A Blog by David A Posthuma

Articles for Church Leaders by David A. Posthuma

The Lord has enabled David A. Posthuma to author dozens of articles published in pastoral resource magazines, including REV!, Ministry Today, Ministry Magazine, Leadership Journal, Children’s Ministry Magazine, Christianity Today, among many others. In addition, David A. Posthuma authored two traditionally published books entitled: Made for a Mission, and eShift. Finally, David designed all the assessments offered within AssessME.org.

Support Articles

Test Yourself

Test Yourself 2 Corinthians 13:5 – “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?” Several years ago, while conducting workshops at a national pastor’s conference, I encountered a twenty-something woman who looked troubled. I struck up […]

November 12, 2016/by David Posthuma

Support Articles

Your People are an Army!

Your People are an Army! Your people, those who attend your church, represent an incredible Kingdom army. Sadly, however, most of the army remains in basic training and are never released to fight in the battle. They want to serve, but church soldiers often do not understand how they are to serve. 2 Corinthians 10:4 states: […]

October 5, 2016/by David Posthuma

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Articles for Ministry Leaders by AssessME.org Founder, David A. Posthuma

How to Build Entrepreneurial Ministry Teams January 31, 2023
How to Build Entrepreneurial Ministry Teams. Church staff regularly request our recommendations regarding which personality profiles and leadership style profiles are best suited for the various leadership roles within their church. On the surface this may seem like an easy service AssessME should provide. But, in reality, it is not so obvious. Why? Because of […]
David Posthuma
Why Can’t Church Staff Pre-List Skills? September 21, 2022
Why does AssessME.org use organic skills list development rather than permit church staff to pre-list what they are looking for? This is a very common question. I recently received another email inquiry about this issue so I thought I would finally publish my response for all to read: Dear Pastor: In our study […]
David Posthuma
Flower Power July 14, 2019
Years ago, when I was a young pastor in my twenties, the Lord used me to start a new outreach church within a community devoid of healthy churches. Most of the people who came to our outreach ministry had little or no church background. What church experience community members had, they disliked passionately. As a […]
David Posthuma
Discovering Your God-Given Purpose June 4, 2019
By Shana Schutte “There once was a man who netted three trout from a mountain stream and carefully placed them side-by-side on a thick patch of grass. Before he removed them from the water, they were like a liquid ballet in motion. Fluid. Graceful. Vibrant. Alive. After he netted them, it was another story. As […]
David Posthuma
Finishing Our Work April 16, 2019
As we approach Easter, we turn our attention to Christ’s days preceding his crucifixion, death, and resurrection. In John 17, we find Jesus’ “Priestly Prayer”. This prayer is a model for us to see how Christ now stands in God’s presence interceding for us. Look at Hebrews 7:23-25… 23 Now there have been many of […]
David Posthuma
Free eBook Download for Church Leaders New to AssessME.org February 12, 2019
Free eBook Download Title – BETTER TOGETHER: The Top 5 Strategies to Maximize Volunteer Mobilization For many churches, volunteer mobilization is a never-ending plea for more help. Announcements in the church program. Announcements in Sunday services. Announcements on the church website. All these announcements may provide some support, but while these volunteers are good-hearted people, are they […]
David Posthuma
Preparing for Our Mission, Part 3 May 1, 2018
Promoted to Royalty Your world is at war. You were born into a world of chaos and destruction, pain, and division that so often typifies war. And as with all wars, you are expected to choose which side in this war you will support. Revelation 12:7-9 tells us how the war began… “7And there was […]
David Posthuma
Preparing for Mission, Part 2 April 20, 2018
Getting Childish Isaiah 11:6 (New International Version) “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.” See Yourself as Childish: Isaiah 11:6 envisions a future time when Christ’s Kingdom is made […]
David Posthuma
Preparing for Mission, part 1 February 26, 2018
You are Royal How do you see yourself? When you attend a social activity, how do you introduce yourself? How do you describe yourself to others? Does the interaction go something like this? “Hi, my name is David”. “So, David, what do you do?” “I‘m a Ministry Systems Designer”. “Oh really…Who do you work for?” […]
David Posthuma
How to Use Small Groups to Launch AssessME.org February 21, 2018
Benchmark Small Group Strategies Small groups can be a wonderful venue for launching and supporting AssessME.org within your church. However, to be successful with AssessME.org, it should not simply be seen by staff and the congregation as merely a small group learning or discussion series. Churches that are successful with AssessME.org make AssessME a fully […]
David Posthuma

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An Investment that Pays for Itself Financially

Pew-warmers don’t tend to give much to their local church. Whereas, people who are invested in personal ministry…particularly ministry service that fits their design and calling…are more likely to give sacrificially. Financial gain is never our motivation for mobilizing people into effective ministry service. But, if AssessME.org can help you convert one non-giver into a consistent giver, your AssessME.org budget is covered!

Community Bible Church

Ruth Ott (Top-40 Largest Churches)

“We have partnered with AssessME.org since 2010. AssessME.org has been very useful to help our people better understand how they have been uniquely designed by God.

