888-470-2456

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.

Got Effective Members?

We live in a culture where church membership is a moving target. Those considering the move from guest to member may join the church for any number of reasons. Before joining any church, there are some questions a prospective member needs to ask (and answer). For instance, it’s important they feel comfortable with and […]

Delegate, Empower, Grow

If you can learn to delegate and empower others, you can grow a church. Sure, I know … handing off things you think are your responsibilities isn’t easy. In my experience, for most pastors it’s one of the hardest things you’ll have to learn. If you’re like most pastors, you got into this line […]

Adoption: The Congregational Mission

I was visiting a mainline church recently that had been experiencing ongoing and significant decline. The church wasn’t exactly a small church, but it wasn’t huge either. Over 200 people attended worship there every week. The odd thing was that, although this church was in decline in terms of attendance and participation, it was […]

A Very Smart Church: A Christmas Eve Reminder

This post is reprinted from friend and colleague Clif Christopher. It ran on his blog last year, but as you plan for your Christmas Eve service, be thinking about these points.

A Very Smart Church

J. Clif Christopher

Quite frequently in this newsletter I write about something that I witnessed a church do that was “stupid” (my […]

10 Things We Wish We’d Learned in Seminary

This brief list was inspired by a blog post by Ben Reed at http://www.benreed.net/.

Once I read it, I thought I’d jot down my own top ten list and I asked Bill Easum to do the same. I found it interesting to see what we identified.

Bill T-B’s List

That today’s churches need leaders more than they […]

Anatomy of a Poison Pen Letter

Every effective pastor gets a poison pen letter at least once during their careers. They’re never nice to get and they can cause a lot of anxiety and self-doubt. Frankly, they can send an otherwise well-adjusted, healthy pastor into a tailspin. They shouldn’t, but shouldn’t doesn’t cut it in the real world.

When one of […]

Tragedy in the Making

I caught a glance at a blog post from Serene Jones, the president of Union Theological Seminary, and was struck yet again at how little surprises me, but I never cease to be amazed.

The post is titled “Why Attend Seminary?” and somehow my curiosity was roused and I glanced through her musings. It was […]

Status Updates Matter

I’m always amazed, but seldom surprised, by the content of status updates I see church leaders, especially pastors, making these days. One pastor was apparently having a bad day (or week, month, year, or ministry… I wasn’t sure which) and he let the world know that life pretty much sucked for him. I wondered […]

The Summer Express: What I’ve Learned from Locomotion

It’s always bothered me to spend months busting my backside to get an effective ministry launched in September/October only to have it roll to a virtual stop by mid-June. Sure, there are lots of excuses for the “summer slump,” but it turns out that most of these slumps happen because churches don’t just get […]