Lead with the answers and clarity that fuel your church for growth. Starting today.
Finally… a community you can turn to when you feel stuck, overwhelmed, and out of ideas to grow your church. Get a proven plan to lead with confidence — only in Art of Leadership Academy.
Dave Allman
New Life Church
Since joining, our church attendance has nearly doubled in size, we’ve hired two more full-time and one more part-time staff, and the feeling of being overwhelmed is lifting from my shoulders. We have raised over two million dollars and will be debt-free on our property at the end of this year.
Ministry should be energizing… right? So why does it always feel like…
- You’re a few bad weeks (or days) away from burnout.
- No one is as passionate as you are.
- Your ministry is scattered, and people aren’t aligned.
- Your church isn’t making the impact you feel — and know — you’re called to make.
Did anyone (or anything) truly prepare you for what ministry is like?
For most, the answer to ^^ that ^^ question is no. And the weight of it all just seems to build… because no one else truly gets it. Not your staff, not your volunteers, not your elders, not even your spouse.
Every day, every week, and every year the impact you know your ministry is capable of is being overshadowed.
“There’s too much on my plate to lead effectively. My to-do list is endless.”
“Our ministry feels scattered, and people don’t seem committed.”
“Is my preaching getting stale? People don’t seem to respond anymore.”
“Why doesn’t anyone care as much as I do?”
“Why is there so much conflict? When I put one fire out, another pops up right away.”
“How are we supposed to make any progress without a big budget or big staff?“
“And how am I supposed to do it all while still being a good pastor?!”
Years ago, when you started in ministry, did you think it would turn into this?
So what’s the biggest difference between growth and stagnant attendance?
Is it you? No ❌
Your staff and volunteers? Not entirely ❌
Culture? Not exactly ❌
Picture this for a moment: It’s Monday morning, and you’re still riding the high from yesterday’s services. You can’t help but smile as you reflect on the impact your ministry is making.
The energy and enthusiasm of your congregation were palpable, and it’s clear that your team’s hard work is reaching your community. You know because your services were overflowing on Sunday.
As you look to the week ahead, you feel a sense of purpose and excitement. This week, you and your team get to figure out what to do with all these people.
Is it time to add a new service?
Or overflow?
Or can you finally open that next campus?
The truth is that your leadership and your church have a unique call, and sometimes in the church, it’s easy to love God with all your heart, soul, and strength but forget about loving and serving God with your mind.
Some aspects of growth are up to God, but the best prayer is rooted in action. And that’s why effective leaders know that new thinking and new approaches lead to reaching new people.
Rapidly growing churches have a call they stay faithful to and they develop the skills, strategies, and systems that position their church for growth. Churches that reach thousands of people have invested time, energy, and money over many years to test, tweak, learn, and fail to get where they are.
What if YOU could access those insights, strategies, and systems, too? Without spending years of trial-and-error and learning it all the hard way.
INTRODUCING…
Leadership doesn’t have to be lonely and overwhelming.
In the Art of Leadership Academy, you’ll engage a private online community of leaders committed to leading healthy, growing churches.
Through ongoing guided discussions, live coaching calls, and a forum to ask any leadership question you have, you’ll discover new strategies, build practical day-to-day skills, and get immediate feedback from people who have led through the exact same challenges and opportunities you’re facing.
You can keep learning from your own mistakes, or you can fast-track your growth and learn directly from people who have been in your shoes before—including me. When I show up in the community (most days each week), it isn’t a team member or a bot… it’s really me.
Life-Giving Community
Through guided discussions and a forum to start your own, you’ll go from “nobody knows I’m here” to frequent engagement with leaders just like you.
Live Coaching Calls
Connect with me, my team, and top leaders on Live Coaching Calls, held monthly, where we discuss today’s most pressing leadership topics.
Invested in Your Success
Start with a warm welcome and onboarding call invested in your success. Plus, tap into our support team whenever you need it — no extra cost.
