About Bill Tenny-Brittian

Bill is the Managing Partner at The Effective Church Group. He began ministry as a church planter in the early 1980s and over the past 40 years he's grown churches from one side of the nation to the other. In 2002 he joined Bill Easum's consultation group and began partnering with churches and church leaders to help them reach their fullest potential. He is the author of twelve books and the editor of Net Results magazine. Reach Bill here.

Changing a Congregation’s Ethos: Not an Overnight Job

This is an excerpt from my upcoming book 21st Century Strategies for Church Growth.

Too many church members, and indeed too many churches, carry an attitude of entitlement rather than commitment. They act as if they’ve paid their admission price and now the rest of the church has to coddle and cow-tow to their every […]

Classic Worship Leaders and Worship Bands

Music isn’t just a part of worship for today’s generations – it is the primary act of worship. Whereas classic worship services break up songs with other worship tools, such as responsive readings, prayers, etc., successful alternative worship services produce music sets similar to that of a concert, with one song leading directly into […]

It’s Nominations Time: Thou Shalt Not Settle

Here’s yet another excerpt from 21st Century Strategies for Church Growth.

One of the missing ingredients in today’s church is accountability. As church leaders, we are often so grateful to have volunteers who serve that we’re willing to overlook poor attitudes, bad behavior, and even a lack of integrity. In other words, we settle for […]

Avoiding Planning Paralysis

I caught an article in an old issue of Entrepreneur magazine (Oct 2103) by Sam Hogg, a professor at the Michigan Business School, that got me thinking. He said that his students are always asking about entrepreneurism and he shared a couple of the most common questions he gets. It was the first question that sent […]

A Quiet Mainline Rant

There are lots of things that frustrate church consultants. For me, at least lately, the biggest bang-my-head-against-a-wall issue is denominational distractions.

Let me give you a real-world example. Last summer, my denomination (Disciples of Christ) took a historical vote on who’s welcome on which side of the Lord’s Table. We’re not the first mainline denomination […]

The Church Leader Mandate

This is a VERY brief excerpt from my upcoming book, 21st Century Strategies for Church Growth.

A Note to Church Leaders: Church leaders have a different mandate than the average church member. At-large church members are charged with the care of one another (other Christians and fellow church members in particular). Church leaders, however, are charged […]

Rethink Your Budget Priorities

I was reading an article by Amy Butler on the ABP News site recently on the season of church budgets. She was responding to a writer who was comparing church budgets with budgets of other nonprofit organizations. Basically, the writer was complaining that the church spent too much money on staff and buildings and […]

Liturgy, Pentecostalism, and the Unchurched

I just returned from a place where I was working with a new church start from one of the “confessional” churches… one of those that, by and large, practices a formal liturgy. In this case, the church had relaxed the liturgy a bit, but to those not raised in a smells-and-bells church, even their relaxed […]

A Lesson in “Getting It”

My wife is currently the pastor of a small church here in Columbia, Missouri (Oakland Christian). It’s a small church, but putting what she knows about church growth, evangelism, follow-up, and leadership development into action the church has recently begun to show growth – especially with the younger adult crowd.

The church’s nursery is in […]