2016
I’m a big believer in planning. But I’m not a fan of meetings.
Yet planning requires meetings. So what’s the answer?
We can do more effective planning by having more effective meetings.
In fact, when the meetings are more effective, we can usually have fewer of ...
Patterns are good. Ruts are bad.
Patterns give us structure. Ruts keep us stuck.
Everyone who speaks in public develops speaking patterns. The danger is to not let those patterns become ruts.
That’s why I purposely change the way I preach every few years.
The title of today’s post comes from something I read on a friend’s Facebook timeline last week. The parentheses are mine.
Before I explain why I used such a controversial comment as a blog post title, I’d like to expand on it.
You can also unfriend me if you're ...
I led a dying man back to Jesus last week. And it would not have happened if I wasn’t a small church pastor.
Here’s the story.
He and his wife have been attending a nearby megachurch. She is a committed believer. He is not.
Whe he realized his illness was reaching a ...
Just about every day a blog post or video comes across my path that claims to say ‘what no one else has the guts to say.’
That claim is usually followed by an angry tirade of extremist and/or conspiracy-theory rhetoric that we’ve all heard a thousand times before. ...
Fear of failure kills the innovative spirit. It's one of the main reasons many churches don't try new things.
But failure is a part of life. And ministry. It's especially a part of doing innovative ministry, because we can’t know if something will fail ...
We're in love with the spectacular. Superhero movies, bigger buildings, viral videos and over-the-top personalities.
It’s the same in a lot of our churches.
We've become very noisy and personality-driven in our presentation of the gospel.
I love the church.
For a lot of years, “I love Jesus, but not the church” or “the church may stink, but it's the only thing afloat” have been cool things for a lot of Christians to say.
I used to be one of those people. Not anymore.
I love ...
Three facts sit atop my list of things I wish someone had told me in Bible college.
FACT #1: 80-90 percent of pastoral ministry students will never pastor a church larger than 250 people.
FACT #2: Virtually all of us will pastor a small church for at least some time in ...
Some principles about church size and church growth need an entire blog post to describe. Some require a book.
Others can be said within the current 140-keystroke limit of Twitter. Like the following 15 truths.
Because they come from my perspective, on the small side ...
It’s not easy to create a culture of renewal, change and adaptability in an existing small church.
But it is essential.
There needs to be a renewal process in place or the changes will be random, unsettling and ultimately, unsuccessful. We'll end up work harder ...
Small group ministry is a must for a healthy church. We need the fellowship, the accountability and so much more.
But what if you can't get small groups going strong in your small church, no matter how hard you try? Maybe you should stop trying. For a while, anyway.
(This post has been updated from its initial publication. See the postscript.)
Last Sunday, a teenager named Skylar and a senior named Gene chatted in the hallway between services at our church. I secretly took this picture of them. (I got their permission to use it here.) ...
What are we afraid of?
So many churches and pastors act in fear and stay on defense when we should be acting in love and staying on offense.
I’m not saying that we need to be offensive. Quite the opposite.
A church on offense – a church that is aggressively offering ...
Some people love to put others down.
The church is full of them.
For instance, here are some titles of recent online posts:
- ‘10 Serious Problems with (name of new Christian book)’
- ‘The Problem with (preachers name)’
- 'Christians Should Stop Reading (name of Christian blogger)’