5 Factors That Should Move Your Church to Add Another Weekend Service

Is your church wondering whether to add another service on Sunday mornings?

Are you looking to the future and trying to figure out when you should add a second, third, or even fourth time to meet on a Sunday?

Wrestling with the right timeline to add a new service is an important process for your church as you balance the growth taking place against the amount of work required to service that growth. Many churches encounter different factors that drive them to add another service to their weekend line-up.

I’ve recognized five such factors that should move your church to begin the process of adding a new service. You don’t necessarily have to tick off all five boxes—any one of these may be enough to spur your decision-making process. However, if you do identify with several items on this list, that underlines the urgency for you to move forward.

Churches can stunt their own growth if they simply don’t have enough places for guests to sit! If your physical buildings are maxed out, it will discourage people from inviting their friends. When their friends do finally come, they’ll have a suboptimal experience which harms your church’s ability to grow and impact people. See if any of the following factors speak to your situation to help determine whether you should add another service to your church. Read More

When considering the addition of another weekend service, it is useful to remember that middle-sized churches have a tendency to see themselves as small churches although, when the 5 factors Rich Birch identifies are taken into consideration, it is clear that they no longer fit that category. This perception may prompt church members to question the need for an additional weekend service.

Believe Your Children

If your child tells you that someone has sexually abused them, please believe them.

In almost two decades of women’s ministry I have sat with many wounded women. Without a doubt, the women who are hurting the most are those who were victims of sexual assault and also the victims of disbelief. The scenario is common: they were abused as children or teenagers and when they told their parents, their parents did not believe them.

Disbelieving the victims is common. Because abuse often happens at the hands of a family member, neighbor, or trusted friend, parents cannot—or are unable to bring themselves to—believe their children because they would then have to reorder their perception of the perpetrator and also acknowledge that they may have unknowingly played a role in allowing the abuse to happen.

When the victims of abuse are not believed, untold injury is heaped upon them. Not only are they traumatized by the initial abuse, but the structure upon which they rely for safety and support is knocked out from underneath them. The second crime may be worse than the first. I think it may actually cause greater long-term harm.

So moms and dads, please believe your kids if they whisper any hint to you that something has happened. The chances that your child is telling the truth and that you know who harmed them is very high. Read More

The Lost Spiritual Discipline

Earlier this year a young woman from western Asia had been visiting our church in east Asia. A fairly new believer, she’d completed our membership class and was requesting a meeting with me to discuss a troubling issue before moving forward.

This is a common occurrence for any pastor. I was prepared to be peppered with questions of theological nuance. But her difficulty wasn’t with doctrine.

It was conversation.

She had gone out to a post-church lunch with a group of people for several weeks, and she was frustrated that the conversation didn’t turn more frequently toward spiritual health, sermon application, and spurring one another on toward godliness. Christian people were talking, but, as she rightly noted, that’s not the same thing as good Christian conversation. Read More

10 Questions to Diagnose the Evangelistic Health of Your Church

Any good physician will make certain your physical exam includes at least three components.

First, the doctor will want you to have thorough lab work. Second, all exams include a comprehensive look at your physical body. Third, the physician will ask you a series of questions that would lead him or her to know more about your overall physical and emotional health.

In my work with churches across America, I often ask a series of questions that help me assist the church to become more evangelistically focused. Recently, I took time to write down the questions I ask most often.

Look at these 10 questions to get at least some hints of the evangelistic health of your own church. Read More

I may have previously posted this article but with a different title. However, it is not a bad idea to regularly examine the evangelistic health of your church. As we begin a new year, now may be a good time for a church evangelistic health checkup.

How to Reach a 100 New Guests in 2019

Most churches want to reach unchurched people. They take the Great Commission seriously and want their church to make a positive difference for the Kingdom.

At the same time, we’re coming to grips with the fact that fewer and fewer people are attending church. Even regular members show up more infrequently than in years gone by.

The same group of people, attending less often, is not a recipe for growth. For a church to grow and thrive, it has to reach brand new people.

Even though many churches share in this desire, few actually do it.

If your church is serious about reaching new guests, particularly those who are not attending any other church, here are five things to consider to reach people. Read More

What Are the Most Important Elements to Consider When Preparing a Sermon?

I read a story about a bank employee who was fixing an ATM machine. The door accidentally shut while he was inside its tiny maintenance room. When someone approached the machine to receive some money, they instead received a note that said, “Please help. I’m stuck in here and don’t have my phone. Please call my boss.”[1]

As peculiar of a story as this may be, I’m sure there are plenty of preachers who have fallen into a trap of being stuck instead of being unleashed to reach their audience for Christ. One little strange thing happened, and it completely threw you off the base on which you thought you’d stand. I hope this article will help you get unstuck. Read More

Also See
5 Ideas for Your New Year’s Sermon

Thursday's Catch: The Corinthian Mindset and More

Church Planter, Reject the Corinthian Mindset

It’s a danger for any church planter. We suddenly realize that the focus of our heart has shifted, that we’ve started to functionally trust in the wrong things. Read More

When Do I Know I've Hit Rock Bottom in a Revitalization [Podcast]

Thom Rainer and Jonathan Howe end 2018 with a discussion of how churches that may seem “too far gone” are typically not and how God can still work in every church. Listen Now

Is Your Church Ready For 2019? – 5 Strategic Questions

The new year is near! Is your direction clear? Are your plans complete? Is your lead team on board? Whether your planning is near complete, or you feel way behind, I have five questions that will help you get a sense of where you are and help you move forward.Read More

Skip Resolutions in 2019—Make a Rule of Life

I used to love making New Year’s Resolutions—in fact, I loved making them far more than I enjoyed keeping them. But about eight years ago, I was introduced to the old tradition of creating a Rule of Life, and since then, it has proved to be a much better use of time and energy. Read More

Why We Must Not Fear the Rejection of Family and Friends

If you keep caring more about what your family and friends think of you than what God thinks of you, you’ll never do the things God has called you to do. Jesus knew this because he lived it. Read More

How Should We Respond to Those Who Reject Jesus Because Some Christians Are Hypocrites?

