Monday's Catch: "Peak Attractional" and More

Have We Finally Hit Peak Attractional?

The attractional church model has been tried and found exceptionally successfully in its ability to draw massive crowds (though it seems these crowds are less likely to be comprised of unchurched people with genuine spiritual questions than churched people who come from smaller, less attractive congregations). The attractional church model has been tried and found exceptionally wanting in its ability to draw people into a living relationship with the Lord that results in their spiritual maturation and reproduction. Yet it lives on in a thousand megachurches and a million smaller imitators. Read More

The First Two Minutes Matter Most

In the first two minutes, visitors will feel either awkward or welcome. In the first two minutes, unbelievers will feel either rejected or accepted. In the first two minutes, the lonely will feel either neglected or comforted. In the first two minutes, so many people will make the decision to stay or to go. Read More

Discovering Your Role in Building the Kingdom

Kngdom building and disciple making require a shift in thinking from being a hero to being a hero maker. Read More

When Church Members Keep Second-Guessing Your Pastoral Decisions

Unlike politicians and major league coaches, most of our critics aren’t strangers in the stands, they’re people we know very closely. Read More

4 Emotions That Can Take A Leader Out

As leaders, we experience the full array of human emotion on a regular basis. How we handle our emotions can make or break our leadership. Read More

Three Lead Measures: Abiding, Going, and Telling

So many of us have become consumed and obsessed with attractive lag measures rather than emphasizing crucial lead measures. Lag measures are attractive because they’re easily recognizable. Pastors easily talk about attendance, giving, baptisms, and salvations because it’s the easiest way to express success or the lack thereof. Lead measures are also recognizable, yet many pastors and congregations have difficulty in recognizing important lead measures because we have failed to appreciate how crucial practice is to gameday, how vital preparation is to results. And perhaps many don’t know how to focus on lead measures because they simply haven’t yet clarified what they are. Read More

The Kind of Apologetics Jesus Uses

There will always be Christians who will rightly and necessarily point out that we must present Christ and not ourselves. They will say that we are in danger of entwining law and gospel. They will warn that we will confuse our hearers if we talk about the call and substance of discipleship and not the gospel, the gospel, and only the gospel. I concur completely with the danger these watchmen see and find of great concern, but I would counter with a similar set of warnings. Read More

Also see"Why Calls for Discipleship Make Us Feel So Guilty" and "Discipleship Isn't What You Think It Is."

Encountering God’s Mission in God’s Word

“If we read the Bible with a missional hermeneutic, we will see all of life through the same lens of mission.”Read More

How to Fail in Your Evangelism [Video]

We don’t fail in our evangelism when we faithfully tell the gospel and yet the person is not converted. We fail in our evangelism when we don’t faithfully tell the gospel at all. Watch Now

Nominal Christians: Some Stats from the U.K. from Broad Application

How do we reach people who are nominally Christian? Read More