Web Design Process

The Web Design Process, Part 1 Whenever a client hires me to design a webpage for their business, I always begin with research. There are several things that I need to know about them before I write one line of code. While some of these steps may seem obvious, they have always inspired my clients…

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Church Surveys

The Key To Conducting Church Surveys Building unity and synergy around your vision is one of the most difficult challenges of leadership. Churches that thrive in this area don’t get there by accident. Someone in the church has made it his or her responsibility to go about the task of building a consensus within the…

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Four Stages In A Church Lifecycle

From Movement to Monument to Museum to Morgue After pastoring churches for 30 years, here are a few thoughts I put together on the subject of the Church Lifecycle. This journey also led to the publication of my novel, Who Killed My Church? 1. A Movement Is Born Movements that produce significant life-change and leave…

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Mentoring & Coaching Church Leaders

Coaching Church Leaders To Navigate “Congratulations, you are the leader now. Go make it work!” Ever heard those words? All leaders share this “baptism by fire.” The first time you were asked to lead in a church setting, you had probably never done that before. It was your first test. So congratulations! You must have…

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Mentoring & Coaching Church Staff

Coaching Church Staff For Progress Briar Patch Consulting loves to work with church staff. We believe the that the support role is one of the most critical positions in a church. Let’s face it, the senior leader can’t do it all. That’s why the church hired you. Under God, you have been called and tethered…

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Mentoring & Coaching Pastors

Coaching Pastors To Hang On Do any of these words describe your condition: Confused, frustrated, burned out, lonely, afraid, attacked, bitter, escape. Or what about these: Angry, hurt, guarded, empty, performing, regret, why me? Welcome to an exclusive and private club. They didn’t tell you about these issues during your ordination, or did they? Bless…

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Fundraising & Capital Stewardship

Fundraising By Raising Faith If you need to raise capital for a piece of land, a new building project or just to pay off debt, Briar Patch Consulting can help. There are a lot of stewardship firms to choose from, and we’ve personally worked with many throughout the years. When choosing an agency, these five…

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Church Budget

Money Flows Toward Vision Not Empty Pockets   Do you have more vision than money? If so, your church budget has a serious problem. We’ve faced similar circumstances and understand how frustrating this experience can be. When church budget giving is down, pain goes up. Ouch! The reality is that people don’t give to budget…

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James Shupp

Helping Leaders Thrive James Shupp is a business consultant and pastor with over 30 years of experience. In addition, he is an FAA Commercial Pilot, Flight Instructor and a Published Author. He’s been married to Cherry for 31 incredible years, and together they have two sons. He’s been the senior pastor of seven churches since…

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Helping Churches Thrive

Are You Thriving Or Merely Surviving? The primary goal of Briar Patch Consulting is “Helping Churches Thrive.” That may sound complex on the surface, but we understand the challenges involved in this arena. For instance, many churches have either plateaued or are in various stages of decline. The macro trends indicate that the majority of…

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