Based upon AssessME.org data, we have developed a total church volunteer book, as well as a website where people may select from over 80 different volunteer positions. We also have linked our data with Fellowship One™ and are able to give each member who completes the assessments a list of the top five ministries that would best fit their personality and spiritual gifts.

To date, we have assessed more than 10,000 people for ministry fit. By using the AssessMe.org selection process we have been able to consistently identify leaders to teach classes each semester. If you are looking for a process to equip your members in one easy format, I would recommend AssessME.org.”

Ruth Ott

Connections Pastor – Community Bible Church

Life Pointe Church

Robb Perry, Executive Pastor

My name is Rob Perry pastor at Lifepointe Church in Raleigh NC. I understand that you are exploring the services of AssessME.org and the CCB integration. We started using AssessME.org way back in 2011 or 2012 with an initial purchase of 500 assessments. Earlier this year, we bought another 500 packs and activated that CCB integration. The integration is wonderful because it did away with us having to manually check AssessMe for results and update CCB profiles. Now, when a person takes the assessment, the results automatically show up in their my.lifepointechurch.com profile (i.e. CCB). The integration nominal fee was totally worth it.

How do we use the assessments? We use the results to help equip and develop people who call Lifepointe their church home. Let me share a few and if you need clarification or want to talk more, feel free to email or call.

As part of a class or teaching series, we have offered assessments to people who wanted to take the next step. After a person takes the assessment, a leader (volunteer or paid) sits down to review the results and connect the person with opportunities within the church.
The lead pastor has used the tool to pull together people who like to dream and think strategically. We searched CCB for people who … have attended within the last X timeframe and have a pioneering or strategic leadership style.
Staff leaders and team members have used the results from the ePersonality assessment to understand how their team member is wired and what they can do to maximize that relationship. This helps carry the church’s mission forward more smoothly.
We use the tool to invite people into special outreach opportunities. As they step into serving, they begin to experience the power of the local church and how you can connect others to Jesus through opportunities that they feel fit them best. For example, we had a firehouse ask if we could bring our Ice Cream truck to their Open House. We thought it was a great opportunity and got it ‘covered’. Well, the team that covered that event said it was very very difficult. There were lots of people who came to that Fire House event that lost a loved one and coming to this event was therapeutic. They people covering it were so overwhelmed as they tried to talk to people and hand out ice cream. The next year, we did the event again. However, we queried CCB for anyone who is attending who has the Spiritual Gift of Encouragement (or Pastoral / Encouragement Leadership style). When the team came back from that event, they said things like … “that was a powerful event” “I am so glad we were there as a church” “so many people come who are hurting” “count me in next time”… the assessment results made that happen along with the CCB integration.
As we work with our ministry leads, we will only get more and more intentional, and specialized, in leveraging AssessME.org and CCB. You can’t beat the price of the assessments. We will also take a look at the NextSteps product as a potential tool to help church members self-feed as part of their spiritual growth.

If I can clarify anything here, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I know it is a core dump of a lot of misc examples. Bottom line, we like the partnership and have continued to keep it up!

Rob Perry

Executive Pastor

Crossroads Church

Michele Gerbrandt, GoServe Director

We are a multisite church who has used CCB now for almost 9 years. We also use AssessME.org for our congregation to explore their spiritual gifts and as a part of our discipleship process.

I was so excited when the integration happened, before that I would have to hand enter the results into CCB. This had become overwhelming and not possible to keep up. So, for the one-time $99 fee, I was thrilled to solve that problem. In CCB when we have specific serving positions open, it is great to do a search in CCB on particular gifts and reach out to people. It has really helped with our prayer team and often prayers are not people who speak out. By having people’s spiritual gifts as part of our database is has enriched the data.

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Grateful,

Michele Gerbrandt

goServe and Communications Director

Crossroads Church

Mid-Cities Community Church

Pastor Mickey Eckles

I’m writing briefly to tell you about our experience with AssessME.org and CCB. We used to do spiritual gifts testing on paper, and as you well know, that’s hard to keep up with. We love that the AssessME.org tool allows for use of the charismatic gifts, automatic integration into our database is key. The fact that we also get a leadership assessment, personality profile, and ministry interests on individuals is icing on the cake. It allows us to run reports on all of these profile results and has helped us with recruiting for needs and areas of ministry coverage.

We also use the AssessME.org tool in a big way with leadership development. It has helped us learn more about potential hires, how someone is wired that we are trying to understand better etc. We have a form on CCB that allows people to purchase and complete the AssessME.org profile. Many of our groups use this as part of their small group experience. We are about to start taking all new members through the AssessME.org tool as well. We take about 30-40 people a month through a newcomers process (we call it Connect 4) and AssessME.org is about to be part of that experience for all new people placing membership at Mid-Cities. People love seeing how God has wired them. It also helps us more effectively connect them to serving as well. By the way, David’s book, Made for a Mission, is an excellent read for leaders and in a class setting.

