Every year, I make plans for growing the church. Valentine’s Day banquet. Big Easter launch. Spring Marriage Enrichment event. Summer Day Camp. Four Business as Ministry seminars and cohort groups. Back to School kickoff. City-wide Trunk-or-Treat in our parking lot. And so on.
And every year, at least three-fourths of all those planned events fail […]
We grow in Christ as we come to Christ.
We must believe.
For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. Romans 10:10 (NIV)
We enter into a relationship with Christ through believing and we grow by faith.
We must surrender to Christ […]
We went out to connect with retail shops by offering to clean their toilets. We simply walked into these places with our cleaning kits in hand and said, “Hi, we’re here to clean your toilets – for free – to show you a bit of God’s kindness.” Pretty much everyone gave us a funny […]
I was watching one of “those” movies the other day. In this case, the space ships were flying and the ground troops were storming the asteroid. Suddenly reinforcements for the axis of evil show up and the good guys have to regroup and retreat to fight another day. Except one of the ground troops […]
40 days is a significant time period in the Bible. In the Old Testament, when God destroyed the earth with water, He caused it to rain 40 days and 40 nights. Moses was on Mount Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights receiving the 10 Commandments. In the New Testament, Jesus was tempted for […]
One of the biggest mistakes some UM Churches do is to turn the Pastor Parish Relations Committee into a Staff Parish Relations Committee. On the surface this sounds democratic and good. Everyone on the staff has direct access to the personnel committee. However, there are many ramifications of this decision and only one of […]
Recently, I heard the pastor of a smaller church bemoaning the Sunday morning competition with the local sports teams. He was asking whether or not the church could even compete in today’s culture.
Frankly, the only smart way to compete is to compete to win – and that begins by being brutally honest with what […]
I recently had a great conversation with an older member of a fast-shrinking congregation. She was looking for resources on how to improve communications within her congregation and she was finding precious few resources … could I help? Sure, I could help. But before we went further, I asked her to tell me what […]
I’m preparing to speak to the Presbyterian Church of Canada in a couple of months. They chose as the subject “The Emmaus Project.” It consists of selected churches from all over Canada.
As I was preparing, I got stuck on the tiny phrase the two pilgrims who walked with Jesus said once he had left […]
Gallery
Gallery
Gallery
Gallery
Gallery