Encouragement

#BestOf2013: The Myth of Inevitable Church Growth

/ 5 minutes of reading

A healthy church does not inevitably mean a growing church. I used to believe that it did. After all, I’ve read about the “truth” of inevitable church growth in every church leadership book written in the last 30 years. I even taught it myself.

I don’t believe it any more. It’s a myth. The reason I no longer believe that numerical growth is inevitable for a healthy church has to do with one problem that kept presenting itself…

The evidence stubbornly refuses to back it up.

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#BestOf2013: You Can Overcome Small Church Discouragements

/ 5 minutes of reading

At virtually every moment of our lives, there are at least two truths battling for our heart. A greater truth and a lesser truth. The challenge is that the lesser truth is usually louder, stronger and more urgent.

One of the great, challenging calls of leadership is to live to the greater truth and, by our example, to call others to do the same.

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Forget the 200 Barrier – Small Churches Need to Break Through the Grasshopper Barrier

/ 5 minutes of reading

We need to retire the 200 Barrier from our church leadership lexicon. It makes some dangerous assumptions, starting with the assumption that over 200 is better than under 200. But the Grasshopper Barrier is a toxic mindset that keeps churches and pastors from recognizing The Grasshopper Myth for the lie that it is. That’s the barrier we need to break.

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3 Sundays, 3 Stories – Here’s What One Healthy Small Church Looks Like

/ 7 minutes of reading

Small Churches have down seasons and up seasons. And those seasons can switch very fast. Monday morning fast. The church I pastor has been experiencing an up season for a while now – several years, in fact. I wish I could say it’s because of my flawless leadership skills, but if you’ve read The Grasshopper Myth, you

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9 No-Fault, No-Excuse Reasons Many Healthy Churches Stay Small

/ 7 minutes of reading

“What am I doing wrong?!” How many Small Church pastors constantly torture themselves with that question? And it doesn’t help that someone’s always writing another list to tell us about the mistakes and sins we must be committing that are keeping our church from the supposedly inevitable numerical growth we’d see if we got our act together. It’s not

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“So, Will This Session Help My Church Break Through the 200 Barrier? No? Uh… OK…”

/ 5 minutes of reading

Helping Small Churches become healthy before they get bigger is a revolutionary idea. It shouldn’t be, but it is. And it probably will be for a while. But dents are being made. Let me tell you about some that were made this week. On Wednesday I was honored to represent Small Church pastors by being

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