I was speaking with a young mainline pastor (we’ll call her Rev. Rebecca) who was sharing about her “coach.” The “coach” was the pastor at a nearby church. She had significant church leadership experience, had been successful by most matrices, and was willing to give her time to meet with the young pastor. Rev. […]
I recently got a note from a pastor who thought that we at The Effective Church Group are down on small churches … that the only faithful churches are large churches. “The larger the better, it seems.”
Let me crystal clear: There’s nothing wrong with small churches. In the words of some smartie, “God […]
I read a goal statement for a youth program recently. In sum, the statement read:
The goal for the Youth Program is to reach the youth in our congregation and encourage them to bring a friend to each gathering.
The question I pondered on was what does it mean to “reach the youth”? An […]
Most visions fail for two reasons: (1) They fall off the radar for lack of ongoing leadership support and communication; and (2) The next steps get left out.
Once you have a vision, then a strategy for reaching that vision must be chosen. And once there’s a strategy, then milestones must be discerned and […]
Truth be known, most church leaders don’t hit the Church Growth Panic Button until the money hits the fan. At the moment it becomes clear that the endowments aren’t going to last forever and the only remaining line item in the budget left to slash is the part-time salary of the beloved eighty-two year […]
I was working with a church leader who was in process of creating a vision. Here’s our exchange:
A quick vision lesson … which is more compelling?
My Vision would be to be a place that young families can go to in order to realize that they are not the only one feeling the way that […]
There’s a marketing axiom that says if you try and market to everyone, you market to no one.
It works that way in the church too. When a church tries to reach “everyone,” it effectively reaches no one. That doesn’t mean everyone isn’t welcome … if everyone isn’t welcome, you’re not running a church, […]
We wring our hands and bemoan the rise of kid sports and the losses in our Sunday schools. Sunday is no longer sacrosanct and reserved for “Church Use Only.” Today’s families have choices to make and to be fair, they take their choice-making pretty seriously.
It turns out, parents have their kids participating in […]
We live in a microwave world. Time is our most precious commodity, so we favor anything that speeds up the process. Instant oats. Instant potatoes. Instant copies. Instant answers. Even love at first sight.
Relationships don’t fit on the microwave turntable. They’re more of a crock pot kind of affair. They take time to […]
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