Start a New Message Series on Easter

For most churches, Easter is the best-attended Sunday of the year and many of those in attendance will be those who only attend on Christmas and Easter. Each year at this time I would ask myself what kind of series should I begin on Easter Sunday that would hopefully make everyone present make spiritual […]

Attracting Men To Your Church

Some years ago, after reading David Murrow’s book, “Why Men Hate Going to Church”, I realized that most people assume that men are just less religious than women, but this is untrue. Other religions have little trouble attracting males and Jesus was a magnet to men. But today, few men are living for Christ, […]

Should Sermon’s Have a Call-To-Action?

Every Sunday, thousands of church leaders stand up on their church’s platform and begin to speak. Like Jesus who took the scroll of Isaiah, read a passage, and then offered words of explanation, these leaders start with the scriptures and offer their (hopefully) God-given insights in the hopes of sharing something that will actually […]

War Ship Small Groups

I recently had a student who designed a new small group system for her church and called them War Ship Small Groups.

And she was uniformly eaten by a couple of students for using battle language … I guess because that kind of language is pointedly missing from the Bible (I don’t know which […]

Preaching Sin?

When it comes to preaching about “sin” of any sort, I’ve always been of the opinion we should confront sin in the same manner Jesus did … he only ever confronted the hypocritical religious people. He didn’t tell Zacchaeus or Matthew to stop stealing. He didn’t tell the fishermen to stop swearing. He didn’t […]

Is Your Worship Pre-Christian Ready?

Few churches know how to offer adequate hospitality to a non-Christian visitor. Being nice, loving, warm, and friendly isn’t the same thing as being hospitable. For instance, does your church bulletin use any of the following words:

InvocationBenedictionDoxologyPrayer ResponsePastoral PrayerHymnOfferingIntroitPreludePostludeor a host of others)

If so, then the bulletin isn’t pre-Christian ready because a […]

Don’t Start with the Bible

When I went to seminary, we were taught that the best, most authentic, relevant way to preach was to create an expository sermon. For the uninitiated that’s a sermon that starts with a scripture passage, “expose” it by digging in to teach what the passage says, what the author meant, and then apply it […]

Tell ‘Em What To Do

What’s the most important thing about your sermon?

Is it the scripture you start with?
The introduction that gets the congregation on board?
The stories they’ll remember for the rest of their lives?
The exposition of the deeper truths of the biblical passage?
The application of those truths to real life?
The invitation?

Let’s agree that they’re all important. A well […]