Monday's Catch: '8 People You Should Invite to Church' And More

8 People You Should Invite to Church
Do the churchgoers in your pews regularly see people they could invite to church? Here are eight ideas of people they can invite.

The New Mid-Size Church Advantages
Fifteen years ago, I wondered if mid-size churches might go extinct. Would they dwindle as people transferred into megachurches and planted new churches? The mid-size church is still here, and I’m glad I did not publish my thoughts. Now, they have several growth advantages in North America.

VOICES: 5 American myths of successful churches and ministries
Many of the ways American churches measure success are ... direct violations of the teachings of Jesus in Matthew 23. In this passage, Jesus speaks against people loving titles, celebrity status, and desiring prominent places in public events.

When People Leave Your Church... and it's okay.
No matter how healthy your church is, no matter how much it is growing, people will leave. It’s as simple as that. And many of those departures do not reflect poorly on the church.

 
10 Ways to Fracture Your Church
In this article, I point out ten ways in which you can fracture the church to which you belong. Most of these ways can be caused by anyone. The last few are normally caused by church leaders. If any of these describe your actions or your attitude, may God give you grace to amend your ways for the sake of Christ who desires his people to be truly united.

Related Article: 10 Reasons Why "Parking Lot" Church Busiess Meetings Are Seldom Good

Are People Really Lonely and Miserable?
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Census Bureau launched a new survey called the Household Pulse Survey. It’s an online instrument that takes about twenty minutes to complete, and the goal is to help policymakers and stakeholders understand what is happening on the ground in near real-time. They are constantly fielding the instrument and releasing the results for public consumption. Be still my data-obsessed heart. I am going to show you some data from the Phase 4.1 study, which was fielded between April 2 and July 22, 2024. That means that this data is less than six months old. Fantastic.

Human perception: Our brain sees not what we see, but what we expect
In recent research conducted at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, scientists have made a significant discovery about how our brains process social interactions, such as observing someone else's actions. This study suggests that our perception is heavily influenced by our expectations, rather than solely by the visual information we receive.

Like Charles Stone, I believe that pastors and other church leaders can benefit from the latest findings of neurscience research.

How to Wisely Help Your Team Learn
Wise leaders curate skillfully what they ask those they lead to read because “what develops us, changes us.” Many have said that “we will be the same people in five years except for the people we meet, the books we read, and the places where we travel.” While this may be an oversimplification of what forms us, it is true that the experiences we have with others, with reading, and with new places impacts us deeply.

Alistair Begg warns rise of 'consumer' worship eroding biblical engagement in congregational life
Pastor and author Alistair Begg lamented the diminishing role of Scripture in congregational life, warning that modern churchgoers often arrive not with a sense of reverence but with a consumerist mindset and called for a return to “serious engagement with the Bible.”

Unfortunately it is tempting for pastors and other church leaders to fall in with the consumerist mindset out of a desire for a larger congregation. The result is that they may for a time have a larger crowd on Sunday mornings but this crowd has a strong likelihood of evaporating if the church cannot keep its attention and sustain its interest and of migrating to another church which it for the moment sees as more capable of meeting its perceived needs.

To get emotional benefits from going to church, believers must attend regularly: study&
Believers who only attend church a few times a year yet expect to get an emotional lift that will last need to go more frequently, according to the findings of a recent study published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. In 'See You Sunday?' Effects of Attending a Specific Weekend Religious Service on Emotional Well-Being: A State/Trait Analysis of the SoulPulse Study, researchers found that regular weekend church attendance leads to an increase in positive emotions and a decrease in negative ones. Subjects in the study who did not attend church regularly, however, experienced no change in their emotional well-being.

What’s the Point? (Alternative Ways to Frame Your Sermon)
As a Baptist, I’m plenty accustomed to hearing three-point sermons. As a Baptist preacher, I’m plenty accustomed to preparing and delivering them. But as time goes on and I (hopefully) grow in my ability as a preacher, I find myself trying to avoid the use of the word “point” and to replace it with alternatives that may be more interesting and more effective.

Crafting A Strong Sermon: 10 Checkpoints
It's not "10 easy steps" to preaching, but practical help to make sure your work is sound and true.

Restore Passion To Your Preaching: Three Essential Steps
You may think it can be hidden, but when you lose your passion for the pulpit your congregation can hear the difference. Recapture the fire!

6 Tips For Preaching To A Hard Audience
Larry Moyer says "Hardened hearts need to hear from a communicator, not a speaker." Can you bridge the span to a hard audience?