Anyone can go online and register to take the AssessME.org profiles. It’s so great to get automatic integration into our database. We currently have 344 people that have taken the AssessME.org profile, which is about 23% of our regular adult attendance.

Mickey Eckles

Adult Ministries Pastor

Mid-Cities Community Church

Fair Haven Ministries

Pastor Tom Elenbaas

Fair Haven Ministries Pastor Tom Elenbaas Fair Haven Ministries Pastor Tom Elenbaas To Our Partners in Ministry: At Fair Haven Ministries, we have been using AssessMe.org for a year now, and it’s been wonderful. As we build an equipping ministry, knowing the combination of Leadership Style, Giftedness, Personality, and Skills is highly valuable. It’s so easy for ministry leaders to search in for people whom God has already uniquely designed to fit the areas in which our ministry needs them. How true it is that God provides the people where he leads in ministry – and AssessMe.org helps to make the connection. The AssessMe.org staff has also been very helpful to us in working with our church management software…. Many of our people…who have taken the assessments have been encouraged, and valued them greatly. One couple found confirmation for a call to move their whole family to Texas for a new church plant. Small Groups have used the assessments to grow deeper in discipleship and service. Ministry Leaders are helping their volunteers to better understand themselves and to help them get involved in areas which are better suited to the way God has uniquely designed them. Fair Haven Ministries even used the assessments with our youth in an intensive discipleship ministry. Our ministry now uses AssessMe.org as a required part of our discipleship process for new members and new leaders. We have also done a whole church series of sermons that revolved around the uniqueness of each member of the body that God uses to change the world, and we used AssessMe.org as a key piece of that series. If you haven’t used it, and particularly if you’re still doing data entry or fiddling with endless paper and binders, I suggest trying it out. Fair Haven Ministries Pastor

Tom Elenbaas

Fair Haven Ministries

Susan Ketcham

Denominational Client: RCA Church Multiplication Division

Dear AssessME.org:

In my position, a major responsibility is to provide dependable assessments for potential church planters for the Reformed Church in America. This assessment tool has become a standard part of our assessment process for two years now. I have found it to be very effective as it helps to paint a picture of the individual and how God has already been at work in their lives, equipping them for the work He has for them to do. I recommend it all the time! Thanks for your fine work. What a blessing to the church!

Susan Ketcham

RCA Church Multiplication

Reformed Church in America

Leonard Sweet

Para-Church Leader, Speaker, Author, & Seminary Professor

REGARDING E-CHURCH ESSENTIALS, LLC –

“Ever wonder what it was like to have been on the ground floor with Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com or Pierre Omidyar of eBay.com? Wonder no longer. Join Dave Posthuma of E-Church Essentials and hold on –- the future of the church is forming right before your eyes and under your feet.”

REGARDING THE BOOK eSHIFT –

“I expect this book to stir controversy, but of the best sort: Eye-opening and mind-altering perspectives on what it might mean for the church to embrace the internet today as the primary delivery system for learning and faith development as our Protestant ancestors adopted the book as their primary delivery system in the Reformation Church.”

Leonard Sweet, best-selling author and professor (Drew University, George Fox University), and chief contributor to sermons.com

Leonard Sweet

Church Futurist, Author, Teacher & Speaker

LeonardSweet.com

Dan Webster

Para-Church Leader, Speaker, Author, Willow Creek Pastor, Crystal Cathedral Pastor

REGARDING E-CHURCH ESSENTIALS, LLC –

“Dave Posthuma and E-Church Essentials share my passion to train and inspire leaders to live authentic lives of great impact. Rarely do you meet someone as passionate about the church with the technological genius of David A. Posthuma. I love how he is helping churches by leading them into the technological future. Pay attention to what he is doing and access his outrageous resource. It will help you as you both grow and organize your church.”

REGARDING THE BOOK eSHIFT –

“The church has been choking for decades on the naive assumption that the world hasn’t changed. eShift provides the necessary Heimlich Maneuver to clear her throat so that the fresh air of life and relevance can return. If you are over 40 this writing will be a wake-up call. If you are under 25 you will shout Hallelujah that someone has finally stated things as they truly are. Either way, eShift is a gift to the church. Let’s hope it’s one that is opened and applied, not ignored.”

Dan Webster

Authentic Leadership, Willow Creek, Crystal Cathedral

Authentic Leadership Inc.

Connections Pastor

We’ve been using AssessME.org for approximately 16 months now and have found that the assessments have helped us with our discipleship model, as well as, serving opportunities within the church. We use the assessments on the front end of our process, membership class, to help our body identify and understand not only their spiritual gifts but also, how the gifts can be used in various roles within and outside of the church. Since AssessME.org is directly connected CCB, we can easily search for a specific gift, leadership style or even personality profile to help fill open leadership roles within our discipleship model.

The assessments are very easy to understand and transferable from a church setting to a business application, which creates additional value in the AssessME.org process.

Blessings,

Bud Darr

Connections Pastor

North Metro Church

678.290.7830x 122

northmetro.org