Vision Archives - Page 2 of 2

People Are Leaving for the Cool New Church! Now What?

September 11, 2015 / 1 minute of reading

There’s a disease infecting many of our churches. I call it Cool Church Cancer.

Every Sunday morning, thousands of church-goers drive past our front door on their way to dozens of cool churches.

That used to bother me. A lot.

As I outline in the second chapter of The Grasshopper Myth, “How Trying to Build a Big Church Nearly Killed Me – and My Church”, I tried to copy the cool churches. Then I got jealous of them. Then I got mad. Then I burned out.

Finally, I grew tired of feeling jealous, got help, started redefining success and changed my attitudes and actions.

Today, I’m a Cool Church Cancer survivor.

Here are seven lessons I learned the hard way. I hope they can help you so you don’t make the same mistakes I made.

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The First Step In Turning Your Small Church Around (Video)

February 7, 2014 / 3 minutes of reading

In this video from the Small Church Pastors’ Workshop, Karl Vaters talks about the essential first step in becoming a great Small Church – learning to listen to God and each other.

This 33-minute video is Karl’s second solo talk from the workshop. It’s technically a sequel to Part 1 of Thinking Like a Great Small Church, which you can watch by clicking here. But they can be listened to in any order. Each stands well on its own.

Principles that are covered include:
The Acts 2 method for hearing God’s heart together
How to find God’s will by listening to each other
Finding the sweet spot for a healthy church turnaround
When to write a mission statement

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Small Church Hall of Fame: The Pilgrims

November 27, 2013 / 5 minutes of reading

The people we now know as Pilgrims weren’t the only ones who were dissatisfied with the way things were in England. But they made a difference because they took action. Like a lot of their bible heroes, they left where they were without knowing where they’d end up. For many world-changers, action comes first. A plan comes later.

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5 Problems With Top-Down Vision-Casting – And a New Testament Alternative

November 4, 2013 / 8 minutes of reading

Have we been doing vision-casting wrong? I think so. For maybe a generation or more. I was at a church conference not long ago where the leader spent all his time trying to convince the assembled leadership team to get behind his vision for the group. They like the leader, but very few of the

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Only In a Small Church: You May Not Need a Mission Statement

April 15, 2013 / 6 minutes of reading

I know it’s practically heresy to propose this. But your church may not need a mission statement. Since the 1990s, there may be no more widely accepted rule in church growth circles than the expectation that every church needs a mission statement. It was taught in seminars and written in books. I remember at least

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My Church Isn’t Growing – Don’t Assume You Know Why

March 25, 2013 / 8 minutes of reading

New Small Church is not about putting others down for having opinions that are different than mine. And I’m not a fan of stirring up controversy for the sake of controversy. But I’m going to walk close to that line in this post. Stick with me, though. By the end, I hope you’ll agree that I stay on

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