuwhof on seeing the signs of stress and managing anxiety.

Favorite blog posts:

Chuck DeGroat has a great guest post from Robert Stewart on Seeking to Understand the Rise, Fall, and Loss of Young Pastors. This is a sobering post for sure.

At this point, there’s a good chance that you are getting tired of doing online church or even attending an online church. It is hard. But Carey Nieuwhof had two posts that I think are incredibly helpful and honestly, straight fire for leaders: 5 reasons your online numbers are suddenly dropping and 8 ways to lead the new digital church.

As a bonus, here’s a video that will hopefully bring you a laugh.