Congregation
(I've added a new category, Technology. Here's the first post.) Sam Rainer, my fellow-blogger on the Outreach network, wrote a good piece about church websites, The Church Website: Overrated, Overdone, or More To Come? For small churches, the disturbing news is that only 29% of churches
Community
I've added a new category to this blog -- Pastoral Care. In small churches, pastoral care becomes a primary and expected ministry of the pastor. Here's the first post. __________________________________________________ I ran across this definition of pastoral care recently -- pastoral care noun If you're
Congregation
Ren, me and Gerardo at NOC07 I met a couple of great pastors yesterday at our small church affinity group meeting. Ren and Gerardo are both pastors of churches a couple of hours from San Diego. Both face the challenges of transitioning their growing small churches into the next level
Congregation
Today's spiritual earthquake Several years ago, I was in Taiwan on business. About 2 o'clock in the morning, I gradually awoke to the sound of the bathroom door repeatedly slamming into the wall. The bed was shaking, too. As the fog of sleep cleared from my
Congregation
Last week I posted my thoughts about Preaching from the Lectionary. I ended that article by saying that not only did this Baptist preacher take his text from the revised common lectionary, but I also preached in a robe. Well, the robe-thing apparently intrigued a couple of readers who asked
Congregation
I am a Baptist. Each Sunday I preach from the texts of the revised common lectionary. What's wrong with this picture? These are not contradictory statements, believe it or not. Although I come from a free church, and not a liturgical tradition, I choose my preaching text each
Congregation
Here's some of the conversation around the blogosphere this week about doing church -- Thanks to Emergent Village for putting me onto Nate Bettger's post about "'Doing Church' like everyone else..." Here's a sample: weekly gathering Over at God'
Community
The NY Times carried a story today of a United Methodist Church struggling with how to maintain its stand against the death penalty, while mourning the murder of three of its members -- a mother and her two teenage daughters. Members expressed concern that their previously unquestioned opposition to the
Congregation
The ground has just shifted under the evangelical world. Willow Creek, that combination mega-church and mini-denomination, has just discovered that church programs don't work. Here's their conclusion -- ...increasing levels of participation in these sets of activities [church programs] does NOT predict whether someone’s becoming
Congregation
Recently some poor soul googled "sermon - I'm not doing anything wrong" and landed on my blog. I am pretty sure they didn't find a sermon by me titled, "I'm not doing anything wrong" but maybe they found something helpful.
Community
Today's New York Times features an article about families eating together. Multiple research over many years indicates that eating a family meal together several times a week -- * Connects family members to each other; * Results in healthier food choices than when eating alone; * Helps prevent eating disorders among
Missional Church
Ran across some helpful stuff you might like -- * Tim Bednar has a cool blog on using tech stuff in practical ways in ministry. * For those into charts, Kevin Kelly has the mother of all charts. * Church of the Customer blog has new data on WOM (word-of-mouth) as the best