2016
In 35 years of ministry, I've been asked a lot of questions.
Some are easy to answer, others leave me scratching my head.
I used to stress over the hard questions. Or give pat answers. Or take a stab at an answer and hope I’m right.
I don't do that anymore, since ...
Our church turned a corner this year.
About 15 months ago ago, we felt it. Something wasn’t quite right.
I couldn’t put my finger on it, but my youth pastor verbalized it.
“Is it me, or is something off lately?” he wondered.
“It’s not just you,” ...
Jesus never told us to make bigger churches.
He told us to make disciples.
When disciples and disciple-makers get together, they create healthy churches.
But sometimes we put more energy into making churches bigger than making churches healthier. Usually because of an agenda that ...
Is it possible for a church to rely too heavily on technical excellence?
That was the crux of a recent conversation I had with an old friend.
“I left my small church because the worship, programs and preaching weren’t always great,” she told me. “But I ...
Small churches are here and we’re not going away.
We’re tired of being treated like a problem that needs to be fixed, or ignored as if we don’t exist.
If you write or speak on church leadership issues, I implore you to take note of this huge oversight, and start ...
Millennials are a mystery. Especially if you’re a Baby Boomer like me.
In the Boomer era it was not unusual for over one-third of the nation to be watching the same TV show. During the day, up to half the neighborhood listened to the same radio station on their drive home. ...
Sometimes the most dangerous threat to the truth is not a lie, it’s a lesser truth.
Lies are usually easy to spot.
Lesser truths are harder because … well … they’re still true.
At virtually every moment of our lives, greater truths and lesser truths are ...
I love small churches. But I refuse to idealize them.
There’s not an ounce of nostalgia in me for some long-lost, non-existent, good-old-days when everyone attended a little white chapel and all was right with the world.
I also refuse to blame small churches for what’s ...
Does your church have a mission statement? Could most of the people in your church repeat it?
If the answer is ‘no’, I have one word for you.
Relax.
You don’t need to call an emergency vision-casting meeting to remind everyone that they need to ‘Know, Grow ...
If you asked a few hundred church members from multiple churches what characteristics they were searching for in a pastor, what do you think they’d say?
You don’t have to wonder. Thom Rainer asked that question a while ago and published the top ten responses on his ...
Have you ever been to a vibrant church and wondered ‘what do they have that we don’t have?’
It may seem like 90 percent of what they’re doing is what your church is doing. But they’re vibrant, healthy and alive, while the church you’re from ...
Have you ever wondered why virtually every church leader is constantly writing and speaking about change? Including me?
Because we live in the fastest-changing culture ever. Change is not just an ocassional reality. It’s the water we’re swimming in.
For instance, every ...
It sounds so inviting and innocent.
“Sit back, relax and enjoy the service.”
But that may be one of the most dangerous sentences regularly uttered in church.
I expect promises of great customer service in a restaurant, an airplane or a store. But the idea that church ...
Why won’t my church grow!
Have you ever wondered that? Me too.
After all, it’s not like we haven’t tried. And there are plenty of people offering us seemingly surefire help to bring growth. Every day there’s another blog post with a list of Seven Reasons ...
Sometimes you write something and you know people don't care much about it, because nobody responds. Other times you write something and you know people don’t care because they tell you they don't care. Vigorously.
Last week’s post on the difference between ...
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