We get asked about how to turn visitors into returning guests pretty regularly. Over the years, we’ve been gathering some of the best ideas we’ve seen. Recently, I put together a string of some of the best practices from first visit to membership for a pastoral student and thought it might be helpful here. […]
This shouldn’t be news to you … but I keep running into the practice in declining churches.
If you’re still doing a Meet and Greet – or if your “Passing Peace” is a disguised version of the Meet and Greet (and they typically are!) – then
Stop It
Now!
To begin with, the Meet and Greet […]
By Guest Blogger Craig Huss
Published in Net Results Magazine, Nov-Dec 2019
The Tuesday after Thanksgiving, known as GivingTuesday, is a day set aside for people to support the organizations, causes and communities that mean the most to them – often through charitable online donations.
It’s a significant time for religious organizations, which are the nation’s largest […]
When it comes to preaching about “sin” of any sort, I’ve always been of the opinion we should confront sin in the same manner Jesus did … he only ever confronted the hypocritical religious people. He didn’t tell Zacchaeus or Matthew to stop stealing. He didn’t tell the fishermen to stop swearing. He didn’t […]
Few churches know how to offer adequate hospitality to a non-Christian visitor. Being nice, loving, warm, and friendly isn’t the same thing as being hospitable. For instance, does your church bulletin use any of the following words:
InvocationBenedictionDoxologyPrayer ResponsePastoral PrayerHymnOfferingIntroitPreludePostludeor a host of others)
If so, then the bulletin isn’t pre-Christian ready because a […]
In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.Matthew 5:16
This is one of those y’all commands – a command given not to an individual, but to the church, the community, the ekklessia (Greek you=2nd person plural, that is “y’all”).
And […]
“You can’t judge me!” It was a church member who was saying that as the pastor gently explained that their unseemly behavior at the previous board meeting had been unacceptable.
“Judge not” has become the rallying cry for tolerating bullies and terrorists in the church because, well, it just doesn’t seem right to “judge” […]
I can’t tell you how many pastors have said to me, “I don’t want to know what my members give. That’s between them and God.”
But the reality is, if you’re the lead pastor, what your members give IS your business.
When I was a church planter, my trainer asked us, “What is the #1 […]
It happened again. I was speaking with a pastor of a small church at a training event and they admitted that they created the bulletin every week. I asked if anyone else could do it and the pastor said, “No one will step up. I’ve tried.”
That’s not acceptable. Ever. There’s no way a pastor […]
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and then