I was recently teaching a Church Leadership class at Phillips Theological Seminary and a student mentioned the need for the church to be proactive in political issues because Jesus was. I got a bit confused by that comment.
I’m not sure which political issues Jesus confronted. There is no question that he confronted the religious […]
Over the years I’ve found that it can be both tempting and easy to get caught up in the nearly endless discussions around definitions and measurements. When it comes to church transformation in North America, this discussion too often opens as the trap of distraction. The distraction of definitions and measurements has provided far […]
The Key to Understanding Today’s World and the Role of the Church
 Two metaphors will guide us – The National Park and The Jungle. Everyone born before 1980 was born in the National Park world. Everyone born after that was born into The Jungle. Here are the differences:
The National Park
•       Is neatly laid out
•       Predictable […]
My denomination, The United Methodist Church, has just initiated a program called “Praying Our Way Forward.” This is a denomination wide program that begins with Phase One, which is encouraging all the Bishops to agree to spend 15 minutes a day between now and mid-November. So far 84 Bishops are signed up.
Now calling for […]
As Bill Easum has already pointed out, there has been a lot of confusion around the whole Missional, Emergent, Emerging conversation. Most church leaders I speak with couldn’t cogently define the difference with anything like clarity. They’ve read one book and came away with that author’s perspective and for those brave souls, they’ve read […]
History has not been overly kind to most movements. Just reflect on what has happened to the Civil Rights movement after the death of Martin Luther King. It lost most of its momentum. Movements need a strong, charismatic leader. When the leader dies, most movements wane. For these movements to have a lasting impact, it […]
Here’s some research that you should know about – it could give you some pointers on what grows church plants. The research included all major denominations and some 1200 church planters. The survey was limited to churches started after 2007, so there were 843 church planters that fit the criteria. The research was done by […]
In order to connect with the unchurched you have to have three ingredients: a knowledge of God’s word, a good relationship with unchurched people, and the ability to make the leap from a world of organized faith to a world of searching faith. Most clergy and some laity have the first ingredient. However, very few clergy […]
“Oh, that God the gift would give us
to see ourselves as others see us”
Robert Burnes
The Declining Church
Tom Bandy observed, during his recent visit to Australia, that the decline of mainstream institutional Christianity was about ten years more advanced than in the USA and that some of the Australian responses to the “crisis” might be […]
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