2017
Several years ago I had the privilege of being in a great church service on a trip away from home.
The worship was dynamic, the people were friendly, the message was biblical and engaging, the sense of the presence of God was genuine.
As I drove away, I thought, “What a ...
The days of finding or creating a discipleship program, then using it for years, is over. Especially in a small church.
Our church created and implemented a great a discipleship class last year. In our church of 180 (average Sunday attendance) more than 60 adults took the class ...
I like the idea of small churches. But if they’re so great, why do I see so many more unhealthy small churches than unhealthy big churches?
A small church pastor asked me that question recently. Not from cynicism or unkindness. It was out of genuine concern for a reality ...
For the first time in American history we have a generation without Christian parents or grandparents.
Many of the people – especially the youth – who give their lives to Jesus in the church I pastor were never taught Bible stories, prayed at meals or bedtime, or ...
Too many small church pastors are doing most, maybe all, of their ministry alone.
They wonder if anyone outside the church even knows or cares that they exist.
That isolation can become toxic. And it can start to bleed out into their congregations, confirming the worst stereotypes ...
Small church pastors want to hear and use the best ideas, advice, wisdom and counsel we can find.
So we look for it everywhere. From books, blogs, podcasts, conferences, mentors and more.
But many of my fellow small church pastors have stopped looking and asking for help.
It’s ...
What do you do when you have a message that doesn’t quite fit within the norm?
How do you get anyone to take you seriously? Especially in this interconnected world with so many voices yelling at us?
I’ve been asked those questions a few times lately about this blog, ...
When someone says a restaurant serves the best chicken in town, it’s never about the chicken.
Every properly-cooked chicken tastes the same.
What’s different is the flavoring.
It’s the same with churches.
So many of the arguments we have about the right way to ...
There's more than one way for churches to grow.
But over the last forty years or so we've been given one model of church growth almost exclusively. Get more people in the building.
That model is so prevalent that when I dare to suggest that many small churches are healthy ...
Pastoring a small church is not for the faint of heart.
It involves ministering to and with people at every level of their lives. Spiritual, social, financial, emotional and more. All with extremely limited resources at every level, including time, staffing, facility, finances ...
Following a long-term, successful pastorate is one of the hardest callings in ministry.
It should be one of the easiest. After all, if we’re doing pastoral ministry right, we should set up the next pastor for an even greater level of ministry success than we had.
Instead, ...
God doesn’t always show up in our lives and ministries the way we want him to.
Because, even though we want to do great things for God, our definition of great isn’t always the same as God’s definition of great.
We all have great opportunities for ministry. Don't ...
Big churches serve many great roles in the body of Christ. And the church growth movement that spawned many of them has been a great blessing to me and so many others in ministry.
But numerical growth, while great, does not come without challenges.
In my last post, 5 Mistakes ...
Small churches are not just smaller versions of big churches.
Every size has value, but different sizes serve different functions in the body of Christ. They also have different challenges and they tend to make different kinds of mistakes.
Here are 5 mistakes that are more likely ...
Oh my. That question.
“How can you say your church is healthy if it’s not growing?”
If I’ve been asked it once…
But I still don’t know how to answer it.
I wish I did. Because it’s a perfectly valid question.
But life doesn’t tie itself ...
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