All of us probably know co-workers or family members or neighbors who say they reject Jesus because some of His followers are hypocrites. How should we respond to this? Read More

3 Questions to Evaluate This Year and 3 to Help Plan for the Next

When December 31 rolls into January 1 there’s something within us that strives to do things differently. Maybe that involves making changes to our health, our spiritual growth, or the way we pastor our congregations.

I want to propose three questions to help you evaluate the present year and three questions to help you plan for the next. Read More

6 Essentials for Spiritual and Emotional Health

Two years ago I began to hit a wall. I was run down and burned out. It wasn’t that I didn’t love the Lord or people anymore. It wasn’t that I’d lost my passion for God’s Word, teaching the Bible, writing, or taking mission trips to the Amazon and Moldova with Justice & Mercy International. I simply had no margin. I was so busy that there was little room for anything fresh to come in. Little was growing, and I felt as though all I was giving others were crusty leftovers.

I met with my pastor and he encouraged me to evaluate the way I was using my time. He challenged me to guard the most important tasks the Lord has given me to do and say no to what wasn’t part of that agenda. Since that meeting, I’ve recognized six things that have significantly supported my spiritual and emotional health. I’ve put them in the form of questions so you can think personally and critically about how well you’re covered in each area. Read More

5 Ways to Get Closer to God

1. Admit you can’t do everything on your own.

One of the first steps to gaining a closer relationship with God is admitting that you need him in your life. Ironic, yeah? The reality is that we can’t do everything on our own, so admitting this will not only show a sense of humility in your life but it will also show God that are putting your faith in his strength and guidance, rather than your own. As John 3:30 states, “He must increase, I must decrease.”

2. Remove yourself from harmful relationships.

I believe one of the biggest roadblocks to finding a deeper relationship with God is harmful relationships. Whether these relationships be with family, friends or co-workers, taking yourself out of the equation, or at least giving yourself some healthy distance, will provide you the necessary room and energy needed to first get right in your relationship with God. You must make yourself a priority in regards to your spiritual life. Although this might sound tough to accomplish, you won’t believe the freedom and liberty you will encounter when being able to solely focus on your relationship with God without having toxic relationships getting in your way. Read More

He Sought to Kill Sin with a Pen

Fifty years or so ago, you would have been hard-pressed to find anyone who could recognize the name John Owen. Today, he is regularly quoted from pulpits and in articles as though his name were a household word. This is even more surprising because almost everybody who mentions him adds, “But he is not light reading!” After all, he lived in the seventeenth century, thought in Latin, wrote long and profound works of theology, and belonged to the marginalized group of Christians we call Puritans.

Who was this John Owen, and what explains the phenomenon of his rising popularity? Read More

Looking for the Eternal Christmas to Come

As a child, my favorite part of waking up on Christmas morning was the first waking realization that it was Christmas, which was the best day of the year, even in our non-christian family. My first move was to jump up and look out my bedroom window to see if it had snowed last night. Usually not, but several memorable times it did. After the snow-check, my brother, Lance, and I would run to our stockings hung by mom in the living room. I would open the contents slowly, including the ever-present Whitman’s Samplers, stretching it out, not wanting it to end.

We got the big presents on Christmas Eve, but there was a special joy in the little treasures wrapped up in the stockings. I didn’t understand then that these little gifts represented the greatest gift ever given—God’s Son. Now, as an adult, a father and a grandfather, I feel those same childlike feelings, a warmth and anticipation. But what I feel now on Christmas that I didn’t many years ago is anticipation for a New Earth, without sin and curse and suffering—a redeemed earth where I will live and work and play and worship and serve with Christian family and friends, and countless new friends besides.

I feel a spirit of adventure not just for the passing joys of Christmas, but for an eternal Christmas, a great story where—as C. S. Lewis put it at the end of the Chronicles of Narnia—every chapter will be better than the one before. Read More

Six Ways the Cradle Points to the Cross

The good news links the Christmas story with Easter and shows how one is incomplete without the other.

One of my older children recently posed an excellent question during our family worship time: “Is there a place in the Bible that gives a good, short summary of the real meaning of Christmas?” There are many, of course, but as a pastor tasked with preaching many Advent seasons through the years, I’ve discovered one that may be overlooked: the hymn that Simeon sings after seeing baby Jesus in Luke 2:29-32 and his subsequent words to Joseph and Mary in vv. 34-35. It brings the whole Bible together in a powerful summary. Read More

Making Your Church a Rescue Station

I often challenge pastors and Christian leaders to think of a local church as a “life-saving station.” I recently met with Christian leaders and spoke about “rescue.”

I began by sharing the strategy of the former United States Life-Saving Service. I explained that they were heroes in every sense of the word. When a ship was in distress near their assigned area, they’d go out into the surf, or the storm, even the hurricane to try to rescue the people on board. They lived their motto: “You have to go out. You don’t have to come back.” They saved countless lives who otherwise would have been lost.

