What Mainline Pastors Can Learn from Non-Mainline Planters
Over the past couple of months, I’ve been conducting interviews with pastors of church planting churches, and a couple of things keep reoccurring in all of the interviews. I thought I would single them out and show what mainline denominations could learn from them. Church Planting Common Denominators A Kingdom orientation is the number one […]
Too Many Pastors Are Wasting Their Lives: Responses
My recent article “Too Many Pastors Are Wasting Their Lives” must have hit some raw nerves. We’ve had over 16,000 hits on the blog post. Most of them were supportive, but some were downright angry, and many of them missed the point of the article. It’s amazing to me how many people hear what they want […]
Church Planting Isn’t the Goal: Interview with Wayne Cordeiro
Wayne Cordeiro is known for effectively planting hundreds of churches over a long period of years, but in a recent interview with me he said, “I’m learning that Church planting isn’t the goal; discipleship is! Church planting is actually a byproduct of biblical discipleship.” Everyone needs to let that statement soak in. Cordeiro has shifted […]
Transformational Small Groups
One of the key elements of most discipleship pipelines I’ve seen is what I call “transformational small groups.” The problem is, when most people hear “small groups,” they think of Bible studies, which is far from what is meant by a transformational small group. Let’s look at the difference. Most ineffective small groups are primarily […]
Too Many Pastors Are Wasting Their Lives
I love pastors. I was one for thirty years. But my heart goes out to them because most of them are wasting their lives. Let me tell you why. Statistics show that some 85% of the churches in the U.S. are either on a plateau or are declining. Some of these churches can be turned around, […]
A New Scorecard for Churches in Any Age
Scorecards are valuable in any game because they tell you whether or not you’re winning. If it is important to know if you’re winning in a game, how much more important is it to know if you are “winning” as a church? It eternally matters! I’m one of those people who believes that if you […]