Innovative Ministry

Church Methods Don’t Matter – Until We Do Them Wrong

/ 5 minutes of reading

We won’t change the world by adopting new methods in the church. We won’t even save the church that way.

What will change the world is a praying church. A loving church. A worshiping church. An outwardly-focused church. A Jesus-centric church.

The Great Commandment and the Great Commission are all that matter. They haven’t changed in 2,000 years because they don’t need to.

But.

I’m going to use new methods anyway.

I’ll tell you why in a moment. But first, a lesson in typesetting. (No, I’m not crazy. My mother had me tested).

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My Tribute to Andrae Crouch – He’s Gone to See the King

/ 5 minutes of reading

Billy Graham called him, “The greatest hymn-writer of our age. The modern-day John Wesley.”

Andrae Crouch went to be with Jesus yesterday at the age of 72.

Even though I never met him in person, few people outside my own family had as deep and lasting an impact on my formative years as Andrae did.

The first record I ever bought was Just Andrae. I was 12. A friend had played Just Andrae for me on his car cassette player, and from that moment I did everything I could to raise the $3 needed to buy the album for myself. I can still remember my mother driving me home from the record store as I sat in the back seat and tore the plastic off the bright, blue cover featuring Andrae’s profile with that cool denim jacket and mutton-chop sideburns.

When we got home, I don’t know if the car was fully stopped when I jumped out and ran into the house. I placed the needle on fresh vinyl, turned up the volume as loud as my mother would allow and heard what still stands as some of the greatest music ever recorded.

When it finished playing on both sides, I listened to it again. And again. I drove my parents so crazy with listening to it that they bought me my first set of headphones for my birthday.

I dare you to sit still as you watch and listen to this YouTube clip of Andrae singing “Can’t Nobody Do Me Like Jesus.”

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#BestOf2014: My Church Is an Endangered Species – Unless…

/ 6 minutes of reading

Fifteen years ago, my church was less healthy than it is today. It had half the attendance it has today. But we could afford to pay our mortgage, two full-time salaries, and the upkeep on the building, while giving a good percentage to missions and funding all the ministries the church needed.

Today we have double the attendance, more volunteerism and a healthier mission and ministry. But we’re having to do more with less every year.

Why?

There are several reasons. Many of which no one has really figured out yet. But, for today I’ll outline three changes we need to acknowledge.

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#BestOf2014: Wanted – New Church Methods for New Church People

/ 4 minutes of reading

There’s nothing wrong with traditional methods of doing church. As long as you want to minister to traditional church members. People who like traditional styles of church (whatever yours may be) need places to worship, learn and be discipled. Too many of them have felt overlooked, even ridiculed, in recent years as many churches have rushed to

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#BestOf2014: We Can Whine About the New Generation Or We Can Minister to Them – But We Can’t Do Both

/ 6 minutes of reading

This week, several people sent me a blog post from CNN.com, wondering what my take on it was. The article was built around an interview with a pastor who, according to CNN, if he “could preach a sermon to lift the souls of churchgoers across America, his message would be simple: Stop dressing so tacky for church.”

Really?

One message to every American churchgoer and it’s not about love, prayer, worship, knowing the bible better, sharing our faith, repentance, or feeding the poor? It’s about what we wear for an hour on Sunday?

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#BestOf2014: Why Successful Churches Aren’t Turning the World Upside-Down – But the Outcasts Might

/ 5 minutes of reading

Where are the church leaders who will take up the mantle of, not just successful ministry, but life- and society-transformation? I’m not talking about name recognition. I’m talking about leaders with such a radically positive approach to the life and message of Jesus that they have a society-shifting impact.

Where are the Christian innovators who will put a dangerous passion for Jesus ahead of personal ministry success? I’m not upset at anyone. I just want more.

I pray for an infusion of Godly change agents who won’t just transform the institutional church, but make the world stand up and take notice. Or, more likely, change the world and leave the institutional church playing catch-up.

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Should the Church Be About Transformation? Or Stability?

/ 4 minutes of reading

Transformation or stability.

Sometimes it seems like every pastor I meet lives in one of those two camps.

On the transformation side are churches with names like Catalyst, Thrive and Elevation. They’re led by pastors who are constantly driving for their church to be an agent of change. Some have even changed the title of “pastor” to “lead catalyst” to reflect that. These churches thrive on finding new, innovative ways to present the Gospel.

On the other side are churches and pastors that are digging in. They’re fighting what often feels like a losing battle against waves of negative societal change. They like to describe their church as bible-believing, fundamentalist, and/or “First (insert your denominational name here) Church”. One church sign I saw recently told everyone who drove by that they were Old-Fashioned, Hymn-Singing and Bible Believing.

So who’s right? The church as change agent? Or the church as a stable foundation?

Both. And Neither.

Both are right, because the church needs to be a transformative community. And the church needs to stand for eternal truths.

Neither are right if they’re picking one side to the exclusion of the other, because we’re not called to be one or the other, but both/and.

Any church that sacrifices eternal truths for current trends is making a big mistake. And any church that refuses to change their methods to reach a new generation with eternal truths is just as wrong.

One is too trendy to last. The other is too stuck-in-a-rut to be relevant.

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Innovation without Compromise: 5 Church Leadership Lessons from the Life of Billy Graham

/ 7 minutes of reading

Most of us have never known a world without Billy Graham.

Graham came to international prominence in the historic Los Angeles Crusade in 1949. So if you are 75 today, he was already famous when you were just ten years old.

Billy is 96 now. His crusade days are long over. But his legacy stills looms large.

Personally, aside from members of my family and Jesus himself, no one has had a longer or stronger impact on my life and ministry that this man whom I’ve never had the privilege of meeting.

Many of us can say the same thing.

Last month, my wife and I had the chance to visit the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina. It is a a fitting tribute. It’s down-home and simple, even corny at times, yet always done with understated excellence.

As we walked through the exhibits, I was struck by the realization that every Christian, and especially everyone in ministry, can learn several lessons from the life of this humble servant whose life still impacts the world.

Especially today, when it seems almost impossible to make a simple statement about faith without offending this or that ideological camp, Graham stands high as someone who set the standard for never compromising, but never causing unnecessary offense either.

As I ate a tasty, nutritious, modestly-priced lunch (of course) in the library’s cafeteria, I jotted down these 5 lessons we could all learn from the extraordinary life and legacy of Billy Graham.

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