My reading this summer hasn’t produced a lot of excellent books, but it has produced three excellent books that are worth purchasing.
Perhaps the best book of this summer and perhaps this year is The Age of the Unthinkable, By Joshua Cooper Ramo
If you’re ready to stretch your brain and learn from a wide variety […]
Glenn Kelley at www.churchmedic.com found a great 60 second video on how to train fleas in three days. It’s a great video and I’ve embedded it here as well. Take a look and then scroll down for more.
I’ve often quipped that if a church tries something new in worship it’s called innovation. If it […]
Some time ago, Martin Marty was quoted in Tom Clegg’s Lost in America that about 3000 people per day in the West (outside of the Bible Belt in the US South) leave the Christian faith – not the church, the faith. There really wasn’t much evidence outside of his work to support the contention […]
I’m constantly asked about the keys to moving through the various barriers churches face. Over the years I compiled my list. Since this post was lost in the transfer of our site, I’m reposting it.
Staff becomes far more essential to the journey.
Pastor has to hone his or her hiring skills.
All staff […]
I’m working with a church established in the 1990s that grew up to 200 the year it moved into its permanent building in the late 90’s. Then it began to decline and has been declining every year since and is now down in the low 100’s.
We see this kind of decline often in new […]
I think most people would say I was a good leader while pastoring. All three of my churches grew while I was there. Still, twice I needed to bring in a consultant.
Lyle Schaller was the first consultant. I had been at the church for eleven or twelve years after restarting the church and some […]
It goes without saying that most pastors know that worship attendance in the summer usually marks the all time low for the year.  We know not only attendance but income will slump. We don’t think it has to, at least not as much as most churches experience.  We think the Summer Slump is almost a self-fulfilling […]
Over twenty years of consulting with more than 40 denominations has allowed me to see some common tactical mistakes made by church leaders. Although I have seen many mistakes, six stand out as the most common tactical mistakes made by church leaders (I have ranked them according to the damage they can do to a […]
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. At least for the church it is … or should be. This is the one time of the year when the word Christ, though well disguised, is on the lips of pretty much everyone regardless of their beliefs. This is the one season of the year […]
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