The Two Things Church Offers
I am so tired of fights about church. Â We laud spirituality over “religion.” Â Face it, Christianity is a religion. Â Nothing wrong with religion. Â What’s wrong is when we get lost, when the world only sees hypocrisy and a disconnect with daily life. I was recently at a meeting where we talked about conflict in the […]
The Only Goal for Church Success
There are some churches with great vitality in our nation. Â That is awesome. Â But most of you who read this, if you happen to go to church, are a part of a congregation that struggles. Â Welcome to the 21st century American religious reality. It is mind boggling how quickly the spiritual climate has changed. Â Fifty […]
Don’t Miss This
Just a quick word at Easter. I was watching the TV tribute to the Bee Gees. And I thought what it must be like to have such a tribute made about you and all of the millions of people watching, just for you. Then my thoughts went back to the Easter Tomb that popped open […]
Two Skills Every Pastor and Staff Must Master
There are many leadership skills that are important. But there are two skills that overshadow all the rest. If a staff can master these two skills, there is no way a church can keep from reaching more people for Christ. Want to know what they are? Sure you do. So here goes. Skill Number One: […]
Reaching Millennials
Remember when it was all the rage in mainline churches to write and preach about how different it was to try to reach Baby Boomers, then Gen Xers? Now we are faced with the same challenge to reach Millennials. It seems that things never change for mainliners – we are always behind the curve, looking […]
Is It Time to Drop the Requirement?
I’ve been watching the trend escalate for the past decade. For centuries, it has been the practice of non-mainline groups. But for the last couple of decades its has been a rising factor in thriving churches. I’m talking about the rise and effectiveness of non-seminary trained pastors.  It used to be that pastors like enormously […]