I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Over the past several weeks I’ve been hither and yon across the country training church leaders in evangelism and church transformation. One would think with the way things are that leaders would be ready to hear what’s working. But by and large, that’s not the case. And the […]
I got an email from a faithful blog reader last week who mentioned I did a good job pointing out the shortcomings of the church, but that there wasn’t much there in terms of what a healthy, functional, faithful, effective congregation looks like. The fact is, it’s a lot easier to find fault with […]
I had a conversation recently with a small group of mainline pastors and the conversation naturally turned to church transformation and church growth. When I asked how they measured whether their churches were growing, plateauing, or declining I started getting the typical excuses and defensive posturing I so often hear.
“Numbers aren’t important.”“Numbers don’t really […]
I received so many responses to my last post on the Top Five Reasons Churches Don’t Grow that I could probably blog a new post on any one of the comments and have almost a month’s worth of writing.
However, a comment from TF brought back a flood of thoughts that I thought I’d share. […]
Every time I pick up a mainline hymnal that was printed anytime after 1990 I get just a little bit disgusted. In an effort to save our sensibilities and to be as politically/theologically “correct” as possible, many of the old hyms were lyrically changed. Now, I’m all for inclusive language and all that, but […]
The other day I got a Twitter question from Phil Longmire, a church planter in Richmond, TX. We were talking about church planting priorities and I was saying how important it is for planters to be out of the office, away from the computer, and out in the public’s eye. So he Tweeted me […]
During Advent, I’ve been reading James A. Harnish’s Advent Calendar of Devotions from Abingdon Press. One of the short passages sent my head reeling and my heart racing:
“Jesus was not born in Bethlehem to make the darkness more manageable.”
And yet, this is the very gospel we see presented in church after church after church. […]
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