“Delegate, pastor. Delegate.”

I’ve heard that wise advice hundreds of times. Literally hundreds.

During the first few years pastoring my current church, one of my deacons, named Ron Cook, said it to me constantly. Whenever he caught me doing something ...

My church doesn’t use a discipleship curriculum.

Instead, as I wrote about in my previous two posts, we mentor people.

• Serious About Discipleship? Mentoring Is Better Than Curriculum
• Mentoring Is Better than Curriculum: Seven Steps to Better Discipleship

Those posts ...

Pastoring a small church is not for the timid.

Even the tools that are supposed to help us can leave us feeling more discouraged.

Discipleship curricuum, for instance. Whether it's designed for kids, youth or adults, most of it seems to target bigger churches. Small ...

“What discipleship curriculum do you recommend for small churches?”

I get asked that question a lot. And my answer almost always disappoints the questioner.

We don’t use a discipleship curriculum in our church.

I’ll get to why – and what ...

Image: m.a.r.c | Flickr

If you’re a long-time, faithful church member who doesn’t like the way your church is changing, I have one thing to say to you.

Thank you.

For what? We’ll get to that soon. But first I want to tell you a short story.

Trying to Keep Up

“What ...

Change is hard.

Don’t make it harder than it has to be.

If I could only give one piece of advice to pastors who are struggling to turn a dying, unhealthy, static church into a fresh, healthy, innovative one, this would be it:

Do the easy parts first.

It’s ...

Adapt or die.

That's especially true in small churches.

The good news is, because of our size, small churches have the ability to adapt more quickly than our larger counterparts. Like steering a speedboat instead of an ocean liner.

Sadly though, that’s not ...

Pastors are used to being misunderstood. It goes with the job description.

But what if the only "facts" we knew about churches and pastors were what we saw on TV and the movies?

Ugh.

Hollywood has been telling stories that include churches and pastors for ...

Just because a church is small doesn’t mean it is stuck.

But the truth is, many small churches are stuck.

If small churches want to keep being vital elements in Jesus' Great Commission strategy, we need to be able to tell the difference between a strategic small church ...

“If a church stays small, they must be doing something wrong. It can’t possibly be healthy.”

This has been an underlying assumption of many in the church growth movement. (Although it’s usually more subtly stated than that.) But, as with any assumption, ...

Many people think I’m settling for less when I talk about the value of small churches. Yes, they've actually said that to me.

I appreciate their concern. But they don’t need to worry. I’m not settling for less.

I would be settling for less if my entire goal ...