UPCOMING COACHING CALLS
AUGUST 8,2O24
Leveraging Your Working Genius with Patrick Lencioni
Far too many teams experience failure, feel stuck or are confused because they don’t know how to tap into the people around them. Special guest Patrick Lencioni will give you a new model to better understand the types of work that bring you more energy and fulfillment, avoid work that leads to frustration and failure, and be more self-aware, more productive and more successful.
SEPTEMBER 10,2O24
5 Reasons Church Conflict Gets So Inflamed
Of all the things you signed up for ministry, dealing with conflict likely wasn’t one of them. But if you look around at culture, everything is polarized, tribalized, and polemicized — and your church likely isn’t immune to it. Whether it’s conflict between staff, elders, or members of your church, it’s time to stop having conflict consume your energy. Learn how to navigate church conflict effectively and with grace.
OCTOBER 15, 2024
The Problem With Conflict Management: How to Attack Problems, Not People
You and I live in a culture where it’s become a sport to attack people and polarize any point of contention. But that doesn’t have to be the reality for you and your church. How can you navigate conflict between staff, elders, and members without it feeling — or turning — personal? Get an effective strategy for exactly that on this Live Coaching Call.
Practical, step-by-step leadership strategies, tools, and skills that get you real growth. Available on-demand whenever you need it.
When you join, you get unlimited, on-demand access to my best material that you won’t find anywhere else.
A Growing Library of Comprehensive Courses (with Bite-Sized Modules)
My courses cover anything (and everything), from becoming a more effective preacher and communicator to freeing up time and energy to focus on what matters most to you. And from creating a culture of generosity at your church, to developing leaders that can grow areas of your ministry.
It’s all broken down into bite-sized modules that have…
Workbooks, Templates, Cheatsheets, Checklists, Scripts and More
These day-to-day resources take you from concept to execution immediately — and they’re included in each course and training. You’ll get access to hundreds of workbooks, templates, cheat sheets, checklists, scripts, and assessments to turn the concepts and insights into immediate action.
And to top it all off…
Done-For-You Leadership Development (for Staff Meetings)
With new leadership development material every month, you can prepare your staff and volunteers to make better decisions — stress free. Each month, you’ll receive a plug-and-play video training, meeting agenda, and application guide so you can cross staff meeting prep off your to-do list for good.
14,000+ leaders have used these courses to get real results.
You can too.
Get unlimited access to all of the courses listed below. Every course is available on-demand and includes additional resources to help you turn the concepts and insights into immediate action—workbooks, templates, cheat sheets, checklists, scripts, assessments, and more.
What would it feel like to know that you’d deliver each and every sermon clearly and truthfully? It’s time to ditch the random, stressful, and last-minute approach to becoming a better preacher and communicator.
This training leads you through EVERY aspect of writing, preparing, and delivering sermons that connect—from preparation right through to feedback. Save hours each week with a better sermon prep process, write messages people remember and apply for months (or even years), deepen your own connection with the text by seeing things you’ve never noticed before, and more.
Don’t let underperforming staff and volunteers hold back your mission. If you have the passion, the mission, and the strategy… but your team just can’t seem to execute like you need, then it’s time to try something new.
You deserve to lead a team of the best leaders you can find. And that’s exactly what you’ll find in this course. Get step-by-step insights and strategies for ending toxicity and drama, eliminating time-wasters, creating a culture that thrives, and, most importantly, finding and developing leaders who will GROW your ministry.
Why are conversations around giving and money always uncomfortable, awkward, or even flat-out ignored at church? Don’t let the past stand in the way of your future.
In the Art of Building a Generous Congregation you’ll get a proven method to increase giving, inspire a culture of generosity, and flourish both as a church and as a congregation. Even if you don’t feel comfortable talking about it now. Even if you’ve never seen your congregation fully engage that kind of conversation. And ESPECIALLY if you’ve tried other methods without success.
If your church is continually pushing to break past the 200, 400, or 800 attendance level… only to be stuck again a few months later… then it’s time to break the cycle.