Does this describe your church? Is spiritual rescue part of the foundational DNA of your church and life?

I described the world we live in today, filled with lost people. In fact, there are more lost people alive today than at any other point in human history.

The bad news is, “Lost people have never known less about Jesus, or have been farther from Jesus.” There is so much hurt, pain and suffering because of sin in this world.

The good news is, what has made people so lost, has made them so ready for Jesus.

Breakthroughs begin when the central passion of Jesus’ heart becomes the central passion of ours: rescue. The mission statement of Jesus is found in Luke 19:10, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Here are five imperatives for a life-saving church. These five imperatives are modeled by Jesus in John 4, where Jesus met the woman at the well. Read More

A Very Merry Christmas to Anglicans Ablaze Readers

A cherished tradition for me has been attending the late-night Christmas Eve service at a local Anglican or Episcopal church. When my family moved to Iccleshall St. Andrew’s in Suffolk when I was a boy, it was the parish church of Iccleshall St. Andrew’s, a ten-minute walk across the snow-covered Great Common from Rosecott, the cottage in which my grandparents, my mother, my older brother, and I lived. I have memories of walking across the common in the moonlight, bundled up against the cold, opening the door of the church, and gazing into the brightly-lit interior of the church. I don’t remember much else—the carols and hymns that we sung, the lessons and the sermon that we heard—just the bright light spilling out onto the moon-lit snow.

After my family immigrated to the United States and joined my aunt in southeast Louisiana in the late 1950s, the church we attended was Christ Church in Covington, the oldest Episcopal church in the parish of St. Tammany. In Louisiana counties are called "parishes." St. Tammany had two Episcopal churches at that time, at the opposite ends of the parish, both named Christ Church, which was also the name of the Episcopal cathedral in New Orleans, a little over 40 miles to the south. My mother became a member of the choir and my grandfather filled in for the organist on occasion. He had been a church organist when he was younger.

Christ Church, Covington had a late Christmas Eve service, which it does to this day. My memory is hazy as to how often I attend that service as a teenager. It would, however, become a regular practice later on when I became an adult. I continued to attend the Christ Church’s late night Christmas Eve service even after I transferred my membership to St. Michael’s in Mandeville, an Episcopal church that I had helped to launch in the mid-1980s and where I served as senior lay reader for 15 years.

For me Christ Church’s late night Christmas Eve service was quintessential of what an Episcopal late night Christmas service should be. As the members of the congregation arrived, the choir sung a medley of Christmas carols. The service itself began with a solemn procession with incense, lights, and a station collect.

The first year my grandnephew attended the service, he left our pew and joined his great grandmother as she processed around the church. The procession had made one circuit around the nave before the rector pause at our pew and asked for my help. On the next circuit the procession was to return to the chancel and he was at loss as to what to do with a small boy at that point.

The service always concluded with a celebration of the Holy Communion. For a number of years my mother baked the bread for this celebration.

St. Michael’s had a service earlier on Christmas Eve. It was preceded by a children’s pageant. The pre-school’s hand bell choir also performed. Christ Church would add a second service on Christmas Eve for the families of the children who attended the church’s day school. But these two worship experiences were entirely different from Christ Church’s late night Christmas Eve service.

The two churches that I have regularly attended since moving to western Kentucky do not have a Christmas Eve service—one because it meets on the campus of the local university and the university is closed on Christmas Eve; the other because it is very small and its members show little interest in attending a service on any occasion other than a Sunday. A number of its members also go out of town around Christmas.

I have visited several Anglican and Episcopal churches in the region, which have a Christmas Eve service. All of these churches were at least a 30 minute drive from where I live. One church I almost did not find due to its out-of-the-way location and its lack of signage. It was a very cold night and the church was poorly-heated.

This year I thought about attending the Christmas Eve service at the local Episcopal church. But I was not able to determine with any certainty from visiting its website and calling its church office whether it had a Christmas Eve service. The serving schedule suggested that it might. However, I do not like driving at night and I did not want to drive to the church to discover that I was mistaken.

The church itself enjoys a good reputation in the community. I have received positive reports from a number of people who have visited the church or are familiar with it. But like so many Anglican and Episcopal churches whose websites that I have visited, it appears not know how to make the best use of what is today the “front door” of a local church.

I hope that my readers have been or will be more fortunate than I am. For those who, like myself, are unable to attend a Christmas Eve service, I have included a selection of Christmas carols to usher in the Feast of Nativity: Wexford Carol,,Cherry Tree Carol (Instrumental), Noel Nouvelet, Es Ist Ein Ros Entsprungen, Quem Pastores Laudavere, and Deep Peace a Gaelic Blessing.

May God bless you and your loved ones this Christmastide and in the New Year. May he fill your lives with hope, joy, and peace.

A Christmas Carol for the Weak

It may be the strangest Christmas song ever crafted. Modern Christians rarely sing it, even though we often see its lyrics and hear them read aloud.

Its author was no secondhand source or distant observer but (more than) an eyewitness of what really transpired when God himself came into our world, was wrapped in swaddling cloths, and laid in a manger. In fact, it was the songwriter herself who birthed him, wrapped him, and laid him there. The author is Jesus’s own mother. Read More

One of my favorite renditions of the Song of Mary is David Haas' "Holy Is Your Name," set to the tune of the Irish/Scottish folk song "Wild Mountain Thyme.".

