2017
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Even if choir cantatas on Christmas and Easter have been replaced by an illustrated message with stage design, lighting and video, the idea is the same – to draw people ...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 ...
I love my church. I want it to be strong, healthy and growing.
That’s why I read church ministry blogs and books, go to conferences and seminars, listen to podcasts… whatever I can get my hands on. I’m always looking for the best advice I can find.
But I’m ...
Historically, whenever the church of Jesus is dynamic and healthy, it grows.
But healthy, missional Christians don’t just clump together in larger and larger groups.
The healthier the church is, the more Christians mobilize into outward-looking teams to start new groups. ...
Life is filled with problems.
Some big, some small. Some emergencies, some petty.
When a big problem presents itself, we want somebody to do something about it. Problem-solving is one of the prime roles of a leader, after all.
So, whether it’s in our families, our churches ...
I’m a pastor.
It’s becoming harder to say that lately.
Sure, there are the usual pressures.
- Dealing with congregation members and their expectations
- Trying to stay ahead of the change curve
- Combatting theological and moral compromise
- Managing a mostly volunteer staff
- Figuring out how to pay for it all on a small, sometimes shrinking budget
Our church used to partner exclusively with other Christian ministries. For everything from missions to community service.
Before that, we would only partner with ministries in our denomination.
Today, while we still only partner with Christian groups for missions (can’t ...
Recently, I was in a roomful of pastors when one of them said “Pastoral ministry can be harder on our spouses than on us.”
Every head in the room nodded in silent agreement.
Then someone asked “why”?
Here are some of the reasons we discovered that evening. ...
Small church internships have a lot to offer both the intern and the church.
But they have to be done right. If not, they’re a nightmare.
For over a dozen years, our small church has operated a successful internship ministry. Here are ten essential lessons we’ve learned, ...
We don’t measure the things that matter.
We measure the things we manage.
One of the unquestioned premises of the church growth movement is that when something matters to us, we measure it. So we count things like church attendance in an attempt to measure a church’s ...
Why don’t people wear their Sunday Best for church any more?
A lot of older churchgoers (that is, my generation) seem to be worried about that lately.
I’d like to respond to that question with a couple of my own.
When did the members of my generation become such old ...
We’ve invested a lot into the art and science of church growth in the last 50 years.
It makes me wonder. After such a massive output of time, energy, research and money, have we become like the proverbial man with a hammer who sees everything as a nail?
Is that why church ...
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