Spiritual Midwives

Tom and I feel that Spiritual Midwives is one of the best metaphors for the type of leadership needed in the 21st century.  This metaphor puts the emphasis not on what the leader accomplishes but what the leader helps others accomplish with their life.

The Spiritual midwife metaphor conveys the following clues for leadership in the […]

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 […]

Two More Weeks!

By Jeff Patton

I heard it again today.  Dramatic turnaround in congregations occurs about two weeks after you have decided to throw in the towel.  Two weeks.  Two weeks.

I remember years ago when that was true for me.  I was stymied by the controllers who were hindering every new project, each new idea being ground […]

Five Secrets to the First-Century Church

When I read the Acts of the Apostles I am constantly reminded that the early Church exhibited five basic attributes that are missing today in most declining congregations.  But when I see these five attributes alive and well in a congregation, that church is almost always growing and reaching out to the lost. […]

Lessons from the Parsonage

Lessons from the parsonage
If you have been reading these articles for sometime, I think you are about to notice something about future articles: they are about to become a whole lot more practical and realistic. I am now writing from the perspective of a fellow worker in the trenches.

My new church has a parsonage next door […]

What is Leadership?

What is the one thing a leader needs the most to succeed? If we have the answer to that question, everything else falls into place. So here goes. The thing most needed for someone to succeed as a leader is a deep conviction that what they are attempting is God’s plan for them at […]

Shy Is Not a Disability

Let’s start off with a fact. You can’t change introversion. If you get exhausted being around a group of people (every group of people, not just certain ones), then you’re probably introverted. And introverted is “who” you are – it’s a personality trait that you can’t change on a whim.

However, according to lots of […]

When Will You Hip Hop?

Do you remember the fight your church had when you added a drum kit to the sanctuary’s platform?

Well, that’s nothing compared to what’s coming.

Maybe you haven’t heard the news: As of 2019, Hip Hop is the number one selling music genre in the US … it surpassed rock-n-roll rather handily.

So, when will you […]

You Can Do Better Than PowerPoint

I don’t tend to do blog posts that say, “Yeah, what he said,” but this is a rare exception. Seth Godin writes a business blog that I subscribe to. I started following him when he said some things about PowerPoint presentations that I found to be true in the church… that is, that most of […]