The Contexts for Our Carols

Cherished Christmas carols help us to sing with the saints through the ages.

“High King of heaven, my victory won
May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.”

With these words, the ancient Irish poet brings us into a different world. It is a world where God is not just the omniscient, omnibenevolent deity of scholastic logic, but the “high King of heaven.” This title moves the mind back through time to a different political moment, a time when security rested not in democratic freedoms but in the local king submitting to the high king in his hall. The poet reaches for the political structure of ancient Ireland to describe the spiritual relationship of Christians. Just as the local king ruled his kingdom under the authority of the high king, so each Christian man and woman becomes a king or queen ruling creation under the benevolent grace of our Father.

In Poetics, Aristotle describes the goal of poetry as mimesis, imitation. The poet seeks to artfully construct a sort of mirror reflecting reality back to his audience. It is in this sense that Christian theology is a poetic, or perhaps mimetic, discipline. Theology is not necessarily creative but seeks to reflect the work of God back to the current generation of Christians. Just as the poets of ancient Greece reflected their historical context, so, too, Christian theologians bring their own historical moment into the task of writing theology.

In the genre of Christmas hymns, we can see commonality as medieval, modern, and contemporary hymn writers draw on both the gospel accounts of Christ’s birth and the political and theological categories of their day to shape their hymns. By increasing our awareness of the riches available in the hymnic tradition, we deepen our worship through a new perspective and we demonstrate the chronological unity of Christ’s church. Read More

Image: Twas the Night before Christmas by Henry John Yeend King

How Nigeria's Fear of Child 'Witchcraft' Ruins Young Lives

Abandonment, persecution, violence: Childhoods lost as young Nigerians are branded as witches.

From a distance, the children look like scarecrows as they slowly scour the waist-high piles of rubbish for plastic bottles.

Their ragged clothing hangs loosely from their emaciated frames, their gaunt shrink-wrapped faces are deadened by the drugs they took at dawn.

It is hard to believe that these children are "witches".

And yet this is exactly why several hundred skolombo - or street children - are now living at the Lemna dumpsite on the outskirts of Calabar in southeastern Nigeria. Read More

Tuesday's Catch: Tis the Season to Rejoice

Seven Reasons to Rejoice This Christmas

Andrew Moody gives seven reasons why we should rejoice this Christmas. Read More

Magi, Wise Men, or Kings? It’s Complicated

Christian tradition finds meaning in each of these mysterious monikers. Read More

Jethro, Moses And The Hands-On Pastor

In a smaller church, we can’t equip others to do hands-on ministry unless we’re hands-on ourselves. Read More

  7 Keys to Improving Singing Pitch

When I am auditioning new singers, one of the main things I listen for is their ability to sing in-tune. There are few things that ruin singing more than being out-of-tune. If you are a singer or working with singers, here are seven keys to help improve musical pitch. Read 

More Worry Over Kids’ Excessive Smartphone Use Is More Justified Than Ever Before

Parents who fear their kids are spending too much time in front of screens now have more reason for concern. New research funded by the National Institutes of Health found brain changes among kids using screens more than seven hours a day and lower cognitive skills among those using screens more than two hours a day. Read More

A Carol for the Despairing

Penned during the Civil War, Longfellow's "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" is a carol for our age.

The word apocalypse in the Greek means “uncovering,” and 2018 has been a year of uncoverings, of pulling back the curtain to reveal the worst things that people can do to one another. It has uncovered abuse and corruption at every level—spilled blood, separated families, failure of justice after failure of justice, each headline hitting so quickly that it feels impossible to give anything the attention it deserves. There will be more before the end of the year; there will be more before you even finish reading this piece.

It’s hard to rejoice in an atmosphere like this. “The most wonderful time of the year” does not seem wonderful; shopping, twinkle lights, hot chocolate, ice skating and the bright bombardment of advertisements fill the space like cotton candy, too sweet and flimsy.

Like we do every year, my parents took my brother and me to see “A Christmas Carol” on stage to get everyone into the Christmas spirit (which is no small feat at the end of November). The story is familiar and heartwarming, but the song they ended their production with struck me: “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” Set to music a few decades later, this poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was written over Christmas of either 1863 or 1864, in the middle of the bloodiest war in American history.

The carol is not cotton candy; it is a beating heart, laid bare in seven stanzas with simple language. At the second-to-last verse, I noticed dimly that I had begun to cry; by the end of the song, my face was wet with tears.

“And in despair I bowed my head;
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said;
‘For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!’”

It isn’t quite right to call this a cynic’s carol, but in this verse it is a desperate and bitter one. It’s a carol from a man who has had the nature of the world uncovered before him. It’s one of the only carols that still rings true to me in 2018.

Like all good poets, with “Christmas Bells” Longfellow reached out across almost 155 years of history to take my hand. Read More

Watch Casting Crowns's performance of "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" on the 2008 TBN Christmas special. Also hear St. Peter's Choir perform a choral arrangement of the same carol.

Keep the X in X-Mas

Over the years, LifeWay found the abbreviation “X-mas” to be just as controversial as “Happy holidays” or more, with 42 percent of Christians and 33 percent of Americans saying it was offensive in this year’s survey. Nearly 6 in 10 of those with evangelical beliefs (59%) find the use of “X-mas” instead of Christmas offensive.

