2019
There’s a lot about the gospel message that is not user-friendly.
Take up your cross. Love your enemies. Put God’s will ahead of my own.
But getting to that message shouldn’t be as hard as many churches often make it.
This lesson was reinforced for me recently ...
Who is responsible for the health and growth of a local church?
Is it all up to the pastoral leadership? As one former megachurch pastor used to say, “if it’s going to be, it’s up to me.”
Or is it all up to Jesus who said “I will build my church”? ...
Some ministers seem to be ideally suited for what they do.
Their passion, their skill set, their spiritual gifting and their circumstances all seem to line up in one integral whole.
But what about the rest of us? What do you do when you feel divided? When your passion goes in ...
When it comes to leading people, many pastors fall into one of two opposite traps.
Doing everything themselves, or delegating tasks to people who don’t do them well.
Many pastors swing wildly between the two.
Here’s why.
What Causes Pastoral Burnout?
We see something ...
Most of the world’s historic victories happened in one simple, yet brutal way – the winner was better at killing than the loser was.
Death wins. As long as it’s your death, not mine.
One of the many reasons I follow Jesus is that his victory on the cross was ...
There are two ways for a local church to reach more people.
Advertising or evangelism.
And they are not the same thing.
There’s nothing wrong with advertising, per se. Using social media, print ads, handouts or other means to let people know about your church or its events ...
There are only two forms of the church that ultimately matter.
The universal church and the local church.
Everything else is an add-on. Including buildings, furniture, styles of music, types of preaching, curriculum, and the subject of today’s article, denominations.
I’m ...
Almost every pastor wants their church to be bigger.
By at least 50 to 100 percent.
Got 50 people? 100 would be great.
100? Let’s shoot for 200.
There’s a lot about that drive that’s healthy. But there’s another side that’s unsettling, uncertain and ...
Everyone wants the sure thing.
If we just learn the right principles, follow the latest How To Grow Your Church list, or (my favorite) “do it like the early church”, then Boom! Our church is guaranteed numerical success.
I wish.
Here’s the reality behind church ...
In the next decade or two, we are going to see an unprecedented number of churches close their doors.
Unprecedented for North Americans churches, that is.
We know this is coming because we’ve already seen it happen in Europe. Many of their historic church buildings are as ...
No one has ever made a bigger impact on the world than Jesus.
You don’t even need to be a Christian to see the obvious truth in that statement.
Because of this, I’m convinced that it’s in the DNA of Jesus’ followers to want to make a difference, too.
It’s ...
Music has always been a point of contention in the church.
Hundreds of years ago church members argued over singing in harmony instead of unison (bye-bye, Gregorian chants!), then we argued over whether-or-not to use instruments, then over what instruments are appropriate for ...
Almost every time I write or speak about the gentleness of Jesus, someone is quick to remind me that Jesus also got angry.
“Jesus wasn’t always meek and mild”, they’re quick to point out. “He called the Pharisees white-washed tombs!” “He ...
There’s been a lot written about productivity lately.
And I’m grateful for it.
Whenever I can, I want to minimize distractions, get right to the task at hand and arrive at the end of the day feeling like I did what I set out to do – maybe even more. If an efficiency ...
Churches of all sizes have something to offer.
I know, I say that a lot.
I’ve even been told I need to be less accommodating to big churches. But it’s not an accommodation, it’s a reality.
Bigger churches do great things that small churches can’t do, and ...
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