What kind of culture does your church have? Are you a Willow Creek, or North Point church? Is your worship style more Hillsong, or Holy Trinity Brompton? Do you have an artsy, Mosaic vibe, a soulful, Brooklyn Tabernacle feel, or a structured, Saddleback system? For many years, people knew what to expect when they walked into […]
The Importance of Finding Your Church’s Unique Voice Read More »
There’s a growing concern that the church needs to do a better job than we’ve been doing, or we’ll lose the next generation. The good news is that this has been the concern of every generation, yet the church continues to live and thrive.
The bad news is we will lose this generation and the next one (at least) unless we do one thing.
Stop competing, and start doing the Bible stuff better.
Tired of the Show: Hollywood, the Church & the End of the Competition Read More »
Why bother? Your church is small. You don’t have enough money, people or facilities to be innovative, do you? That’s precisely the reason we must be innovative. Some of the world’s greatest ideas, products and revolutions came about, not because someone had unlimited money and resources, but precisely because they did not. Their lack what
Why Be Innovative? The Amazing Advantage of the Small Church Read More »
What are we afraid of? So many churches and pastors act in fear and stay on defense when we should be acting in love and staying on offense. I’m not saying that we need to be offensive. Quite the opposite. A church on offense, a church that is aggressively offering concrete examples of Christ’s love to
Ramps vs. Signs – How to Be On Offense Without Being Offensive Read More »
You can’t arrive at the right answers unless you ask the right questions. That was the premise of a great new post by Dave Jacobs entitled “10 Questions to Ask Before Adding, Subtracting, or Changing Something.” If you’re looking to move your Small Church from dead, dying or static, to healthy and innovative, these ten questions
10 Questions Every Innovative Small Church Pastor Needs to Ask Read More »
Why bother trying to resurrect an old, dying church? I’ve heard that question a lot. There was a time when it seemed like every pastor I went to Bible College with was pastoring a dynamic, growing church, but me. They followed church growth principles and started new churches. In a few years they were buying
Bringing Innovation to an Established Small Church Read More »
Change is hard. Don’t make it harder than it has to be. If I could only give one piece of advice to pastors struggling to turn a dying, unhealthy, static Small Church into a fresh, healthy, innovative one, this would be it. Do the easy parts first. It’s a basic principle of life that we
Becoming an Innovative Small Church: Start In the Shallow End Read More »
If you want to increase your chances of working with innovators who need guidance, instead of heel-draggers who need motivation, this is the best piece of advice I can give you. I now consider it to be one of my main roles as a church leader.
Find a way to say “Yes”.
Yes to people. Yes to their crazy ideas. Yes to their passion. Yes to something God may be trying to do through them that I just can’t see yet.
The #1 Leadership Key to Spark Innovation in a Small Church Read More »
Some people have written off the current generation spiritually. That is a mistake – for the church and for the Millennials. There’s growing evidence that this new generation will bring the greatest opportunity for Small Church ministry in 2,000 years. Why? Because, as the first generation with a majority born and raised outside traditional marriage,
Small Churches Are the Next Big Thing – With One Condition Read More »
“The gatekeepers are gone”, said stand-up comic Patton Oswalt in a talk that has huge implications for pastors and other communicators. Oswalt continued as he held up his iPhone to a crowd of comedy bigwigs. “In my hand right now I’m holding more filmmaking technology than Orson Welles had when he filmed Citizen Kane. I’m
The Gatekeepers are Gone: Unlikely Wisdom for Pastors from a Stand-Up Comic Read More »