The great irony in the distaste for the term “X-mas” is that it is thoroughly Christian, rather than an effort to remove the word Christ from the holiday. Read More

Related Articles:
Why X-Mas Actually Keeps Christ in Christmas
What Does the X in Xmas Mean?

5 Steps to a Great Last-Minute Christmas Sermon Idea

If you're scrambling to find a fresh idea from the Christmas story for Sunday and Christmas Eve, these steps might help.

39 verses. Less than 900 words.

That’s everything Matthew and Luke wrote about the birth of Jesus.

If you add Jesus’ genealogies and the birth of John the Baptist, you can more than triple its length. But if you go the other direction and remove the Magi who, as we know, were never at the manger, it drops from 39 verses to 28.

However you look at it, there are not a lot of words there.

I’m about to preach my 24th Christmas at the church I pastor. Every year I preach two or three Christmas-themed messages. That’s 60-70 messages on 39 verses. Almost two per verse. To the same congregation. Read More

The Christmas Preacher

There are numerous benefits of preaching at Christmas.

Carols services—normally attract many people who only come to church once a year. This presents us with a wonderful opportunity to preach the gospel to a willing audience of unsaved people.

The Biblical Christmas narratives allow a great opportunity to present a clear gospel sermon:

Matthew tells us about Jesus who will save his people from their sins.
And then the magi—or wise men—who come and worship the King.
In Luke’s account the angels announce that a Saviour is born, who is Christ the Lord.

Christmas services are normally happy occasions, and so give the church an opportunity to present a good face to the world. An engaging sermon, and a well-organised service—in a warm and inviting context—can make a lasting good impression on people. But Christmas preaching comes with particular challenges too. Here are some things to keep in mind.... Read More

‘Joy to the World’ Helps Us Rejoice in Our Past and Future

One of my favorite memories as a boy was singing with our church family on Christmas Eve. As the service would near its conclusion, the deacons would distribute candles while the lights grew dark. As we sang our final hymn, the room would flood with candlelight as voices announced the message of Christmas, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let earth receive her king.” I felt a foot taller while singing with full voice among my friends and neighbors thinking about the truth and mystery of the incarnation

. The song that I sang as a boy has now been sung for more than 300 years as a beloved Christmas carol. “Joy to the World” was written by Isaac Watts (1674–1748), who is heralded as the “father of English hymnody.” While the hymn is often featured during the Christmas season, it was originally written to be sung year-round as a metrical version of Psalm 98:4: “Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth.” From the first time this hymn was published in 1709, to the pews of our churches today, its powerful call to “repeat the sounding joy” continues.

The joyful theme we hear in this hymn is a two-fold: it’s a joy that looks back on the incarnation and one that also looks forward to the second coming of Christ. Read More

How the Brain Keeps Faith in a Good God Amid a Weary World

Both C. S. Lewis and Job held onto their faith when their worlds imploded. Now psychologists suggest clues to understanding how the mind endures in suffering.

A 2012 psychology study by Russell McCann and Marcia Webb brings into focus our brain’s ability to grapple effectively with the paradox of a suffering world and a good God. It offers intriguing possibilities for understanding how God created our minds to support our faith. Could this be God’s bodily gift when it feels like our world is falling apart?

McCann, a professor at the University of Washington, and Webb, a professor at Seattle Pacific University, looked at how human cognitive flexibility interacts with our faith. Cognitive flexibility, “the ability to adapt behaviors in response to changes in the environment,” is a critical part of the brain’s executive function and is often noted for its role in childhood development. We use cognitive flexibility to learn as children, to switch tasks as adults, and in daily tasks in everything from sorting laundry to multitasking at work.

McCann and Webb used various assessment scales on 193 participants to assess their cognitive flexibility, traumatic symptoms, and how their faith endured during suffering. Then, they compared how cognitive flexibility, trauma, and faith related to each other. Read More

Image: Painting of Job by Jean-Christopher Benoit, Public domain

What If They’re Happy Without God?

How do we witness to happy people?

Telling miserable people that Jesus can meet their deepest needs seems easy compared to warning satisfied people about the wrath to come. I’m talking about people who, from all outward appearances, seem just fine without God. They don’t appear to feel guilt or shame about anything. They don’t seem to long for something transcendent to add meaning to their lives. They don’t mind sleeping in on Sunday morning and lingering leisurely over brunch. In fact, they look forward to it.

We could try to convince them that, deep down, they’re really not that happy. But I don’t recommend that tactic. To be sure, we do have biblical warrant for telling unhappy people there is something else — Someone else! — that can really satisfy them. I call this “misery-based apologetics.” Jesus modeled this for us when he told the woman at the well, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13–14).

But when people don’t seem all that miserable, it’s hard to get them to feel something we think they should feel. Read More

Even as a Secular Holiday, Christmas Makes the Gospel Accessible

Christmas is the only Christian holy day that is also a major secular holiday—arguably our culture’s biggest. The result is two different celebrations, each observed by millions of people at the same time. This brings some discomfort on both sides. Many Christians can’t help but notice that more and more of the public festivities surrounding Christmas studiously avoid any references to its Christian origins. The background music in stores is moving from “Joy to the World” to “Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas.” The holiday is promoted as a time for family, for giving, and for peace in the world. “Christmas is a wonderful, secular holiday,” one enthusiast wrote at the now-defunct website Gawker.

On the other hand, nonreligious people can’t help but find that the older meaning of Christmas keeps intruding uninvited, for instance, through the music of traditional Christmas carols. It can be irritating to have to answer their child’s question, “What does that music mean—’born to give them second birth’?” Read More

More Church Planting Is Needed

Among the best ways for us to reach people with the gospel is personal evangelism and church planting. Even with all the changes in culture this remains our best option for reaching unbelievers.

