Andrew Beal, Author at Young Church Leaders

6 Tools and Practices to Guide Your 2018

Posted by Andrew Beal | Jan 9, 2018 | Personal Life | 0 |

We’re nine days into the new year. Have you decided what 2018 will be like for you? The team at Young Church Leaders has some ideas about what we can do to come alongside you with encouragement, wisdom, and resources the next twelve months. Since January brings along hopes and resolutions for the new year, we wanted to give attention to emotional health. Specifically, we want the month of January to be all about that double-edged sword we call self-awareness. Self-awareness is the extent to which you know the good, bad, and ugly about yourself along with how you...

What God Really Needs From You

Posted by Andrew Beal | Nov 21, 2017 | Ministry | 0 |

*this post is partly inspired by and a paraphrasing of the words of E.M. Bounds* We like taking the shortcut if we can get away with it. We’re always looking for the silver bullet, the easy answer, the cure-all to ministry challenges and woes. New strategies, new programs, creative staffing and the like to take Kingdom territory and give the gospel deeper roots in our context. We’ve been trained to think in ways that minimize the value of people. A leadership trend, for quite some time, has been to give our energies to the “vision” or the “organization.” Unfortunately,...

Five Prayers God Loves to Answer Immediately

Posted by Andrew Beal | Nov 14, 2017 | Personal Life | 0 |

I have always had trouble with prayer. When I prioritize prayer in the first parts of my day, the hours that follow tend to be more focused, peaceful, and meaningful. When I don’t give prayer the attention it deserves, then my day can feel hurried, aimless, and a draining kind of self-centered. Even though I noticed this pattern years ago, there are many days when I will put prayer off until it’s time to go to bed, where I inevitably tell myself I will do it first thing in the morning. One hurdle to this is my personality type....

Conflict Mountain: 5 Truths That Invaded My Life

Posted by Andrew Beal | Oct 23, 2017 | Personal Life | 0 |

How much do you hate conflict? Many of us tend to avoid conflict like the plague. We don’t want to be made uncomfortable, we are afraid to be in the wrong, and we want our relationships to go undamaged. It makes sense. We aren’t built to like conflict. But conflict happens whether we want it to or not. After reading Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People years ago, I have been someone who is quick to address even a hint of conflict. When I do find myself in conflict, my tendency is always to pursue what...

Eyes on the Prize

Posted by Andrew Beal | Sep 12, 2017 | Personal Life | 0 |

If you aren’t focused on the right thing—Jesus—then it means you are focusing on the wrong thing. When you are focused on the wrong thing, you’re just setting yourself up for failure and disappointment.