It’s time we face the music. That day we’ve heard about, it’s here. Our culture doesn’t care about Jesus.
The Church is More than a Content Producer
The vision of our Lord for his church is that it would be a congregation, not an aggregation. The church is not made up of fellow customers who are enjoying and consuming the same kind of coffee. It is a family who, though it may be enjoying coffee together, is primarily focusing on one another.
4 Practical Steps for Recruiting a Church Plant Team
One of the keys to successfully planting a church is to recruit a good launch team. (Remember, in our language today, a launch team and a core group are a little bit different. A core team is the team at the onset of the church who typically sticks around for the long term, contributing once the church has already been started. A launch team is developed before the church plant and in preparation for the core group.)
The Machiavelli Effect – Is It Happening in Your Organization? Learn to recogize the people holding back your vision.
3 Ways to Know Your Church is Ready for Change
Settling into a new church family is exciting, but it can also stir up some big questions. One of the biggest: how long should you wait before you start making changes to the status quo?
Related article: 4 Ways to Successfully Navigate ChangePreaching Cheat Sheet
This Art of Preaching Cheat Sheet will help give you a framework when crafting your messages. Use it to drive clarity, relevance and connect your message with your audience.
On Repetitive Worship Songs
...repetition by itself is not the problem with contemporary worship songs. The issue’s not repetition per se but whether there is enough substance, enough rich content of truth about God woven into the repetitions to justify them, to warrant them. That’s the issue.
Repetitions and refrains do serve useful purposes. They can emphasize a particular truth or principle. They can enable a congregation to participate in a psalm or canticle in which the stanzas are in an irregular meter. They can help a congregation to memorize a song, first memorizing the repetitions and/or the refrain and then the other parts of a song. They can also enable small children and others who cannot read to join in the singing. In Africa and other parts of the world the call-and response song is a common form of music. In Isaiah 6:3 the angels are repeatedly calling to each other, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD All-Powerful. His Glory fills the whole earth.”How Teens Can Contribute Right Away
One of the joys of pastoring has been seeing teens come to faith in Christ and desiring to serve in the church. But they often need guidance to know how they might contribute. Here are a few valuable ways teens can participate at church meetings right away....
Teens can contribute in many other ways. They can sing in the choir or the worship band. They can sing solos.They play musical instruments and perform instrumental solos. I have trained and teens as lectors and leaders of the prayers. They can take the offering. They can present the gifts and distribute the communion elements. They can go on short-term mission trips and work alongside adults in various ministries of their church. In my church they are actively involved in the church's food distribution ministry and its Vacation Bible School. When I was in the tenth grade in high school, I taught a Sunday school class of fourth graders.Teens are NOT the church of the future. They are the church of today!Timely Team Up
The small town of Crawford, Texas, is dotted with churches, but their size is reflective of the town’s population—small. Fewer than 1,000 people call Crawford home, which begs the question, When every church is small, how does any one church alone reach and serve the community for Christ? For at least three of those churches, partnership is the answer.
When churches partner together, they are able to meet needs that they would not be able to meet individually.
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