Through a series of transformative conversations and assessments, you, your board, staff, and key leaders will get a clear picture about what’s holding your church back and create an action plan to break the barriers between you and reaching more people. Is your church too insider focused? Do leaders feel empowered? Is your Elder Board working effectively? Do guests feel welcome? Uncover all of that, and more, in the Art of Church Growth.
Do you know what it feels like to spend hours creating a piece of content and hit publish… only for it to fall flat? For it to miss the very people you’re trying to reach?
Get the strategies, skills, and top insights I’ve used to go from 0 to 30+ million podcast downloads, 100,000 email subscribers, and 180,000 social followers. The best part? You can find growth without a big budget, without sounding spammy, without selling your soul, and without making the mistakes that 99% of people make.
When leaders fail to change successfully entire organizations are derailed, leadership teams burn out, and relationships get torn apart. But that doesn’t have to be the case for you.
In the Art of Leading Change, you get my entire playbook for leading change. From start to finish, you’ll confidently approach change by knowing exactly when to make the changes you need to make, who to include in the process, how to communicate it, and how to handle conflict along the way. You have a vision of what could and should be — don’t let it go to waste.
Research from Barna revealed that 77% of Americans believe in God or a higher power and 74% would like to grow spiritually. The good news? People are spiritually open. The bad news? They aren’t visiting or attending.
In the Art of Reaching, you’ll learn actionable strategies to expand the number of people your church reaches, engage visitors and members alike, and inspire people to become passionate about the mission. From mastering your first-time guest experience right through to empowering your congregation to live out their faith, your church will have a toolkit to effectively reach and impact more lives.
So much rides on a healthy leadership transition. A bad one can ruin a great legacy, hurt a church, and make the new lead pastor a sacrificial lamb… or it can go exceedingly well.
If you’re the Pastor stepping into leadership, this is your lifeline to navigate succession with wisdom and clarity. You’ll get proven strategies, insights, and skills that walk you through each step of the process — from discerning your calling right through to finding success as a successor (from 2 years pre-transition to 5 years post-transition). Don’t try navigating this alone. Skip years of trial-and-failure by getting a succession roadmap that guides you each step of the journey.
Take an honest look at the pace that you’re currently living at. Could you do this forever? Would you even want to? For most people, the answer is no.
50,000+ leaders have used my At Your Best strategy to leave stress and overwhelm in the past and finally do what they want to do—grow their organizations, advance their leadership, spend less time at work, be far more present with family and friends, and take restful time off. You can too.
Equip your staff and volunteers to make better decisions with done-for-you leadership development.
Each month, you’ll receive a plug-and-play video training, meeting agenda, and application guide so you can cross staff meeting prep off your to-do list for good.
Building into your leaders and becoming a more effective team has never been easier. Simply set a meeting time, show up, hit play, and you and your team will be miles ahead in no time.
BRAND NEW: Quick-Win Workshops
Rigorously researched, thoroughly tested, and insanely practical workshops to fast-track your growth in 30 minutes or less.
Don’t let Sunday’s message be forgotten by Monday morning. Preach sermons that people remember and apply to their lives — sometimes even months or years after hearing the message.
Take back 10 hours of productivity THIS week without hiring anyone or spending more money. Eliminate the biggest time and energy wasters from your schedule and to-do list in a few easy decisions.
Finally… a proven method to get the volunteers you’ve been dreaming of. Get the systems and strategies to find, develop, and engage passionate volunteers.
Start having efficient and effective meetings that you and your staff love. Get the definitive frameworks, insights, and strategies to host productive 1:1 and staff meetings at your church.
Hi, I’m Carey Nieuwhof
You may know me as the host of my Leadership Podcast, the author of At Your Best and Didn’t See it Coming, or as the founder of the Art of Leadership Academy.
When I started out in ministry, I was leading 3 rural churches that had a COMBINED attendance of 40. (Yeah, you read that right.) It had literally been 10 years since one of the churches last had a new visitor.
I knew the task ahead of us was big, and I wanted to see growth. But how? I’m not exaggerating when I say…
I had NO budget, NO team, and NO one to really guide me through it.
