By Eddie Pipkin On the heels of Thanksgiving, my inbox included a gift of an article which detailed the science behind the link between gratitude and giving. There is increasing research that corroborates – and explains – the correlation between expressions of thankfulness and the practice of generosity. As ministry leaders, we understand the implicit [...]
By Eddie Pipkin Traditionally, we embrace this season of family, friends, and glorious food by counting our blessings. We gather together in celebration of one another and the good things in life. We are thoughtful about expressing our appreciation. We take the “gratitude challenge,” and post something new to be thankful for each day on [...]
By Eddie Pipkin In our recent “no fences” blog series, in which we explored the many ways we can make ministry more accessible to more people, I boldly stated a premise that we needed a new set of metrics to measure progress and success. As ministry is changing, I argued, the old, familiar measurement tools [...]
By Eddie Pipkin In my blogs in the previous two weeks, we have been exploring the ways in which our formulaic ministry thinking can corral us (and those we work with) in unhealthy ways. We can get so caught up in the logistics of successful programs and events that we lose sight of what’s important: [...]
By Eddie Pipkin In last week’s blog entry, “Don’t Fence Me In,” I pointed out the ways in which we constrict individualized spiritual growth with our fixed structures of programs and events. While structure is necessary, it boxes in our thinking on spiritual growth and throttles creativity in many avenues of ministry. Those of us [...]
By Eddie Pipkin Did you ever have one of those forms to fill out where they ask you to write an answer in that sequence of boxes, one letter per box, but your answer is too long to fit in the number of boxes they provide? What do you do? Ignore the boundaries of the [...]
By Eddie Pipkin A local non-profit theater group emailed me with an opportunity to join one of their executives, a director, and some performers for dinner at a local restaurant. It was a way to more intimately connect arts supporters with the people who make the magic happen. It’s an innovative model for building richer [...]
By Eddie Pipkin Confession time: I have zero sense of fashion. Well, maybe zero is too favorable a score – maybe it would be a negative number would be more honest. I basically have one pair of jeans I’ve been wearing for the past three years, while rotating my three favorite shirts. But oddly, I [...]
By Eddie Pipkin Last week, I wrote about creativity sparked by looking at things from a new perspective. My wife -- who is excellent in her IT management role but would not describe herself as a creative person -- says, "Yeah, that's the kind of thing a creative person would say. You see a dozen-pack [...]
By Eddie Pipkin Some years back, I co-founded a pre-youth group for 4th and 5th graders. That age group gets a little lost between the normal children’s ministry offerings for little kids and the youth group activities that begin for 6th graders in most churches. They are wonderful to work with, intensely curious about faith, [...]