Church planting efforts need focus. A scattershot approach will not be the most effective.

Here are five things we are going to need to increase church planting capacity. Read More

Related Articles:
Planting a Church That Outlives Itself
The Amazing Opportunity for Church Planting in the ‘Migrant Crisis’ [Podcast]
Church Planting Is Not Just About Evangelism

Thursday's Catch: 'Stille Nacht' and More

All Is Calm: The Soul-Soothing Significance of 200 Years of 'Silent Night'

We involuntarily sigh beneath its comforting lyrics, feeling ourselves what countless other people are also feeling in countless ways—the reassurance of the gospel expressed in a sweet gentleness our souls so need to experience. Read More

Listen to 'Stille Nacht' ('Silent Night') in the original German

6 Keys for Revitalization in the Shadow of Megachurch [Podcast]

Revitalization in the shadow of a megachurch can be difficult, but it’s not impossible. Today, Thom Rainer, Mark Clifton, and Jonathan Howe discuss six reasons why. Listen Now

Reading Scripture Rightly

Do we let the original intent of a passage of Scripture sting us, move us, drive us to what we need to be? Read More

4 Reasons Small Groups are Vital to Your Church’s Health

If you think community is an important part of healthy church life, and I hope you do, then small groups should also be important to you. They are actually crucial to the life of any church. I’m not the only one who thinks so—we have the research to back it up. Read More

Colonialism and Mission: 4 Lessons We Must Learn from History

Churches have histories. Or to put it more generally, the church is not just an idea, it is an actual social entity linked across geography and time. Hebrews 12 tells us that we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses: we are linked to the faithful that have come before us. The other side of that claim is that we are also linked to ventures that have been misguided, misdirected, and sometimes harmful. Read More

5 Effective Ways to Convince a Church Guest to Return

We’re all hardwired to receive love differently.

That’s the lesson we learned in 1995 when Gary Chapman released the book that gave an “aha moment” to all of American Christendom. Seriously, if you’ve never read The 5 Love Languages, go buy a copy. It’s that important.

Chapman explained that each of us speaks a native language when it comes to giving and receiving love. My language is “Words of Affirmation.” My wife’s language is “Acts of Service.” This explains all the times when she has likely thought, He says he loves me but why won’t he show it by doing the dishes once in a while?

Chapman’s book has shown staying power beyond the realm of romantic love. Our church is using the same principles in how we welcome guests. Read More

The application of the principles that Ryan Sanders describes in this article must become second nature to us, in other words, part of us. If we employ these principles as techniques to manipulate guests in returning, they will eventually see through us. Our hearts must be in our words and actions and our application of these principles, a true expression of our love for our fellow human beings.

What If I’m Not a Merry Gentleman?

One of the blessings of holiday season is the opportunity to sing Christmas carols. Each year we dust off many of the old favorites and, for several weeks, get to sing with friends and family. Part of the charm that accompanies these songs is the archaic language. Like a unique and obscure feature of an old house, sometimes these words blend in and go unnoticed. Other times, something grabs our attention, and we stop to ask, What is this doing here?

Recently I asked this question about the hymn “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.” I have used four out of five of these words fairly regularly in the last year, and I’m reasonably confident I understand what the fifth means (who would’ve guessed “gentlemen” would be a controversial or archaic term?).

I’m not ashamed to admit I was a bit unsure of their meaning when considering them as arranged in the song. This is not entirely surprising. The song is estimated to be older than the United States. It seems to have gained traction in the mid-18th century (and may even date back to the Reformation era). It was further popularized by its inclusion in Charles Dickens’s classic A Christmas Carol. Upon hearing the first lines of the song, Scrooge responds with an intimidating level of intolerance. He had no patience for the song.

What does it mean? How are we to understand this song and its title? Is the song addressed to merry gentlemen? Or is the word merry connected to God’s action? Is this a petition for God to make people merry? Read More

Illustration by Arthur Rackham from A Christmas Carol (1915)

A Church with Great Music

I am convinced that the best measure of a church’s music is not what takes place on the stage, but what takes place in the pews. It is not so much the sounds and sights of a band leading, but the sounds and sights of a congregation worshipping. A church with a truly great music program is the one that could worship just as well on the day the power goes out and the instruments won’t play. A church with a truly great music program is the one that generates far more sound from its raw voices than its amplified instruments. A church with a truly great music program is the one where the people sing—they really sing. Read More

What are you doing to train and equip your congregation to sing?

Photo by Sarah Noltner on Unsplash 

Evangelicalism, Christian Identity, and Church Membership

Have you ever thought about where James Dobson goes to church? Or J. I. Packer?

It’s the same thing with your favorite Christian artists. Did you ever wonder where Amy Grant attends? Or Lecrae?

I’m not blaming these individuals. I’m just saying that evangelicalism teaches us to think of them as…I don’t know…voices. Celebrities. Hovering-in-the-air personalities. Something. But as local church members? It’s an institutionally clunky and strange thought.

So it is with us non-celebrities. We identify ourselves as “evangelical” before we do “member of Cheverly Baptist Church” or “Covenant Presbyterian.” That church may have shared the gospel with us, nurtured us into the faith, publicly affirmed our profession of faith, fed and strengthened us into maturity, and corrected us when we veered off course, but we still view ourselves independently from it, like the child who goes to college and forgets all about his or her family.

