2019
In nearly 40 years of pastoral ministry, I’ve learned so much from other pastors.
And it hasn’t just been from pastors of big churches. Pastors of small churches have taught me a lot, also.
Typically, I get one type of wisdom from those in big churches, and a different ...
They say you reveal your character, not when things are going well, but when the chips are down.
Not when everyone’s watching, but when no one sees what you do.
That’s true.
But it’s only part of the truth.
A Reversal Of Character
Some people seem to have the character ...
Great ideas are disruptive.
They don’t follow common wisdom.
But after you hear them, you often think, “of course! How did I not see that all along?”
In church leadership today, there’s no more common wisdom than this: if your church is not increasing in ...
There are two equal, but opposite mistakes we make when it comes to discovering a church’s mission.
First extreme: find out what the cool churches are doing and copy that.
Second extreme: find something no other church is doing and pursue that.
The first extreme is an obvious ...
Not everything is scalable.
Church growth is. But not every aspect of church health is.
Not only is bigger not always better, in some cases pushing for numerical growth can actually be harmful to the mission of a local church.
Scalability Is Not Universal
There are a lot of great, ...
There’s a lot that’s wrong with the church today.
Over and over, I see similar complaints:
- “The church today is compromised!”
- “The modern church is about entertainment!”
- “The contemporary church is more about personalities than about Jesus!”
If you want your church to break through the 200 barrier there’s a lot of help.
From the classic book, How To Break Growth Barriers, to newly-developed programs by great leaders like Carey Nieuwhof, Ed Stetzer and The Unstuck Group, there’s no shortage of top-notch ...
The world is changing. Fast.
Unlike many of my contemporaries, I see a lot of good changes along with the bad ones, but no matter how you see it, change is hard.
And the extreme amount of change we’re experiencing now is overwhelming.
It’s especially challenging when ...
There are a lot of cool churches in the world.
Congregations trying the latest ideas, ministries using cutting-edge graphics, and worship bands leading us in the newest songs.
I like cool churches.
It’s great to see them keeping up to date, trying innovative methods, and ...
The typical church has about 75 attendees every week.
So if you pastor a small congregation, your church isn’t broken, it’s what’s known as normal. And normal doesn’t need to be fixed.
But for the most part, the books, conferences and classes about pastoring ...
Why do we equate size with health and effectiveness in the church?
One reason is our tendency toward confirmation bias.
When we want to know what church health is, we look at what’s happening in the biggest and fastest-growing churches.
On the other hand, when we look at ...
It’s becoming very popular to teach church growth and leadership principles using ideas from successful businesses.
Some of the titles of books and articles I’ve seen lately include, What The Church Can Learn From...
- Harley Davidson
- Marvel Movies
- Japanese Management
There’s nothing wrong with small churches.
I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.
For the first time in my memory, many church growth writers and speakers are making sure to say "there’s nothing wrong with small churches" when they teach about church ...
Are you involved in church leadership? As in, does any of your ministry involve overseeing, teaching or helping other church leaders?
If so, have you ever been frustrated by the inability of some small churches to utilize your ideas? No doubt you have.
Here’s a simple illustration ...
There are a lot of small churches in the world. Over 90 percent of all churches, by most counts.
Yet perhaps the most common moniker used for small churches isn’t
- Small and normal
- Small and commonplace
- Small and typical
- Or even small and holding strong
It’s small and struggling.
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