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Hey! Small Church Pastors! Stop Doing This Alone!
Why are you doing this alone? That question is printed on a card that sits on my desk every day. It reminds me not to fall into the trap that too many Small Church pastors get caught in. Being a Small Church pastor is one of the loneliest, most stress-filled positions in the world. We have
Chronic Complainers, Part 2 – When Win-Win is a No-Go
In a strong, healthy Small Church, chronic complainers can cause a lot of stress on the pastor and other leaders. If the Small Church is weak and/or unhealthy, complainers can kill a pastor’s and church’s spirit, sometimes without intending to. In Part 1 of this series, we saw some things we can do to move
Chronic Complainers, Part 1 – Creating a Win-Win
Chronic complainers aren’t a huge issue in a big church. Very few congregation members will know them, and even the pastor may only be aware of them by email (but so many emails!). In a Small Church their voice is loud. They know everyone – and everyone knows them. The challenge for Small Church pastors
My Church IS Growing, It’s Just Not Getting Bigger
Bigger isn’t always better. When pastors ask each other if our churches are growing, the question we’re always – and I mean always – asking is are we getting bigger? Every year our church fills out a report on the vital statistics of the congregation. If the only thing you knew about our church was
The Gatekeepers are Gone: Unlikely Wisdom for Pastors from a Stand-Up Comic
“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
4 Ways Your Church Can Help People Simplify Christmas
It may be the most wonderful time of the year, but Christmas is also the busiest. A few years ago, our Small Church staff decided we weren’t going to compete with all the shopping, school plays, office parties and visits to Santa that were filling people’s calendars. We weren’t able to keep up, so we
Is the Era of the Megachurch Over?
All my life I’ve heard preachers talk about a coming worldwide revival. But it’s never happened. There have been pockets of excitement, from the Jesus Movement of the 1970s, to the church growth movement of the 1980s. The 1990s brought local spiritual outbreaks in places like Toronto and Florida, along with controversy over their genuineness
3 Words That Can Make Your Sermons Sticky
Impact. It’s what every pastor wants from their Sunday sermons (or talks, messages, homilies – take your pick). We want to have impact. We want the message, as Larry Osborne might put it, to be sticky. We want the words we speak, not just to make people feel good when they’re in church on Sunday, but to
Where Are All the Small Church Experts?
Quick quiz – name an expert on big churches or church growth. There are probably several that come to mind immediately, right? There are plenty of well-known authors, speakers and academics, some of whom are pastors themselves. Now name an expert on Small Churches… I’m waiting… If you can think of one, it was probably
