A Step By Step Guide to Breaking the 200 Attendance Barrier: An Interview with Martin Daland [Podcast]
How do you break the 200 attendance barrier? Martin Daland became the senior leader in a conflicted small church of 180. Within two years, he saw his church grow to more than 300. He talks about how he changed pastoral care, fought burn out, and got the church healthy. Amazingly, he did this in Norway, where only 5% of the population attends church. But the application is universal. Listen Now
2 Reasons Growing Churches May Stall
Our church grew and grew and we hit about 150 to 160, while we were in a tiny little building. So we moved into a local school, and within about a year we grew to almost 400. Then we started dropping like a rock. Read More
Urban church embraces creativity, holds outdoor baptism
Mosaic church seeks ways to creatively minister to Nashville. Read More
5 Shifts in Church Planting In the Last 10 Years
Ten years have passed since the release of Planting Missional Churches, the biggest and most important book that Ed Stetzer has written. Now, Daniel Im has partnered with Ed on a significant revision of the book. In looking over the changes Stetzer and Im made to the original, we get a helpful sense of how church planting in North America has changed in the past decade. Here are five of the most notable changes in the revised edition of Planting Missional Churches. Read More
8 Features of the Best Kind of Calvinism
Calvinism claims to be biblical religion, and biblical religion is not only profoundly theological, it is deeply experiential and engagingly affectional! Wherever men and women claim to be Calvinists, their lives and their ministries will pulse with life—the life of living, Spirit-inspired, Christ-glorifying, God-centered truth. Read More
3 Essential Leadership Lessons from Jesus
esus had just moments earlier predicted his trial, flogging, and crucifixion when the mother of James and John made her ambitious pitch for their promotions. She probably was not there when he predicted his death to the twelve, yet her timing is horrible. As she grapples at Jesus’ feet for the top two thrones for her boys, Jesus’ answer is directed entirely to James and John. The others are fuming, perhaps because the Zebedee boys beat them to the punch. Jesus takes this opportunity to teach these future church leaders about servanthood and humility. Read More
Seven Differences Between Motivating and Manipulating
Motivation is very, very different from manipulation. Read More
7 Pitfalls of Leadership Which Can Derail a Leader
In years of studying leadership, both in the business world and in ministry, I’ve seen some consistent traps which get in the way of a leader’s long-term success. I call them pitfalls. Often, also in my experience, if we know the potential dangers we have a better chance of addressing them – and, hopefully even avoiding them. Read More
Six Things You Inherit as a New Pastor – Rainer on Leadership #225 [Podcast]
On today’s podcast, Thom Rainer and Jonathan Howe discuss a post by Sam Rainer on what you inherit when you become a pastor at a new church. Listen Now
6 Ways for Lonely Leaders to Develop Friendships
Leaders are often lonely. It’s tragic when ministry leaders can preach to large numbers of people while slowly dying of personal isolation. For the sake of your emotional and relational health and your long term effectiveness, you need to develop friendships. Here’s why.... Read More
Why Legalistic Preaching Doesn't Work
Legalism is the pursuit of good works abstracted from faith in an effort to garner God’s favor and blessing. Moralism is the attempt to obey or impose the ethical commands of the Bible abstracted from the gospel of Jesus Christ. Much preaching in Christian churches is simply a collection of legalistic moralisms. Graeme Goldsworthy suggests that the reason this approach to preaching is prevalent and popular is because “we are all legalists at heart” (Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, 118). Both liberal and conservative preachers often embrace the same moralistic methodology, albeit from opposing directions and opposing moral visions. The goal of much preaching in both liberal and conservative churches is to make good people a bit better, but it never works. Read More
What the Latest Bible Research Reveals About Millennials
Turns out, young Christians may be the most engaged Bible readers in generations. Read More
Amplifying Evangelism—Hospitality and Proclamation: A Lesson from My Middle Eastern Friends
Hospitality isn't just about having dinner. Read More
Ed Stetzer to join Wheaton College faculty
Ed Stetzer, executive director of LifeWay Research and executive editor of The Gospel Project curriculum published by LifeWay, has been named to the faculty of Wheaton College and as executive director of Wheaton's Billy Graham Center for Evangelism. Read More
Ten Things You Should Know about Generation Z
We have much to learn about this young generation, but we have learned much already. Church leaders, particularly, need to keep an eye on this generation. There are some fascinating trends taking place. Read More
Going to church helps you live longer, Harvard study says
Women who attend church more than once a week live longer than those who do not, according to a new study by researchers at Harvard University's public health graduate school.The University's researchers wrote: "Religion and spirituality may be an underappreciated resource that physicians could explore with their patients, as appropriate." Read More
Is the Transgender Discussion Exposing Our Hypocrisy?
Are we now saying we choose to be heterosexual or homosexual? Previously we accepted a direct link between genes, biological, anatomy, and gender, but now we’re saying that link does not matter when it comes to gender. Perhaps this is fine, but for the sake of consistency, do we plan to say the same about sexual identity, which has no direct genetic or biological link anyway? Are we saying that just as we choose gender preferences, we choose sexual preferences? Read More
From 1970s-Era Academic ‘High Theory’ to Transgender Bathrooms on Campus
One take-away from the transgender-bathroom wars is that the public ignores arcane academic theory at its peril. For two decades, a growing constellation of gender-studies, queer-studies, and women’s-studies departments have been beavering away at propositions that would strike many people outside academia as surprising — such as that biological sex and “gender” are mere ideological constructs imposed by a Eurocentric, heteronormative power structure. Read More
Mothers, Bathrooms, and the Idol of Feelings
Boiled down, the trans-fiasco is one giant feelings-fest. Feelings are the new Baal. We don’t find our way out of it by teaching our young children that the way to love a man who thinks he’s a woman is by ignoring reality in favor of feelings-only love. Read More
Will You Use Target’s Transgender Bathroom?
For those of us who grew up where different standards were assumed and where some at least external biblical patterns of life were normative, there is a built-in revulsion at some things that ought to produce revulsion. But our children are not growing up in that world, and they will not have the same instincts. So how — that is my question — how are we going to raise them and train them so that they will feel the exceeding sinfulness of sin and be willing to take stands that are extremely unpopular, maybe even costly or dangerous? Read More
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