About Bill Easum

Bill Easum is the founder of The Effective Church Group. Author of 30+ books and the recipient of the prestigious Donald McGavran award for church leadership, Bill retired in 2019, but continues to share his insights with the Effective Church Group's team.

Transformational Small Groups

One of the key elements of most discipleship pipelines I’ve seen is what I call “transformational small groups.” The problem is, when most people hear “small groups,” they think of Bible studies, which is far from what is meant by a transformational small group. Let’s look at the difference.

Most ineffective small groups are primarily […]

Too Many Pastors Are Wasting Their Lives

I love pastors.  I was one for thirty years. But my heart goes out to them because most of them are wasting their lives.  Let me tell you why.

Statistics show that some 85% of the churches in the U.S. are either on a plateau or are declining. Some of these churches can be turned around, […]

Four Lessons from an Interview with Ron Johnson

Ron Johnson is the Senior Pastor of One Church*, a multi-site congregation in Orlando, Florida. For several years he has been planting one church a year, but he recently felt the call to step it up. As a result, he is embarking on an aggressive mission to plant one hundred churches over the next ten […]

The Best Way to Retain Visitors

It’s a known fact that it’s easier to keep a new visitor than it is to get a new visitor. So why is it that most churches get only a 15% return rate? The answer is simple – most pastors don’t make an effort to do so. I’ve never understood how a pastor, especially […]

Six Lessons from Interview with Brian Bolt

In a span of ten years, Brian Bolt has gone from starting one Recovery Home to planting more than 50 churches with 30 plants scheduled to be launched on one day in September of this year (2016). How does one church planter go from launching one church plant to almost 100 churches in ten […]

A New Scorecard for Churches in Any Age

Scorecards are valuable in any game because they tell you whether or not you’re winning. If it is important to know if you’re winning in a game, how much more important is it to know if you are “winning” as a church? It eternally matters!

I’m one of those people who believes that if you […]

Seven Lessons from an Interview with Ralph Moore

Ralph Moore, pastor of Hope Chapel in Honolulu, is a 70-year-old, humble hippie who is planting the third Hope Chapel in Hawaii. Ralph is responsible, directly or indirectly, for more than 1,000 church plants. I was struck by his humble, straightforward way of sharing both himself and what he has learned.

Here is what I learned […]

Radical Discipleship: Key to Authentic Growth

A Blog by Bill Easum and The Effective Church Group

By radical we mean becoming more and more like Jesus in every way. That’s a big, hairy, audacious goal for sure. But it is at the heart of what Jesus did every day with the disciples. He mentored them to become like him. He wasn’t […]

The World Doesn’t Need More Pastors

When I restarted a church in 1969, I shared the following mission statement: “Every member a minister.” In 1982 the statement changed to “Every person a minister.” In 1990 the statement changed again to “Every person a missionary.”

When I left that church in 1993, 80 percent of the people were involved in some form […]