2018
Yesterday, I was back in my home church after being gone for a month doing conferences and taking some vacation time with my wife, Shelley.
We’ve taken time away before, of course, but this time it was different. Because when I came back yesterday, for the first Sunday ...
Drawing a crowd to church may not be the best way to start people on a path to discipleship.
In fact, I’m beginning to think that it may hurt our discipleship efforts more than help them.
For at least a generation now, the predominant thinking in most of the pastoral training ...
Wouldn’t it be great if Easter wasn’t called Easter? If everyone knew it as Resurrection Sunday instead?
But they don’t.
Our church uses both terms. But, as you can see in the artwork above, Easter is our church’s go-to term, not Resurrection Sunday. Especially ...
Small churches can have a big impact.
Especially today, with the power of social media and other new ways of communicating.
But also, because so much of our lives are lived online, people are having a renewed longing for more personal, tactile, face-to-face experiences. These ...
Excuses are the enemy of effective ministry.
Yesterday, my wife Shelley and I had the chance to worship in a church that could have offered about as many excuses as any church imaginable. But they’ve refused to do so and have, instead, become one of the most influential ...
No one is hiding anything from you.
There was a long season of ministry in which I had to tell myself that a lot. I had gone through a near breakdown after trying, but failing, to see the kind of growth in our church that I had been assured was inevitable if I only did the right ...
Today is the day!
You can now buy your copy of my new book, Small Church Essentials, for yourself or for a church leader you know.
Small Church Essentials is the result of all the time I’ve spent writing for, speaking with, and – most importantly – listening ...
The vast majority of the leaders in the church growth movement are good, godly, passionate people who truly want to advance Christ’s kingdom and be a blessing to other churches.
They write books and speak at conferences because they have a passion to share what they’ve ...
Imagine a hallway full of doors, all of which lead to the same destination.
All your life, you’ve seen people go through one particular door, so you use it, too. But one day you try to go through that door and it won’t open for you.
What do you do?
Insistence says, ...
Leading a church is often a lesson in managing and overcoming frustration. Hopefully not all the time. But there are those seasons...
This week I’ve learned a great lesson about triumphing over extreme difficulty and frustration from a very unlikely source – a hotel ...
(Today, Billy Graham went to be with Jesus. I wrote this article three years ago. I repost it here now as my tribute to the man and his legacy.)
Most of us have never known a world without Billy Graham.
Graham came to international prominence in the historic Los Angeles Crusade ...
It’s Sunday evening as I write this blog post.
And I’m feeling a huge flood of emotions.
Strong emotions are normal for pastors on Sunday afternoons, no matter how Sunday services went. But today is different for me.
Plus, there's the added quirk that I’m ...
God’s timing is perfect.
When he does something in our lives unilaterally (as in, he doesn’t ask for our permission or cooperation) his timing is often quick, surprising and sometimes painful. It’s only when we see those events in the rear view mirror that we ...
Jesus’ church will never die.
But individual congregations are never given that promise. No matter how faithful they may be.
Last week, I wrote a blog post about honoring those who care for congregations as they face the last years or days of their ministry life.
Most of ...
Local churches have a life-cycle.
Some barely make it out of the starting blocks. Some last a generation or two. Some are still active after hundreds of years. But, even with constant renewal, the evidence from 2,000 years of Christianity shows that every congregation will, at ...
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