What Every Pastor Should Know about Church Growth
“I just didn’t think it would happen to me.” Those words played hide and seek in my head while I listened to his all-too-common story. Kenneth’s first call to a church had started pretty well. He’d heeded the advice of his seminary professors and spent his first year just “loving on” his congregation and getting […]
Podcast: Four Reasons Some Churches See First-Time Visitors Almost Every Week
By Bill Tenny-Brittian Five-minute podcast [fvplayer src=”https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/effective-church-podcasts/WhySomeChurchesSeeVisitors-Podcast.mp3″] Right-click and save to download
The Failure of Recycling Christians
I live in Missouri, but I’m a Seattle-ite at heart. One of the big cultural differences between the two is their attitude toward recycling. I’m used to looking at every piece of trash and doing the gymnastics to see if there’s a new use for it. Failing that, I move on to deciding which recycling […]
Children in Adult-Targeted Worship – A Response
I hate writing this kind of blog post. Refuting someone else’s well-thought out opinions isn’t in my DNA. But the article “Sunday Schooling Our Kids out of Church” has been gaining some traction in mainline circles and I’m compelled to counter because if the conclusions it offers are taken seriously, the current declines in church will […]
The Three Most Important Rooms in a Church
I tell churches all the time that the three most important rooms in a church building are the worship center, restrooms, and nursery. Most churches don’t understand the importance of these rooms. How do I know this? By simply looking at the way most churches take care of these three rooms. In far too many […]
An Effective Bar Ministry
I got a note the other day asking about what a bar ministry might look like. There are a couple ways that churches are doing successful bar ministries. Here are the two dominant models: A church buys a bar and operates it as one of its outreach ministries. These bars are far from preachy and […]