If You Have a Blurry Vision, You Have a Bleak Future

You’ve heard me say it before. If you’ve got to herd cats, you’ll need a bigger mouse.

Your church cats will chase the biggest mouse in the room, and if your Big Mouse Vision is smaller than someone else’s, you’ll lose their attention every time. The wise and successful pastor stays on his/her knees until […]

Be a Mentor and Be Mentored

The word “mentor” is defined as “a wise and trusted counselor or teacher.” Throughout my over 30 years of pastoral ministry, I have had many trusted teachers who have counseled me, encouraged me, corrected me and redirected when I had made some poor decisions. In similar fashion I have made it a point […]

Hope or Hype?

There’s been a lot of talk across the channels about the Public Religion Research Institute’s release of the 2020 Survey of American Religion (PPRI 2020 America Religion Survey Results). The study is primarily concerned with faith adherents by faith affiliation, political affiliation, age, ethnicity, education, and location (by county). The study is statistically significant […]

Will You Be a Church Without Walls?

Increasingly, congregations are returning to their church buildings. Just how long that will last is yet to be seen, but increasingly, church leaders have felt and succumbed to the pressure to return to “in person” worship. With giving at historic low levels, we can’t hardly blame them for the return. However, it seems, that […]

Virtual Innovation

Jesus has left the building … the Body of Christ has been thrust out of it’s structures and many church leaders were unprepared for the transition from Y’all Come to … trying to figure how how to “do” church in a virtual world.

The Effective Church Group and Net Results Magazine needs your help … […]

Post Covid-19 … a Look Forward – Part 01

One of the things The Effective Church has been known for is our attempts to take a peek into what the future might hold. Bill Easum was a master of the art and, as time has shown, he was right more often than he was wrong (okay, to be fair, mega churches are still […]

New Wine Part 5

Change is difficult. Change in a church is even harder, sometimes, nearly impossible. So what do you do if you are trying to change the culture of a traditional church that is dying? First let me tell you what you don’t do. I most always suggest to churches that they don’t radically change their worship […]

New Wineskins-Part 1

The Wall Street Journal reports that one of the key reasons for the continued growth of McDonalds restaurants is their continually embracing of change. What began as the original fast food provider of burgers, fries and a soft drink or shake, now daily serves pancakes, eggs and bacon or sausage for those who want […]

Killers that Stunt Your Personal and Organizational Growth

Turn around or growth are usually the result of some action taken by the leadership.

Usually its not the little changes that kill a church, but the big changes that go untried.  Either leadership is afraid of these BIG changes or they can’t even imagine them.  Either way, nothing is deadlier than ignoring the BIG […]