Finance
By: Tom Bandy
As I write this, it is almost April, and another tax deadline looms. People over 45 are scrambling to get their tax receipts from the church, so they can apply for a deduction. But people under 45 are calculating their tax refund and wondering how a faithful Christian might spend a portion […]
Communication
By: Tom Bandy
The more worship becomes part of a discipline of spiritual growth, the more churches are finding ways to interface worship with long-distance education. The Uncommon Lectionary, for example, really demands that churches develop websites, blogs, exclusive access email forums … and podcasting.
Podcasting is really an evolution from blogging that embeds an audio […]
A Kingdom Mindset is What We Need
By: Bill Easum
The other day a church planter told me “Now that we are up and running and growing we’ve had several churches in the area say: ‘Hey, it looks like we’re in competition now.’ No one seemed to worry about us when we were just starting but […]
Why Church Plants Don’t Reach Their Potential
By: Bill Easum
My hearts aches.
Too many new church plants either don’t make it past eighteen months or remain so small they can barely survive, much less thrive. Why do so many church plants not reach their potential?
It certainly isn’t because they don’t try or don’t care. Church planters […]
Turning around a church is not for the fainthearted or the impatient. Churches that have been experiencing decline also tend to experience rapid leader turnover.
In business, the fault of this rapid turnover tends to be laid at the feet of the leaders who get frustrated and move on. In churches, however, the turnover can […]
Renovate Before You Innovate
By: Bill Tenny-Brittian
(from the book by Sergio Zyman – the man behind the failed New Coke campaign)“Obsession with innovation is a current business fad,” says Zyman. But it’s not just a business fad – in recent years many church leaders have fallen prey to the mythical magic pill solution. Something works […]
Winning Streaks
By: Bill Easum
I just finished watching the 40th Super Bowl. It was a see-saw battle of momentum. One team had it and then another. You could feel the momentum change on the field and you could see it in the faces of the players on the sidelines. But neither side built momentum to […]
For the week of February 20, 2006
How Do You Spell Leadership
By: Bill Easum
How do you SPELL leadership? Try it this way: Specific Preparation Enables Loving Leaderships. I imagine all of us understand that to preach a great sermon requires various forms of preparation. That’s sort of obvious. But what isn’t as obvious is that […]
Democratic Rule
By: Bill Easum
Most of my ministry (a span of almost fifty years) has been accomplished within the framework of two denominations whose polity was some form of democratic rule. In other words, to get something done it had to be voted on either by the congregation or a group of elected representatives of […]