Geoff Surratt
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Five Things Pastors Need To Do Before Easter
One spring a church staff member informed me he was taking Easter weekend off. (It felt like Tom Brady telling Bill Belichik he was skipping the Super Bowl to take Gisele skiing.) He said he didn’t think missing Easter Sunday was a big deal, at his last church Easter was just another Sunday. Why did…
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Three Keys to Having An Abundance of Volunteers
The number one question Sherry and and I hear from church leaders all over the world is, “How can we find enough volunteers?” The primary reason most church struggle attracting enough volunteers is they recruit to need. A good appeal to need will impact 20% of the people, a great appeal will impact 25%. The key to…
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Five words your church should ban
I recently read an article in the Harvard Business Review titled Ban These 5 Words From Your Corporate Values Statement which reminded of a mistake I often see in a church’s list of core values; many of the items aren’t core values. It’s not that the items are evil or bad, the problem is their…
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Does Your Mission Statement Suck?
Why do you do what you do? Recently Sherry and I were in a pre-service meeting at a church where we were speaking that morning. The young lady leading the pre-service meeting of core volunteers asked, “Who knows the mission of our church?” There was some nervous laughter and feet shuffling, but no one had…
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An Exciting New Season
2018 marks my 36th year of vocational ministry. Over that span I have served in almost every capacity with local churches including youth pastor, family pastor, multisite pastor and senior pastor. I’ve been honored to work with congregations of every size, from 30 people in a church plant to 30,000 people in a mega church.…
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Together: A Guide for Couples in Ministry is about to launch!
Together launches January 9, but you can preorder your copy here today. Together is our story of doing marriage and ministry together. We (Geoff and Sherry Surratt) have over 30 years of experience in a wide variety of ministry roles, but we aren’t the Facebook ministry couple with perfect hair, perfect skin and perfect children. We…
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When what you see isn’t real
My alarm went off at 6:00 am on Saturday morning, as it does almost every day. But Saturday was different. As I rolled over to turn off the alarm everything began spinning violently. It took several seconds to figure which of the phones blurring in front of my eyes was the real one. I laid…
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10 Commandments for Great Discussions
One of the things I love to do is facilitate discussions. This is WAY different than teaching or running a meeting, but many people miss it. Team meetings, board meetings and small group meetings are often less effective or helpful because the leader isn’t effective at facilitating the exchange of ideas. Over the past 30 years of ministry…
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Lunch with a Heretic
I recently attended a heresy luncheon. That wasn’t the official title, but I’m pretty sure the speaker would have been burned at the stake in another age. Doctrines such as original sin, substitutionary atonement and election were tossed aside along with inerrancy of scripture. This was the Super Bowl of revisionism. One of the wrappers…
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User, beggar or friend?
There are three kinds of friends. First there is the friend who you can call at 2:00 a.m. because you are taking your son to the hospital and you need someone sane to talk you through the next few minutes. You know each other’s stories and you have each other’s back. This is the kind…