Getting Beyond the Mirror
The other night, I met with a new church plant’s core leadership for a planning session. Each member of the leadership core has served the church literally for years and are all excited about making a difference in their community. The new church is using a cell group model for their church plant and have […]
Being Strategic
During my time (Bill Easum) as a consultant I have been amazed at how often I find declining churches doing ministries that have little to do with their future. Some of these ministries were great ministries in the past; some never had much value to the church or Christianity. Even though these churches were rapidly declining […]
Which Voices Are of the Spirit?
Many new voices are on the horizon claiming to be the wave of the future. That’s both exciting and a bit scary. Let me mention a few of the leading contenders – The Incarnational Movement, The Emergent Movement, The House Church Movement, The Emerging Church Movement, The Outward-Focused Church Movement, The Revolution Argument – I could go […]
You Can’t Lead Where You’re Not Going
I hear about it all too often. Some pastor shares his/her frustration because they can’t rally the congregation to get serious about evangelism. Or follow-up. Or missions within the community. The list goes on and on. But when I ask the all important question, “So, when was the last time you personally introduced someone to […]
You Get What You Look For
When I work in a church with a large staff invariably two of three of the staff have all of the volunteers they need while the rest of the staff complain that no one in the church will volunteer to serve. If there are ten full time paid staff, two will have lots of volunteers, […]
Measuring Results in Mission Impact (Part 4 of 4)
There are at least five ways to quantitatively measure mission involvement, and at least five ways to measure mission effectiveness. Measure mission involvement: These measurements are in ascending order of importance … from least significant to most significant. 1) Property use: How many community organizations completely aligned with your congregational mission use your space during the […]