Postmodern Contrast to Modern

The following are some contrasts between modernity and postmodernity

Modern – intellect, teaching, know
PoMo- spirit, experience, sense

Modern – linear thinking and processes
PoMo – overlapping, juxtaposition without contradiction

Modern – either/or
PoMo – both/and/also

Modern – prove it to me
PoMo – show me

Modern – institutional
PoMo – organic

Modern – utopic vision for future society
PoMo – change or be changed – […]

Christmas Sunday 2022

Remembering back to when I was pastoring a growing church, I had to face a particularly issue in both 2005 and 2016. Those were years when December 25th fell on a Sunday. This year, 2022, Christmas day is also on a Sunday.

So how should your church plan services as Christmas day is Sunday, knowing […]

Turning Members into Ministers

At my final worship service from the church I planted, pastored and grew for over twenty years, two of the staff members I had discipled since they started attending, walked on to the platform each carrying a five foot tall, three feet wide cardboard poster of my head. From behind these giant facial facades, […]

12 Days of Christmas Tools

“I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people” (Luke 2:10b NIV). 

Christmas is the good news of great joy for all people. Christmas should be a party — a birthday party for Jesus. It’s the reason we say, “Merry Christmas.”

So how do we as church leaders keep Christ in […]

How to Develop Attention-Grabbing Sermon Series

I’m constantly being asked about the importance of sermon series and what the best way is to go about doing them. The questions are all over the map, ranging from pastors in their first year to seasoned veterans who realize we are no longer in the 1950s. So I thought I would share a few […]

“Crazy” Busy

If you feel busier now than ever before, and if you wonder if you can keep up this pace much longer, you are not alone. Most of us in ministry feel slightly bewildered, realizing we have more to do than we have time to do it.

In the church we seem to equate busyness with […]

Church Growth Failure

Some of you may remember the Church Growth Movement of the sixties and seventies. Great leaders such as Donald McGavran and Win Arn led the movement and soon every church in town was running programs like Bring a Friend Sunday and doing follow-up with visitors. Every time you turned around, there was a new […]

Time for Kids

With kids going back to school, now is a great time to think about reaching kids with the gospel of Christ by attracting them to your children’s ministry. I have long believed that attracting young families can be crucial to your church’s growth. I even dedicated a chapter of my new book Church Turnaround […]

From Doers to Equippers – Part Three

What happens during the transition?

The pastor must carefully and slowly chip away at destroying the dependent culture and establishing a growth culture. For eight years, I chipped away at changing the culture to one of equipping. I spent those 8 years filtering out whom I had to see and get fired and whom I […]