My friend Sam Emadi has noticed that Christians book stores typically separate the “Christian life” section from the “church” section. “Why aren’t those one section?” he asks. Good question. Read More

Photo by Margaret Weir on Unsplash

Do the Gospels Borrow from Pagan Myths

It’s an accusation that’s been around a long time. Even in ancient times, critics of Christianity noticed some parallels between Christian beliefs and pre-Christian myths. In the late second century, a pagan philosopher named Celsus charged, “The Christians have used the myths of Danae and the Melanippe, of the Auge and Antiope in fabricating this story of virgin birth!” In more recent times, skeptical scholars such as Marvin Meyer and Robert Price have claimed close connections between the resurrection of Jesus and the myths of dying and rising deities that marked many pagan myths.

In the simplest possible terms, here’s what these critics contend: The most marvelous claims in the Gospels—a miraculous birth, for example, as well as the idea of a deity who dies and rises again—are paralleled in pagan religions that predate Christianity; therefore, early Christians must have fabricated these miracles based on their knowledge of pre-Christian religions.

To be sure, there are some surface-level similarities between ancient myths and certain events in the Gospels. Long before the first century A.D., the myths of Egyptians deities such as Osiris, Adonis, Attis, and Horus included tales of death and rebirth. The Persians venerated Mithras, a deity who (according to some claims) was born of a virgin and who died and then rose from the dead. Sacramental bread and the fruit of the vine make appearances in a few mystery cults as well.

So why should anyone see Jesus as being distinct from the pagan gods? Could it be that the New Testament stories of Jesus represent the fictive myth of an ancient mystery cult that’s survived for two thousand years? Or is there something different about the accounts of Jesus’ time on planet earth?

When these claims are compared carefully with the New Testament Gospels, the distinction between Jesus and the supposed pagan parallels becomes quite distinct, for at least two reasons: (1) the pagan parallels aren’t as parallel as the proponents claims, and (2) many of the supposed parallels confuse later Christian practices with the actual affirmations in the New Testament Gospels.Read More

China Ramps Up Christian Persecution as Christmas Approaches

A real “War on Christmas” is taking place, but it has nothing to do with the greetings used in American retail stores. China is cracking down on Christianity and even Christmas displays. Read More

Also See:
Persecuted Chinese Pastor Issues a ‘Declaration of Faithful Disobedience’

Tuesday's Catch: How Christmas Kills Infanticide and More

The Child Who Won the War Against Children

If Jesus’s birth prompted the murder of hundreds of baby boys in Bethlehem, his life, death, and resurrection prompted the protection of millions more — and extended that protection to baby girls and those born disabled. Read More

Caring for Orphans Globally: How Can the Church in the West Do Better?

James 1:27 inspires Christians to take care of vulnerable people, and particularly children who are without provision and protection. Caring for orphans has been one of the “Christian activities” since the 3rd century.1 Indeed, the church has a mandate to serve and love the children so dear to God’s heart. Read More

Is Your Church Having a Christmas Eve Service Next Week? Consider These 15 Thoughts

Because questions about a Christmas Eve service come up every year, here are my thoughts to consider if your church is planning a Christmas Eve service next week. I published many of these thoughts last year but have added a few for this year. Read More

5 Church Budgeting Lessons I Learned The Hard Way

Money isn’t the goal of ministry. But it is a tool – and an important one. Read More

A Simple Way of Improving Giving Retention

One way to increase giving in the congregation is to retain new givers. We need first-time givers to become repeat givers. I’ve found a simple and effective way to help improve giving retention and genuinely express our gratitude for someone’s gift.... Read More

Two Reasons to Consider Video Preaching

Video preaching has its share of critics. In this article Dan MacDonald, while recognizing the relevance and depth of the questions these critics raise, offers two reasons why a church might want to consider its use. Read More

How to Be an Engaging Worship Leader

Engagement. It’s a word we use a lot when it comes to worship, don’t we? Because it’s important. Corporate worship isn’t about finding our own voice as worship leaders. It’s about helping the Church find theirs. Worship leadership is mostly about getting out of our own way. Read More

The 8 habits of engaging worship leaders that David Santisteven discusses in this article are habits that everyone who is involved in leading worship in some capacity needs to develop. This includes pastors, elders, lay readers, lectors, choir members, musicians, and the like.

10 Really Big Questions about Future Church Attendance (and 10 Hunches)

Talk to any church leader, and they’ll tell you it feels more challenging than ever to get people to come to church on a Sunday.

Even in growing churches (like ours), the competition for peoples’ time, attention and devotion seems to get more intense every year.

You’ve felt it too.

So what’s up? And where is future church attendance heading?

I’m a firm believer in the future of the church and the gathered church. It’s here to stay not because we always get it right, but because the church is Jesus’ idea, not ours.

Still, with everything in the culture changing, how do you navigate toward a better future?

One step is to start asking solid questions.

Why? Because usually the future isn’t pioneered by the clarity of the answers nearly as much as it by the quality of the questions.

sk the right questions, and you’ll eventually get the right answers. Fail to ask the questions, and you’re sunk.

Here are ten questions I’m asking right now and I’ve seen other leaders ask. I think they can help frame your discussion and move you toward better answers and a strategy to match.

I’ve also included my hunch when it comes to an answer to the questions, not because I’m certain it’s right, but because answering the question moves you toward a more strategic and proactive future.

