2019
Henry Ford famously said “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
Today, if you were to ask the average pastor what they want, most would probably say “a bigger church.”
And if you asked the average Christian what they ...
They say it’s easier to have a baby than to raise the dead.
That’s one reason many pastors choose to plant a church rather than turn an existing one around. (Other reasons include the importance of fresh, new churches and a little thing known as God’s call, ...
There are two approaches when we talk about church size.
The first one is to use church size and, more specifically, church growth as the main way to tell if a church is healthy, strong and effective. Big and getting bigger? Great! Small and staying small? Not so good.
The second ...
Small church pastors labor under a great deal of discouragement.
They work unbelievably long hours (often full-time at a paying job in addition to pastoral ministry) with very little money (many supplement the church from their bivocational pay) and very little encouragement.
Just a few years ago, I was happily pastoring a small church, expecting to spend the rest of my ministry that way.
Then I wrote a book about it, and everything changed.
Now I have two books out, a third on the way, and I’m asked to speak at dozens of conferences every year. ...
It’s getting harder to be nice anymore.
I have friends on all sides of virtually every political, theological and philosophical issue. People with whom I have significant disagreements on some subjects, yet find common ground on others.
But it’s becoming difficult ...
For generations, churches were the center of community life in many towns.
Want to know what time it is? Listen for the chimes from the Lutheran church steeple.
Going to the store? Turn left at the Baptist church.
Bored on a Sunday night? Check out the revival at the Pentecostal ...
You can’t pastor a church of 500 the way you pastored it at 100. Or a church of 100 the way you did at 25.
But how do we know if we should break through from one size to another?
For at least a generation there’s been an underlying assumption that every church should ...
In December of 2004, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld got into hot water when he responded to reporters’ questions about whether-or-not US troops were ready for war by saying “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at ...
People aren’t giving enough.
People aren’t attending enough.
People aren’t volunteering enough.
These are the complaints I hear most often from other pastors when we’re talking about the frustrations they have with church members.
Family Frustrations
Before ...
Of all the ingredients needed for a healthy church, one of the most important is a leadership team that works well together.
This is true for a megachurch with paid staff, and for a small church working entirely with volunteers.
One of the most visible and influential relationships ...
All healthy things grow.”
There may be no phrase that has caused me more ministry angst than that one.
For years, I pastored a healthy church.
For many of those years, it was a numerically growing church.
Then it wasn’t.
But, as far as I could tell, it was still healthy.
Most of what we do in the pastorate makes no logical sense.
At least not in the here and now.
We invest in people who fail us over and over again. We pray, counsel, cry, study, preach, give and sacrifice – and often we wonder what good it all does.
Then we do it again.
Why?
There’s something very freeing about letting go of the need to perform.
Even when our goal is something noble.
Recently, I had the chance to observe this in a very tangible, personal way.
I was speaking at a conference to a bunch of pastors – mostly from small churches ...
Church growth is great.
But I’m done with pushing for it.
Done with making it the reason I wake up in the morning.
Done with obsessing over numerical increase or decrease.
Done with thinking that our church has to be bigger to be better.
Church Growth Is Not Enough
Years ago ...
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