The Most Important Principle For Your Church To Get Right This (And Every) Year
Live for Jesus. Get that right and you get everything right.
Encouragement
When The Vision For Your Church Is Unclear
Jesus didn’t call us to be unique, he called us to be faithful. And simple faithfulness from a loving pastor may be what churches need now more than ever.
Congregations Don’t Want a Hero, They Want a Pastor
Church members aren’t looking for super-pastors, they want basic pastoral competence, honesty and leadership. That’s what they ought to expect.
Why Good Friday Is So Good – And How It Makes Easter Such Great News
Most of the world’s celebrated 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 different from that. In fact …
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We Do Small Church A Lot, Why Aren’t We Doing It Better?
By far, the most prevalent expression of the church throughout history is the small congregation. We do small church a lot. But we don’t always do small church well.
The Most Successful Pastor You’ve Never Heard Of
There are some pastors whose names are known by thousands, even millions of people. But that’s not the case with most pastors. Today I want to tell you about one pastor whose life and ministry may have seemed plain and average, even a failure to some people, but who was actually one of the most …
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The Main Way We’re Failing Small Churches (And How To Start Succeeding With Them)
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 we’re not helping small churches be strong, healthy and effective at the size they are now. Instead, we’re giving them the impression that they need to …
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Breaking Church Growth Barriers Will Not Keep You From Crashing
There’s something very sad and scary about the way too many pastors are leaving the ministry lately. What’s also notable is that these pastors are as likely to be from a large, vibrant and growing church as a small, struggling and shrinking church. Despite all the expectations we put on it, church growth is not …
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Caring Or Counting? The Pastoral Dilemma
When it comes to pastoral ministry, I’ve discovered an interesting (and sometimes frustrating) paradox. The more I care for people, the less concern I have for increasing the size of the crowd – while the more I work to increase the size of the crowd, the less caring my ministry becomes. Does anyone else in …
Forget The Extras – Your Church Needs To Get The Basics Right
This week I went to a restaurant with a large group of people. When the server took our order she didn’t write anything down. She said she could keep it all in her head. That’s impressive. Except. She didn’t get the order right. There’s no sense doing the extras if you’re failing on the basics.