So, with that in mind, here are 10 really big questions about future church attendance. Read More

Help for Pastors Stuck in a Christmas Sermon Rut

The incarnation is certainly worth celebrating, but let’s be honest: how many more sermons on the nativity texts do you have in you? If you went back and listened to the sermons from every December of your ministry, would this year’s advent series sound any different? If we’re not careful, even ministers can find themselves on autopilot as we navigate the Christmas season. In light of this tendency, there are a few things for us preachers to remember in December. Read More

Monday's Catch: From Multisite to MultiChurch and More

MultiChurch a More Biblical Version of Multisite?

Brad House and Gregg Allison, two ecclesial pioneers, want to lead the wagon train one mountain farther—to the land of the multichurch, in their book MultiChurch: Exploring the Future of Multisite. Read More

What is the difference between a "multichurch" and a small denomination? Both are networks of churches. Some denominations are more centralized in the way that they handle funds than others. So what is the primary difference between the two--nomenclature?

Why Putting Christ Back in Christmas Is Not Enough

The history of American holiday cheer obscures the difficult details of the nativity narrative. Read More

Also see this Wikipedia article on Father Christmas. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe C. S. Lewis treats Father Christmas as a servant of Aslan, whose arrival in the land of Narnia heralds the return of the Son of the Emperor Overseas and the deliverance of Narnia from the power of the White Witch. The Father Christmas of the Narnia Chronicles is reminiscent of "Sir Christemas" of Richard Smart's fifteenth century carol, who announces the good news of Christ's birth and encourages his listeners to "make good cheer and be right merry." On the other hand, the White Witch herself takes an attitude which I find reminiscent of that of the Puritans, "What is the meaning of all this gluttony, this waste, this self indulgence? Where did you get all these things?" Rather than becoming Christmas killjoys like the Puritans, I believe that we can learn from Lewis that God can evidence his grace through the traditional customs of Christmas. While we should not let them overshadow the narrative of Christ's birth, we should not fear them.

Why Do We Say "Noel" at Christmas

Virtually every other language has a word for Christmas. Spanish-speakers celebrate Navidad. The Italians have Natale and the Dutch look forward to Kerstmis. But why do we English-speakers sing “The First Noel,” the French word for Christmas, and not say “The First Weihnachten,” the German word? Read More

Aaron Earls neglects to mention that English contains many French words and at one time French, Norman French, was spoken in England. For a time the title of Duke of Normandy was held by the kings of England.

How Church Leaders Can Avoid The Holiday (Leadership) Blues

4 practical action steps that will help you avoid the holiday blues.... Read More

Stop Saying 81 Percent of White Evangelicals Vote for Trump (It Was Probably Less Than Half)

I know I’m fighting a losing battle with this post. It won’t go viral. It probably won’t change many minds. But I’ll give it a shot anyway. No matter how many times people make the claim, it is simply wrong to say that 81 percent of white evangelicals in the United States voted for Donald Trump to become president. Read More

More Is Only Good When It’s A Byproduct Of Better

We don’t need bigger churches. We need better churches. Then we need more of them.

More isn’t always better.

No one wants more heartache, more tragedy, or more loneliness. Unless you’re trying to write a hit country song.

In fact, it’s not just bad things we don’t want more of. No one wants more of an average meal, a typical day, or a mundane job, either.

More is only good when it’s a byproduct of being better.

It’s the same in the church. Read More

The (Hidden) Theology and History of O Come O Come Emmanuel

If anyone had a side hustle or a gig, it was the Anglican priest and hymn writer, John Mason Neale.

Neale (1818-1866) not only founded a nursing order of Anglican nuns, helped social welfare organizations care for orphans and young woman, and was a warden of Sackville college, but he translated early and medieval Greek and Latin hymns in his spare time—focusing on the ancient ones that were written around “the feasts and the fasts of the Christian year.”[1]

HE IS MOST NOTABLY KNOWN FOR BRINGING US THAT BELOVED CAROL, O COME O COME EMMANUEL.

While the hymn as we find it today was first published in the mid 19th century, its origins are actually found in a Benedictine Gregorian chant from the late 8th and 9th century. History tells us that beginning the week before Christmas, the monks would sing a verse a day to prepare their hearts and minds for Christmas.

What’s fascinating about the original seven verses is that each began with a Messianic title from the Scriptures that prophesied and foreshadowed Jesus’ coming.... Read More

6 Characteristics of an Irrelevant Leader

So how relevant are you as a leader?

Any idea how you’d answer that accurately?

You can debate how important relevance is all day long (and many do), but the truth is irrelevant leaders eventually make less impact on the team around them, and eventually almost no impact on the next generation, except for perhaps an example of what not to be like.

Why is that?

Relevance matters for one simple reason: relevance gives you permission to speak into the culture around you. Relevance determines whether people pay attention to you or whether they ignore you.

Irrelevant people eventually lose the ability to communicate meaningfully with the people they care about and to contribute to the causes they’re passionate about.

Before you push back, just because the Gospel is always relevant doesn’t mean you are.

Even growing organizations can lose relevance. Your past success doesn’t guarantee your future success.

In fact, as we’ve discussed here more than a few times, the great enemy of your future success is your current success because your success makes you conservative.

When you had nothing to lose, change was easy. Now that you have something to lose, change is that much harder.

So whether your organization or cause has a bit of momentum left or whether it’s losing steam, here are 6 ways to tell your influence as a leader is waning. Read More