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How to Deal with Church Staff and Volunteer Problems Without Losing Good People
This isn’t a one-sided issue. It’s a two-sided issue with a two-sided solution. I know, because I’ve also had conversations with Small Church pastors about how hard it is to get good staff and volunteers.
Usually, it’s hard to get anyone to help at all. But sometimes I get complaints from pastors that go like this.
“No matter what I do, I can’t get these young leaders to turn off lights or take stinky garbage out to the dumpster! And when I tell them to do it, they get such an attitude about it! Like they’re too good for that. Don’t they understand that this is what a lot of ministry is about? Especially in a Small Church?” Sound familiar?
The Very Active Ingredient of a Healthy & Vibrant Small Church (Podcast)
What does quality look like in a Small Church? That may be one of the biggest challenges for Small Church pastors – especially for ministry to millennials. For decades, we’ve been taught a list of elements that need to be done well for a church to be great. But many of those elements can only be
This Generation Really Does Want Something Different from Church than Our Grandparents Did
Our grandparents took relationships for granted and needed to build structures. Our kids and grandkids take those structures for granted and need to build relationships.
Front-Load the Value: One Simple Step that Can Make Any Church More Appealing to Guests
According to church leadership experts, most people will subconsciously decide whether-or-not to come back to a church within the first 7-10 minutes of driving into the parking lot.
If your church is doing everything great, keep it up. But that’s not the case for most of us. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll admit we do some things well, but there are other aspects of the Sunday morning service we struggle with. And some parts we’re just awful at.
What’s worse, many churches take the things we don’t do well and put them at the beginning of the service. That means our church guests have made a yes/no decision about being a part of our congregation when all they’ve seen are the things we’re not that good at.
Big Church Sins vs. Small Church Sins: Who’ll Throw the First Stone?
Big churches and Small Churches bring different gifts to the body of Christ. They also face different sets of temptations, based on their size.
The biggest problem with church size isn’t that there are too many big congregations or too many small ones. I also don’t think there is an ideal church size or a bad church size.
The biggest problem with church size is when we use it as one more excuse for Christians to throw stones at each other.
8 Reasons Why It’s OK to Call Your Church a Small Church
For decades (yes, decades!) I refused to acknowledge that my church was small or that I was a Small Church pastor. Not any more. Now, I’m not just OK with it, I celebrate it.
Some people don’t like using the term Small Church because, in their minds, that term equates with a church being sickly, settling or worse. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Finally, a Definitive List of Every Essential Element for an Effective Church
Too many church leaders spend too much time on too many things that aren’t essential to an effective church.
But what are the essential elements of an effective church? Good news. I’ve found the definitive list and today I’m going to share it with you.
When People Leave: The Private Pain of the Small Church Pastor
It’s taken me a long time to hit “publish” on today’s post because, when I raise an issue, I like to provide solutions or alternatives. But I don’t have a solution to this one.
So today’s post is not about answers. It’s a recognition of our shared pain. With the hope that we can find some sort of solace by knowing we’re not alone in these feelings. Here are some painful truths many of us have felt when people leave our churches.
The Cross Is Not a Celebration of Suffering, But of Jesus’ Victory Over It
There is nothing noble about suffering. Pain, sorrow, poverty, sickness, disease, violence and death have no redemptive value. They are not a part of God’s plan to save the world. They are what Jesus came to save us from.
We need to remember that this weekend.
