Most of us have a picture in our minds of what a successful church looks like.
It is large. It has a full parking lot. The worship team is polished. The children’s ministry is bustling. The pastor is well known.
We absorb this picture from our culture without even realizing it. Attendance becomes the metric. Size becomes the measure of success. And small churches, almost by default, begin to feel like failures.
I want to push back on that.
Growing Through Gospel Proclamation
“I couldn’t believe it,” says the Rev. Tom Phillips, rector of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Melbourne, Florida. “There I was, in front of a room full of high schoolers, quoting Cranmer.” As rector of Holy Trinity, Phillips engages regularly with the parish school, Holy Trinity Academy.
Christ declares that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45), and so it was for Phillips. “I thought to myself, What better way to share the good news with these young people than by quoting Article 11?—the one on justification, that our salvation in Jesus is a wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort. The students loved it!” He adds: “This is what we are all about at Holy Trinity—in all things and at all times proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ, and the gift of salvation in him, through the means we have inherited as Episcopalians.”
When Culture Trumps Strategy: When the Way We Plant Undermines What We Plant
I can think of too many people—good, sincere, kind, sacrificial core team members—who didn’t just leave a church plant, but eventually seemed to walk away from the faith altogether. Not because they stopped believing the gospel intellectually, but because of how they were treated while trying to build something for God. That should stop us in our tracks.
We’ve failed if people walk away from Jesus because of the way we tried to build His church.
A Place to Land
Iwas speaking over coffee with a younger friend recently (I’ll call her Theresa, some of the details are changed for sake of anonymity). She’s a sincere Christian who works in parachurch ministry. Theresa has graduate education in theology and ministry; she is well-read, thoughtful, and a sheer delight as a person. We were talking about church and having a place to land.
Easton church to challenge Ocean City in federal court in defense of homeless shelter ministry
St. Paul’s by-the-Sea Episcopal Church is preparing to file a federal lawsuit against Ocean City, Maryland, after it received a citation from the resort town on June 8 for operating an overnight shelter for unhoused people on church property.
The church must pay a $1,000 per day fine or close the shelter, according to the citation.
Churches must disciple well and listen well in response to rise of Christian nationalism
Churches have a task on their hands to raise standards of theological literacy in their congregations amid growing Christian nationalism, while at the same time listening to and engaging with the concerns of people in their flock.
That was the message that came out of a webinar hosted by the Evangelical Alliance on Christian nationalism and the rise of far right and populist movements in the UK, some of which have found a degree of support among Christians.
SBC tries to move on from abuse crisis, will debate women pastors and immigration
More than 11,000 Southern Baptist church representatives will gather in Orlando this week, where they will debate women pastors and send out missionaries.
Ukrainian official calls for Russian church to be expelled from World Council of Churches
A senior Ukrainian government official has called for the Russian Orthodox Church to be expelled from the World Council of Churches, saying its conduct during the war in Ukraine violated the foundational principles of Christianity.
Viktor Yelensky, head of Ukraine’s State Service for Freedom of Conscience, made the demand at a seminar organized by the Collège des Bernardins, a Catholic research center in Paris, according to the Church Times.
Defense Department rejiggers list of recognized religions after backlash, narrows it to 30
The fast-evolving list was met with blowback from critics who suggested its changes were an attempt to impose Christian nationalism on the military.
Five Unusual Reasons Pastors are Let Go (and How to Avoid Them)
Unfortunately, pastoral termination is common. Most people think the most common reason is sexual moral failure. Others think it is doctrinal compromise. Neither of those reasons is in the top five. Jess and Thom look at five common reasons most people never consider.
Why Church People Criticize Pastors (And What to Do About It)
If you serve in any kind of church leadership, criticism has probably already found you. It comes in the form of a pointed email, a hallway conversation you were not supposed to hear, or a comment in a board meeting that lands harder than anyone intended. No pastor enjoys it. But how you handle it says everything about your leadership and your character.
Understanding why church members criticize their pastor does not make the criticism easier to receive. It does, however, make it easier to respond well. Below are seven honest reasons people in the church criticize their pastors, along with a practical, God-honoring response to each.
Five Reasons Pastors Should Consider Publishing a Book
The barriers to publishing a book have fallen dramatically. Some pastors are publishing books, but more need to do so. Jess and Thom look at the growth of books published by pastors and the reasons why pastors should consider it.
Ancient Letter Writing and How It Helps Us Read the NT
Why do Romans and Philemon feel so different? A distinction given by Adolf Deissmann helps make sense of this and sharpens our ability to read the NT well.
Deissmann distinguishes between letters and epistles (public writing). He points out that “A letter is something non-literary, a means of communication between persons who are separated from each other” (Light from the Ancient East, 228). And he distinguishes it from the epistle: “An epistle is an artistic literary form, a species of literature, just like the dialogue, the oration, or the drama” (229).
4 Reasons Hymns Still Belong in Your Worship Service
The worship war debate may have quieted in most churches, but the question underneath it never went away: should we still sing the old hymns? For many congregations, the setlist skews hard toward the new. Songs that are two years old feel dated. Songs that are two hundred years old feel ancient. But something gets lost when the church stops singing its history, and the loss is bigger than nostalgia.
There is a reason the church has sung certain songs for centuries. It is not inertia. It is not tradition for tradition’s sake. It is because those hymns carry weight that most contemporary choruses simply have not had time to earn yet.
Matt Boswell, a pastor and hymnist who has written and curated hymns for the church for years, makes a compelling case for keeping historic hymns in regular rotation. Below are four reasons singing hymns in church still matters, and why removing them from your worship diet costs more than you might think.
Parents play decisive role in passing faith to the next generation, study finds
Parents who actively practise and discuss their faith at home are significantly more likely to see their children remain committed Christians into adulthood, according to a major new study.
The report, 'Passing the Torch: How Faith Moves Across Generations', analysed data from over 60,000 adult Americans who were raised in Christian households.
Image Credit: St.Luke’s Episcopal Church, Asheville, North Carolina
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