How a Small Church Can Be a Sending Church
We don’t need to grow numerically to be a better sending church. We need to grow in our love for Christ and the nations.
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Great Commission
Why I Don’t Ask “Would Your Community Miss Your Church?” Anymore – And What Has Replaced It
Instead of “if your church disappeared tomorrow, would your community miss it?”, we need to ask “Would anyone miss us? And who are they?” That’s what matters. They are your mission field.
Want To Make A Difference? Forget What’s Popular And Work The Fringes
No one has ever made a bigger impact on the world than Jesus. Because of this, I’m convinced that it’s in the DNA of Jesus’ followers to want to make a difference, too. But how do we do that? With so many competing voices, so many areas of need, so many ways to approach this,
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Love God, Love People, Make Disciples – Everything Else Is Scaffolding
When a building is being repaired or erected, scaffolding is the temporary structure that is built around or inside it to give workers access to the construction site. But when the building is completed, the scaffolding is removed.
Every church program, building, denomination and extra-biblical tradition is scaffolding. We put them in place to help us do what Jesus called us to do – The Great Commandment and The Great Commission.
And as long as our buildings, programs, services and traditions are helping us stay obedient to the call of Christ they should stay in place. But, like construction scaffolding, we need to be willing to remove or replace them when they stop being effective.
Unfortunately, we all have a tendency to get emotionally attached to the scaffolding we’ve grown accustomed to. After years of working on it and living in it, it’s easy to mistake the scaffolding for the main project.
When we do that, our scaffolding has become our idol.
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Your Church’s Mission Statement: Do It First, Write It Later
Writing a mission statement should be one of the last things a church does, not one of the first. The only real hope that a church will follow through on their mission statement is if it’s based on what the church is already doing.
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“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
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