Three Things I’ve Learned

I was speaking with a pastor in Iowa the other day and shared that I’d just completed forty years in parish ministry. He offered some generous congratulatory sentiments and thanked me for my service. But then he paused and asked me a really great question: “What has God been showing you during that time?” I […]

Too Tired to Try

“We’ve got lots of opportunities. What we don’t have are the members to take advantage of any of them. Everyone is exhausted.” Exhausted Tired Depleted Wiped Out Let’s be honest, the pandemic and the post-pandemic migration has been rough on all of us. Sign Up for the Free Pastor’s Congregation Resurrection Facebook Live Training Here. […]

What’s That Mean?

WARNING: This isn’t one of our church growth posts. Instead, I’m taking a moment to share what I believe is an important pastoral care/theology kind of question. Read on with that warning 🙂 I teach preaching for the Center for Ministry and Lay Training at Phillips Seminary and one of those Pastoral Care kind of […]

The Five Bare Minimums of Church Growth

Over the years, I’ve worked with a lot of pastors and congregations who claimed they were ready to grow their churches. I’d love to tell you that virtually all of these congregations flourished, but the truth is, that’s rarely the case. The fact is, most churches fail to grow because they miss out on one […]

Quick Strategies for Tiny Churches

This morning, I had the opportunity to reach out to a colleague who was struggling to grow his church. He was averaging about twenty-five, but on Easter there were over 100 who showed up. Since then, though, his congregation has been mostly unwilling to step up to do the work of transformation. He was asking […]

Meet Ray

Ray is twenty-seven years old and works in IT at the local university. He’s been married for three years and he and Jessica just had a baby girl a couple of months ago. Life is pretty good for Ray and Jessica. They own their home – well, the bank owns it, but they bought it. […]