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.

What Will It Take For Mainline Denominations To Grow Again?

Nobody will argue that mainline denominations are in decline. It doesn’t matter if the decline is 80 percent or 65 percent as suggested by a recent Barna study, mainline denominations are seeing fewer and fewer people in the pews. This decline begs a question – “What will it take to turn this decline around?”

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The Rule of One

The other day I had an inquiry from a pastor I am coaching. Her question was “You said we need to move our 8:30 contemporary service to 9:45 because it is too early to reach young adults. But we have one family who refuses to move. What should we do?”

The Rule of One answers […]

Doctrine is Ruining Christianity

In the first and second centuries, the leadership capacity of a Christian was seen in whether they had been with Jesus or had been associated with one of the original disciples rather than what they believed. What they taught or believed was overshadowed by whom they had been with. Relationship with Jesus or his […]

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Work

I received a couple of emails this weeks inquiring about an onsite consultation. They told me their sad story (and believe me, it was sad and detailed) and then asked if I could help. I gave them a quick overview of what issues I saw in what they said and then said one of […]

Don’t Miss This

Just a quick word at Easter.

I was watching the TV tribute to the Bee Gees. And I thought what it must be like to have such a tribute made about you and all of the millions of people watching, just for you. Then my thoughts went back to the Easter Tomb that popped open […]

Two Skills Every Pastor and Staff Must Master

There are many leadership skills that are important. But there are two skills that overshadow all the rest. If a staff can master these two skills, there is no way a church can keep from reaching more people for Christ. Want to know what they are? Sure you do. So here goes.

Skill Number One: […]

Reaching Millennials

Remember when it was all the rage in mainline churches to write and preach about how different it was to try to reach Baby Boomers, then Gen Xers? Now we are faced with the same challenge to reach Millennials. It seems that things never change for mainliners – we are always behind the curve, […]

Is It Time to Drop the Requirement?

I’ve been watching the trend escalate for the past decade. For centuries, it has been the practice of non-mainline groups. But for the last couple of decades its has been a rising factor in thriving churches.

I’m talking about the rise and effectiveness of non-seminary trained pastors.  It used to be that pastors like enormously […]

Mostly For United Methodist Eyes – Bloom Where You’re Planted

Take an “imaginary” trip with me. The year is 2017, but things are different in some subtle ways. The U.S. military uses horses as its main mode of transportation because horses worked so well during the Civil War. Major companies conduct business through the phone party line because that is what worked for a […]