Black Friday

The term “Black Friday” began to be used in the 1960s mostly in the east, but since 2000 it has caught on across the country. The term refers to the day when retailers make their move to being in “the black” financially. Yeah, we all know that people go crazy the day after Thanksgiving – it must […]

C. Peter Wagner, Churchquake!

Wagner, C. PeterChurchquake!,

Churchquake!, by C. Peter Wagner (Ventura, CA, Regal Books, A Division of Gospel Light, 1999) 276 pages, hardback, $12.99. (Obtain from Regal Books, A Division of Gospel Light, www.gospellight.com)

A book you should beg, borrow, or steal.  C. Peter Wagner sees a new movement of God emerging that he calls the New Apostolic Reformation.  A […]

Easter Evangelism Outreaches

With Easter coming soon there are some unique opportunities that you and your church can do to serve your community while promoting your Easter services.

Servant Evangelism is a term I learned from Steve Sjogren whose book, “A Conspiracy of Kindness” pointed me in the direction of seasonal missional outreaches. According to Sjogren, “servant evangelism […]

Stop Playing Pastor Fetch

🎶 Oh the games churches play now. 🎶

If you’re old enough to remember that old Joe South song (well, the original version anyway!), then you’ve been in ministry long enough to be familiar with the most popular game churches play with the pastor.

I call it pastor fetch.

I learned about pastor fetch early on […]

The Missional Church: Christianity Redefined as Paradox

Missional is the buzzword of the day. You can get new life and extra mileage out of almost any church topic by adding “missional” to otherwise ordinary words. But add Missional to Christianity and many Western Christians start getting uncomfortable. As the missional church redefines Christianity, and make no mistake about it, Christianity as […]

God is Able

By: Jeff Patton

I just spent a weekend with a Church discovering this congregation’s purpose.   To accomplish this we spent the weekend studying Scripture and coming to term with the underlying principles that ought to govern all we do.

We spent Friday night discovering our values.  We came to the conclusion that Love, Forgiveness, Hope, Grace and […]

Avoid the Three Deadly Coaching Blunders

by Bill Tenny-Brittian

Many church leaders give coaching a try. They’ve read and heard about the new wave of leadership development through effective coaching and so they decide to implement it in their context. Sadly, when all is said and done, most coaching programs sputter to a standstill and coach and coachees end up disillusioned and […]

Why the Mainline is Shrinking …

I have the good fortune to be working with a mainline pastor who gets it and is working hard on the transformation process at his church. After he read my blog on my frustrations as a consultant, he wrote me an email that contains the following questions (reprinted here with his express permission).
“I was […]

Three Hard Choices Effective Leaders Make

Effective church leadership is the most glamourless, thankless, and frustrating job on the planet.

I make that emphatic statement based on two observations. First, I’m unaware of any other sector, profit or non-profit, that is seeing 85 percent of all operation centers facing serious decline – and the leaders of course are shouldered with the […]