2019

Church Leadership
The #1 Productivity Killer In Your Life – And Why It Will Always Win
Instead of worrying that the urgency of life will ruin our productivity, we need to be careful not to let the urgency of productivity ruin our life.

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 ...

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Christian Unity
11 Significant Differences Between 1 Church Of 1,000 And 10 Churches Of 100
The church has always been blessed by our differences.

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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Christian Unity
We Do Small Church A Lot, Why Aren’t We Doing It Better?
What would happen to small churches if we changed the way we talk about them?

By far, the most prevalent expression of the church throughout history is the small congregation.

More people have worshipped Jesus, been discipled, and reached out to others through the ministry of small churches than through any other tradition, method, format or denomination. ...

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Church Leadership
The Most Successful Pastor You’ve Never Heard Of
No matter what you think success in ministry looks like, this pastor is the real deal.

There are some pastors whose names are known by thousands, even millions of people.

They have the type of ministry in which their successes are obvious.

But that’s not the case with most pastors.

The typical pastor does ministry without much notice or name recognition.

Today ...

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Church & Culture
4 Questions To Consider Before Commenting On A Controversial Subject
If I can cut through the clutter, I’ll speak up. If I’m just adding to it, I’ll stay quiet.

Everybody has an opinion.

And everyone is entitled to one.

But not every opinion is of equal value. Including mine.

With the advent of social media, we can state our opinion on platforms that can potentially be seen by thousands of people. Because of this, our opinion feels like ...

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Church Growth
6 Takeaways From “The Church Growth Gap” LifeWay Research Survey
We seldom see the value of smaller congregations, even when the facts show them to us.

Last week, Aaron Earls wrote a very helpful article entitled The Church Growth Gap: The Big Get Bigger While the Small Get Smaller. In it, he outlined the results of a recent survey taken by LifeWay Research.

There’s a lot of data in the survey and the article, much of ...

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Church Leadership
Put People First: Why Many Small Church Pastors Can Spend Less Time On Sermon Prep
The smaller the church, the more discipleship is caught through relationships than it's taught through preaching.

As pastors, we typically spend our time in three overlapping areas of ministry: communication, administration and relationships.

But our time is always limited, so on those weeks when time gets tighter, which of the three should we spend extra time on, and which of the three ...

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Christian Unity
Small Churches Are Stuck (But Not The Way You Think)
Churches on either end of the size spectrum are usually seen as fulfilling their calling. But those in the middle? Not so much.

If you are leading a healthy and effective house church, you may face some criticism for not getting bigger. But most people will start with the assumption that your size is appropriate for your calling.

If you are leading a healthy and effective big church, you may face some ...

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Church & Culture
A Question Of Character: Getting Unstuck Is Not The Church’s Biggest Problem
It’s getting harder to blame small or stuck congregations for what’s wrong with the church.

There is a crisis in the church.

People are leaving.

And we want them to come back.

But before we ask how to get them back, we need to ask why they’re leaving in the first place.

It’s not because our churches aren’t big enough, cool enough, relevant enough, or ...

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Christian Unity
The Biggest Difference Between Churches That Are Raising Young Leaders And Those That Aren't
We cannot simultaneously mourn the absence of young church leaders while belittling the way they lead.

There seems to be an absence of young people stepping up to take leadership roles in the church.

I say “seems to be…” because that’s what I keep hearing from so many of my contemporaries in ministry.

“It’s hard to find younger leaders!” ...

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The Main Way We're Failing Small Churches (And How To Start Succeeding With Them)
Pastoring a small church is not a penalty for doing something wrong. It's a specialty – and it's worth doing well.

Small congregations are the backbone of the church.

Over 90 percent of churches are under 200 people. As many as half of all Christians attend a small congregation.

But if you take a look at the dominant teaching about church leadership, you might think that all those churches ...

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Small Church Ministry
The Undeniable, Irresistible Resilience Of The Small Church
To some people, small churches may look frail, weak and out of touch, but no matter what happens, we keep coming back up.

Small churches are not better than big churches. Big churches aren’t better than small ones.

The arguments we have about size are silly, dangerous and missing the point.

Everyone has something unique to contribute.

As for small churches, here are some of the most undeniable, ...

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Innovative Ministry
The One Change Every Small Church Pastor Needs To Make
We need to move the from doing ministry for people, to the biblical pastoral model of equipping God’s people to do ministry.

Breaking the 200 barrier.

I wonder if any subject has received more attention in the last generation of church leadership training.

In some ways, it makes sense to spend so much time talking about it. After all, there is a fundamental shift that must take place when a church reaches ...

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Christian Unity
Pastoral Transition: 7 Signs It May Be The Right Time To Let Go
Watching someone else build on the foundation you’ve helped establish may be the most fulfilling part of life and ministry.

One year ago this month, I stopped being the lead pastor of our church.

Not because I was done, but because it was the right time.

Truth be told, I still want to be the lead pastor. At the age of 59, (58 when we made the transition) I’m not too old. I still have the passion, ...

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Innovative Ministry
Remember Blogs? (For Every Communicator Who's Felt Out Of Step)
A word of encouragement to everyone who’s felt criticized or left behind when others move on to something new, cool or cutting edge.

Recently I heard a pastor say two words that hit me like a punch to the gut.

I was watching him in a short online video teaching clip, when he referenced an article he’d read on a blog a couple years ago.

Before talking about the content of the article, he off-handedly quipped, ...

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