Connectionalism and Dysfunctional Churches

I have made a few negative comments about conference dashboards keeping statistics on membership, apportionments, and other activities available to anyone who wants to read. I continue to question whether these numbers really tell the story of the health of the churches. There are, I believe, some very large and growing churches that have [...]

Hired Staff Won’t Solve Church Problems

Yesterday I posted one of my short stories over on my Jevlir blog. For those who don’t read that blog (its readership is quite low), I wanted to write a couple of notes here.

Many churches think they’ll find the solution to the problem of declining membership or financial problems by hiring just the [...]

One Reason Christian Leaders Fall – Overload

There have been any number of Christian leaders who have fallen recently, and while the publicity makes it appear that there are more and more, I suspect this isn’t anything new.

One major reason for a failure in leadership is that we put too much trust in people. We give a pastor a great [...]

Part-Time Ministry Call: Disappointment or Opportunity

No, this isn’t a topic I know much about, but I know that many past readers of this blog are either in part-time ministry or are (or have) considered it.

There’s still space in tonight’s Webinar, Part-Time Ministry Call: Disappointment or Opportunity, by Energion author Bob LaRochelle. He’s author of Part-Time Pastor, Full-Time Church (Pilgrim [...]

Worship and a Broadcast Sermon

John Meunier asks if he can be replaced by a video screen. It’s a good question, considering the number of megachurches that are broadcasting a sermon to multiple locations.

I have several objections to the idea of a broadcast sermon:

I think our worship services are already too far from the idea of active [...]

Equipping is not Delegating

I just put an extract from Dave Black Online on The Jesus Paradigm. (I have permission to do this.) Unfortunately, Dave’s blog doesn’t allow linking to a specific entry, so I’m linking to the extract. All I want to say here is “Amen!”

A Sinful Job Description

Image via Wikipedia

The Christian Post has an article on depression amongst pastors and ministry leaders, which, in turn, links to an article at The Gospel Coalition. Now the Gospel Coalition article is part one of a five part series, so I’m not going to comment on how far they will go before [...]

Quote of the Day – On the Job of Pastor

From Dave Black Online:

The task faced by the solitary pastor today in so many of our churches is overwhelming; but it is a task to which the Savior called no one.

Quoted in full by Brian Fulthorp and at jesusparadigm.com.

A United Methodist Pastor on Revitalizing Dead Churches

There are many days when the United Methodist Church discourages me, and I wrote a post yesterday with that sort of feeling. But there are two things that regularly encourage me: Encountering vital small congregations, and meeting some of our young pastors.

Via another young pastor, Geoffrey Lentz, who is doing wonderful things at [...]

The Way That Seems Right

Image via Wikipedia

(This post is written for the One Word at a Time Blog Carnival [Road].)

The mission trip was off to a bad start. I had unwisely followed some “money saving” advice from a travel agent, which landed me in Atlanta with less than an hour to change planes, and the [...]