So, I started searching for help and did what everyone does.
I went to conferences, hired coaches, read book after book, and joined a network, and it all helped… but it was YEARS and YEARS of trial-and-error and making mistakes.
Since then…
Those 3 rural churches have become a multi-site ministry that thousands of previously unchurched people attend every single week.
I’ve also had the privilege of interviewing and spending time with world-class church and business leaders—like Craig Groeschel, John Mark Comer, Nona Jones, Francis Chan, James Clear, Simon Sinek, Annie F. Downs, Seth Godin, and Rick Warren.
And it’s become my mission to share breakthrough insights, skills, and strategies that work — the ones that lead to REAL results for you and your ministry.
I believe you deserve to lead with the same answers and clarity that rapidly growing churches and leaders do.
So I’ve spent the past two decades of my life studying what works, gathering hundreds of thousands of data points, and testing (testing, testing, testing).
And that’s exactly what you’ll find in the Art of Leadership Academy — a proven roadmap to faster growth. Each course has game-changing insights, skills, and strategies that have been gathered and tested by thousands of leaders and churches… they simply work.
It’s all paired with a vibrant, online community to so you don’t have to lead through it alone. If you decide to join, send me a DM once you’re in. I’d love to meet you!
There’s comfort in knowing you can watch (or re-watch) a lesson, use a practical tool or template, send a DM, or simply post a question, and you’ll be moving forward in minutes.
Jasmyn Denton
I learn something new every time I open the app—whether it’s hearing what other leaders are learning and doing, problem-solving with fellow members, or working through the courses, this is a rich, deep well.
The interactions in the comments are always generous, insightful, and not self-inflated. In one of the comment sections, Carey simply said, “There’s so much wisdom in this group. What do people think?” I could have cried for joy.
To have someone point to us and say, “Ask them…” meant more than I can say.
Paul Webster
I’ve created margin in my life and leadership, and I love it. We have a weekly time planned for our family just to be us and play games and have fun together. Having young kids (who are growing up way too fast!), this is my biggest win!
I’ve also reclaimed wasted time at work, where I’m using my green zone to improve my preaching, work on ministry strategy, and create digital content for our church.
Jeremy Cole
There ARE other people out there asking the same questions and going through the same things I am. This makes me feel normal.
What I love the most is the clarity it brings to the complex problems we are all facing as pastors.
And that I don’t have to come up with my own content to invest in my team. I can just use what’s provided here and in the monthly team training content.
Nowhere else do you find such quality content for pastors.
Sarah Starrenburg
I have received so much wisdom, encouragement, and thought-provoking input from an amazing network of people I otherwise would never have met. The Academy is truly a gift.
Dave Allman
Our church has grown spiritually, numerically, and financially. We identified that we were understaffed, and our payroll was far below the standard budget.
Since joining, our church attendance has nearly doubled in size; we hired two more full-time and one more part-time staff. We have raised over two million dollars and will be debt-free on our property at the end of this year.
The feeling of being overwhelmed is lifting from my shoulders as we have expanded our team.
Brody Tubaugh
I took the course on generosity inside the Art of Leadership Academy, and we actually have a plan now. I’m so excited.
I’ve never been excited about money [at church], and now there’s light at the end of the tunnel instead of just barely scraping by.
Josiah Petermann
This has been a breath of fresh air. I was overworked and overwhelmed, and our staff was stuck maintaining the mission hung on the wall.
Since joining and using the programs, we’ve heard so many encouraging insights that have helped us move our mission forward and invite people to join us.
Chris Hallbach
After working through the Art of Preaching, I was compelled to preach noteless for the first time ever, and it went incredibly well. My bottom line was clear and thoughtful.
I even had multiple people come up to tell me how engaging and dynamic my message was. I can’t wait to keep getting better.
Mike Willis
I am absolutely thrilled and overflowing with gratitude for this incredible community that has been an invaluable guide in equipping me to lead my church through a replant!
