Congregation
"Students don't want to serve in the local church when they graduate; they want to do something more exciting." -- Southern Baptist seminary administrator A prominent seminary administrator made that comment to me several weeks ago. I've been rolling it around in my head
Congregation
A probing question companies ask themselves in planning is, “What business are we in?” You might think it would be obvious that a newspaper, for instance, is in the print news business. But, not so, according to a popular journalism blogger. Steve Yelvington says that newspapers are in the business
Congregation
In the on-going debate "will digital replace books?" the conclusion of many media watchers is an unequivocal Yes and No. Amazon's Kindle has really become a game-changer, delivering books within seconds of purchase via Sprint's wireless network. Problems do exist, as Jeff Jarvis points
Culture
Another newspaper closed last week and more are on the way. Print journalism is dying faster than the dinosaurs did, and for the same reasons -- the climate changed. Not the atmospheric climate, but the social climate. TV ditto, and throw in retail while you're at it. What
bless the world
I've seen an increase in readers to this blog since the fall, and I want to say two things: 1. Welcome! 2. Here's why I do this: * To be helpful. I try to offer practical, effective, and affordable ideas for small churches (and other sizes, too)
Culture
Today Amazon delivered my copy of Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens through the Twenties by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. A research professor of psychology at Clark University, Arnett became fascinated at the different choices 18-t0-20-something year olds were making compared to preceding generations. Further research bore out
Missional Church
I grew up in churches that had programs for everybody and everything. We had programs for preschoolers, children, teens, adults, and senior adults. And, we had missions programs, Bible study programs, training programs, music programs, and sometimes programs about programs (I am not kidding about that last one). Well, it&
Culture
The buzzword in marketing now is "conversation." The Cluetrain Manifesto popularized that idea with its statement that "markets are conversations." The authors describe a dialogue between marketer and consumer, not just the old one-way deal -- we make it, you buy it, that settles it. Now
Community
Films get them, so do books, and even products. What are they? Reviews. Five stars. Personal experiences from real people who used/read/saw whatever it is they are reviewing. But what if churches got reviews? Well, if they did, here's one you'd like to get.
Community
In their new book, Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and The Churches That Reach Them, Ed Stetzer, Richie Stanley, and Jason Hayes provide a comprehensive analysis of who the eighteen-to-twenty-somethings are and what churches are doing to reach them. Ed outlines the purpose of the book by saying --
Missional Church
Reggie McNeal’s new book, Missional Renaissance, calls for a change in what we count at church. I wrote about counting people being the church in 2007, and that’s exactly what McNeal advocates in his most recent book. A former denominational executive and now a sought-after missional church guru,
church as abbey
Steve Taylor* started an interesting conversation about a sustainable spiritual collective. He even renamed his blog sustain:if:able kiwi. Fortunately he's still at the same url, so you can find Steve here under his new nom de plume. But back to my point. Steve tackles the missional