2017
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 ...
The gospel was built on failure.
What we now know as good news started as very bad news.
It was never supposed to work.
For a long time, it looked like it never would.
It started with a young, pregnant, single girl in a backwater town too small to be mentioned in most ancient records. ...
The New Testament doesn’t emphasize the role of pastor nearly as much as our current church structure does.
In fact, there’s just one passage – one! – in which the role of the pastor (along with apostles, prophets, evangelists, and teachers) is mentioned. ...
Small churches aren’t just smaller versions of big churches. They have unique gifts, challenges and methods of operation.
But not everyone realizes that fact. Including some small church pastors.
This often leads to frustration when we go to ministerial conferences or read ...
I’m taking my family to a bigger church.
I doubt if there’s a small church pastor that hasn’t felt the pain of those words.
I was reminded of that pain while getting re-acquainted with a friend over coffee recently.
My friend is a semi-volunteer staff member at ...
I'm not as old as I used to be.
I just turned 57. A mere 25 years ago, when the average pastor's age was 44, my current age would have made me an older minister.
Today, with the average pastor being 54, I'm in middle age.
In recent years as I’ve traveled and spoken ...
We worship an eternally unchanging God, as seen in a book whose newest parts are almost 2,000 years old. That’s a lot of stability.
So why does it seem like every church leader talks more about the things my church needs to change than the things that need to stay the same? ...
It’s not always easy to fix long-term problems and implement needed changes in a church – especially when old, dysfunctional ways have taken root.
Sometimes we make our job harder than it needs to be, not by doing the wrong things, but by doing the right things at ...
Is it okay if a pastor’s calling is to help others fulfill their calling? Or, without a big, hairy, audacious pastoral vision, will the people perish?
I’ll come back to those questions soon. But first, this.
You can’t have a great church without a great vision. ...
Many churches have experienced great success and growth doing big ‘come and watch’ events.
Even if choir cantatas on Christmas and Easter have been replaced by an illustrated message with stage design, lighting and video, the idea is the same – to draw people ...
Do you have some creative, practical, encouraging ideas about small church ministry? If you can write about them in a clear, concise manner, CTPastors might want to publish an article from you.
For the first time ever, ChristianityToday.com has a section entirely devoted to small ...
Easter is coming! All over the world, pastors are preparing to speak to what is usually the biggest church crowd of the year.
If you’re wondering how to make the wonderful, but familiar resurrection story feel fresh again, here’s an idea I’m working on.
This should be the shortest blog post I’ve ever written.
Because the answer to the question posed in the title takes just three words.
I
Don’t
Know
A Response to the Hurting
In my previous post ‘Why Doesn’t God Answer All My Prayers? Because Some of Them are ...
God doesn’t do stupid things.
No matter how many times we say “please”. No matter how much faith we have. No matter how hard we pray.
He does strange things. Hard-to-understand things. Even things that can seem totally messed up and cruel from our limited vantage ...
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