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Why Hasn’t Church Growth Elevated Our Communities? (A Sincere Question Seeking Honest Feedback)
Today’s post is filled with questions I don’t have answers for. That’s where you come in. Warm up your typing fingers to add feedback in the comment section. But first, a little background. For the past 20 years I’ve pastored a Small Church in Orange County, California. In the past 50-plus years this county has given birth
Hanging Out Is Holy – And Healthy Small Churches Take It Seriously
I love hanging out with innovative, passionate Small Church pastors. They have such great stories and they can’t wait to tell them. The more I listen, the more I learn. We all know the value of hanging out with people who share our heart, don’t we? If we’re honest, most of us who attend ministerial
The Elements of a Healthy Small Church – And the Hidden Agenda that Can Kill It
What does a healthy Small Church look like? It looks like a healthy big church – in all the ways that matter, anyway. No, a healthy Small Church is not just a miniaturized version of a healthy big church. Pastors who try to do that are usually concentrating on the externals. And it never works
The Essential First Step to Having a Healthy Small Church
In my last post, Grow It or Close It? Is There a Third Option for Struggling Small Churches?, we established that there are more options for a struggling Small Church than to grow it or close it. We can help it become a healthy Small Church. But there’s an inevitable question that follows, isn’t there? Namely, how?
Grow It or Close It? Is There a Third Option for Struggling Small Churches?
What are we going to do about all those struggling Small Churches? That question has been the subject of endless ministerial (especially denominational) hand-wringing in the last several decades. A lot of time and money has been invested in conversations, books, seminars and classes attempting to fix this problem. Struggling Small churches are usually given
“How Will We Measure Our Success?” – The Question the Disciples Forgot to Ask Jesus
“If it’s OK for a church to be small, how do you suggest we measure a church’s success?” Since starting the ministry of New Small Church, I’ve been asked that question more than any other. Maybe more than all other questions combined. At first I didn’t know how to answer it. Now I answer that
Megachurches are Not Normal – And That’s OK
Megachurches are awesome. How could we not be grateful when thousands of people voluntarily gather together every week to worship Jesus? Everything about that is good. But… (you knew there was a “but” coming, didn’t you?) But while it’s wonderful to see 3,000 to 30,000 people meet to worship Jesus in one massive church, it
Three Self-Evident Principles of Christian Leadership (A Guest Post)
We learn more through our failures than our successes. I don’t want that to be true. But it is. Today’s post was written by a long-time friend who, like me, has had his share of frustrations in ministry. Lee Fruh (pronounced Free) has the rare gift of taking those frustrations, hurts and downright failures and,
The Myth of Inevitable Church Growth
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.
