Killers that Stunt Your Personal and Organizational Growth

Turn around or growth are usually the result of some action taken by the leadership.

Usually its not the little changes that kill a church, but the big changes that go untried.  Either leadership is afraid of these BIG changes or they can’t even imagine them.  Either way, nothing is deadlier than ignoring the BIG […]

Turnaround Is Messy and Lonely

Turning a church around is a messy and lonely responsibility. I know because I did it three times and each time the early years were depressing enough to damped even the strongest spirit. When you consider where the church is and where it needs to go, attempting a turn around appears to be an […]

The Basic Law of Congregational Life

Over the past twenty-five years I’ve worked with almost seven hundred churches of all sizes and locations. Most in the U.S. but some in Canada, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, and Ghana. And one overarching truth has emerged from my experiences in these churches – I call this truth  The Basic Law of Congregational Life. […]

Thinking Like the Unchurched

I used to fish a lot. And one of the things I had to learn was to fish where there were fish. That makes sense. But to accomplish that I had to learn how to think like a fish. Fish don’t think, but if they did they wouldn’t think the way we do. If […]

Our Changing World and the Church and Education

I was fortunate enough that my formative years experienced incremental change. I saw lots of changes, TV, commercial air travel, atomic bomb, A/C, cell phones to name just a few, but each of these changes took place slowly enough for me to adapt easily to them. I spent years watching black and white TV […]

Is It Time to Drop the Requirement?

I’ve been watching the trend escalate for the past decade. For centuries, it has been the practice of non-mainline groups. But for the last couple of decades its has been a rising factor in thriving churches.

I’m talking about the rise and effectiveness of non-seminary trained pastors.  It used to be that pastors like enormously […]

Mostly For United Methodist Eyes – Bloom Where You’re Planted

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 […]

Your Church’s Place in a Crazy Changing World

In my last post, I made a comment about being in a crazy world. But it’s more than just a crazy world. It’s a changing world, at the most fundamental level  From the unprecedented election of Barack Obama, the first African American, to the unprecedented election of Donald Trump, the first non-politician, one can’t […]

Paradigm Factors

A paradigm is a framework containing the basic assumptions, ways of thinking, and methodologies that are commonly accepted and shared by members of any discipline or group.  As such paradigms determine how we interpret life. Here are some of the factors you will need to be aware of when you attempt any kind of […]