The unwavering support and expert advice have been a game-changer for me as a pastor.
I’m confidently charting a course toward a bright and successful future for my church!
You may be asking yourself, “What’s this community like? Am I going to fit in?“
Churches of all sizes (church plants right to 5,000+ in attendance) and denominations come together in our life-giving community, which means you’ll find a group of leaders who truly understand what you’re leading through.
Plus, our values help us understand how we interact with each other and keep the community free of the trolls and self-promoters you find everywhere else online.
Don’t let the same old…
Strategies Coaching Groups Methods
Networks Mentors
… get you the same old results.
In the Art of Leadership Academy, you’ll get the answers to grow your church and your leadership — confidently, clearly, and with a group of leaders supporting you along the way. Choose how you’d like to join below.
90-DAY TRIAL (THIS WEEK ONLY)
$97.today
Engage a Private Online Community of Church Leaders
Unlimited Access to All Courses and Resources
Monthly Live Coaching Calls
Monthly Training for Staff and Volunteers
Onboarding Call Invested in Your Success
30-Day Money Back Guarantee
No Hidden Terms. Cancel Your Trial At Any Time.
ANNUAL PLAN
$497 / year
Engage a Private Online Community of Church Leaders
Unlimited Access to All Courses and Resources
Monthly Live Coaching Calls
Monthly Training for Staff and Volunteers
Onboarding Call Invested in Your Success
30-Day Money Back Guarantee
Annual Plan – Save $187
$497 / year
Engage a Private Online Community of Church Leaders
Unlimited Access to All Courses and Resources
Monthly Live Coaching Calls
Monthly Training for Staff and Volunteers
Onboarding Call Invested in Your Success
30-Day Money Back Guarantee
Monthly Plan
$57 / month
Engage a Private Online Community of Church Leaders
Unlimited Access to All Courses and Resources
Monthly Live Coaching Calls
Monthly Training for Staff and Volunteers
Onboarding Call Invested in Your Success
Questions that leaders like you asked before they joined.
How long before I start seeing results?
The short answer? Much faster than the trial-and-error approach.
Leaders have seen huge lifts in reducing overwhelm, seeing new guests, preaching more engaging sermons, and more, after only watching a few videos.
If you’re a church plant that’s still figuring things out, it may take a few months longer than a church with a big budget — but the results WILL still come.
Regardless of where you are now, the Art of Leadership Academy is your roadmap to growth – in a surprisingly short timeframe.
What does my commitment look like? And how many hours will this take?
Many of the training programs take 3-6 hours to complete. You can choose to take the training at your own pace, with (or without) additional time to dive deeper into the material with your team.
In addition, the monthly Live Coaching Calls are 60 minutes in length and packed with value. It’s the condensed teachings you need to hear without any fluff, and there’s plenty of time for Q&A so you can get answers to your specific questions. If you can’t make it live, a recording is uploaded following the live call.
Bottom line:
This training works if you do the work. 2-3 hours per month is plenty of time to make meaningful change, but we think you’ll love it enough to invest more time than that.
When can I access the courses and materials? Will I have to wait?
You won’t have to wait! All of the courses and resources are available on-demand, so you can work through it at your own pace.
Each lesson or resource has a comment section beneath it, so you can ask questions and engage with other leaders around that specific material.
I need approval to make this purchase. Do you have anything that can help with that?
We do! Click here to download a one-pager that you can share with anyone you may need approval from.
How do I pay?
Click one of the buttons on this page to proceed to checkout. Once you’re there, you can enter the required information and pay with credit card.
Do I have to join The Art of Leadership Academy to access a course?
No. You can purchase individual courses as well.
Some benefits, such as access to our Community, Coaching Calls, and Monthly Team Training, are exclusive to all-access members.
Is there a refund policy?
It means a lot to me that this material makes a difference in your ministry and in your leadership. With all my resources, I offer a no-questions-asked 30-day guarantee.
Just email us at support@testingplugins.mystagingwebsite.com and we’ll be happy to help.