Culture
I look forward to this every year -- the annual Beloit College Mindset List. Created by two of Beloit's staff, the Mindset List was designed to give Beloit professors clues to their incoming freshmen class. Professors who thought listening to Kurt Cobain made them cool, might be surprised
Congregation
Where did summer go? I'm sure yours has been busy, too; but, I can't believe how summer has flown by. School starts tomorrow here in our community, and we resume our regular Wednesday night schedule at the church starting this Wednesday. June was taken up with
Congregation
You need to read The Future of Evangelicalism: A Conversation With Rick Warren over at The Pew Forum. It's long, and covers a lot of territory, but in it Rick talks about how megachurches do the small church thing (my words, not his). Here's a quick
Outreach
Pamela Gordon is the creative pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Paducah, Kentucky. She and her church's EcoFair outreach idea will be featured in an upcoming issue of Outreach magazine, in my column Small Church, Big Idea. But apparently that's not the only idea that Pam
Genesis
This summer I'm preaching a series of sermons titled "The Wisdom of ....." and today's sermon was "The Wisdom of Justice and Mercy." Each of the 8 sermons is based on a text from the revised common lectionary for that day. Here'
Outreach
This fall I'm leading a breakout session at NOC2010 titled, Outreach in the Crises of Life. I'm convinced that care and ministry during life's crises is not only a great thing to do, but the most overlooked outreach opportunity churches have. Crisis ministry focuses
Culture
I deactivated my Twitter account today. I also deleted a couple of blogs, including my oldest, Amicus Dei, but it was time to pull the plug. I'll be closing down NewChurchReport.com soon. Here at Confessions of a Small-Church Pastor, I'll be focusing on small church
Uncategorized
To quote Mark Twain, "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated!" I've been away from the blog for a few days, and will be for a few days more. A major writing project is occupying my spare moments, but I'll be back soon.
Community
Today we ran out of communion cups. I don't mean we didn't have any in the cupboard. Rather, we ran out while serving communion to a larger-than-expected Fourth of July congregation. And it was all my fault. You see, almost everybody I had talked to the
evangelism
Outreach magazine's annual small church issue is on its way to subscribers right now. For those of you who don't subscribe, you can order this single issue from Amazon. That's right, the entire issue is available to you today from the friendly folks at
Lectionary Yr C
I'm starting a new sermon series this Sunday using texts taken from the Revised Common Lectionary readings for July and August. As I read through each of these scripture selections, I picked up a theme of "wise living" from them. Each text seemed to me to
Culture
Michael Kelley gets to the heart of small church authenticity over at Ed Stetzer's blog today. Here's an excerpt: The reason we have something to learn is that we have tried to be Starbucks. We've tried to be slick, trendy, and hip. We'