February 2019
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 ...
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, ...
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 ...
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, ...
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, ...
There are healthy churches of all sizes.
In recent years there’s been a renewed emphasis on defining health numerically. But that’s not the only way to measure church health and effectiveness.
In my previous article, Effective Small Church Metrics: Why Average Results ...
One of the challenges of pastoring in a small church is that there’s nothing typical (or normal) about anything we do.
Our schedule, our skill-set, our facilities (or lack of), our staff (or lack of), our salary (or… you get the idea…). None of it is typical. ...
Recently, I've had several conversations with friends who teach church growth principles. Several of them have asked me some version of the question in the title of this article.
“Why is there so much more pushback against church growth principles lately?”
I’m ...
Preaching is one of the most important responsibilities of the pastor in a small church context.
It’s important, not just because it is the most visible function of a pastor, but because it is one of the primary tools for discipleship.
As pastors, our primary job is making ...
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