As we stand at the cusp of a new year, it’s time to face a hard truth: what used to work in church growth and engagement simply doesn’t cut it anymore. Whether it’s a ripple effect of the post-COVID era or a broader shift in cultural tides, the old playbook of church invitations is […]
We at 21st Century Strategies have been doing church consultations for over twenty-three years and we’ve had the opportunity to study why some churches thrive after a consultant has done their job and why other churches fail. Conversations with other church consultants reveal a lot of the same data. Here’s the bottom line: for […]
This article is a follow up to the previous article on staff management.
Learning how to lead a staff is one of the most important aspects of a pastor’s life if that pastor wants to be an effective leader. Every study shows that the vast majority of churches grow based on their leader and how […]
I’m sure we would all agree that our world is changing faster than at any other time in our lifetime and most likely in all of history. And with such fast paced change we are watching many of the tried and true principles by which pastors have led and grown churches are no longer […]
The church pastor was flummoxed. He had no idea why his church wasn’t growing. He was doing lots of stuff right, but he just couldn’t get any traction. So he called me. After a lengthy conversation, I helped him identify five things he was spending a lot of his time on that weren’t growing […]
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 […]
Back in the mid-1980s, while I was an undergraduate at Florida Baptist College, my professor, Dr. LeRoy Benefield, shared insights that have stayed with me to this day. He recounted a statement from Billy Graham, who estimated that only about 10% of active church members were faithful, practicing disciples of Jesus Christ. This revelation […]
Take an “imaginary” trip with me. The year is 2017, but things are different in some subtle ways. The U.S. military uses horses as its main mode of transportation because horses worked so well during the Civil War. Major companies conduct business through the phone party line because that is what worked for a […]
I was privileged to visit Northpoint’s new Browns Bridge Campus a few months back. This is an amazing story–brand new 3,000 seat auditorium filled twice on Sunday morning. How do they do that?
Part of the answer, or course, is that a whole lot of people came from the main campus at Northpoint. They live […]
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