Posts Tagged ‘Church Growth’
Pastoral Obscurity: the blessing of anonymity
About every six months, a small group of pastor friends and I get together to discuss a Christian book and pray together. It is a great time of ministerial camaraderie and encouragement. All of us are pastors of relatively small churches. None of us have churches with more than two hundred attendees, and most of…
Read MoreChurch Health, then Church Growth
As one surveys the New Testament, he finds that it is filled with directives regarding the functions we are to perform, but it is short on specifics regarding the forms necessary to carry them out.1 For instance, the Bible tells us in Hebrews 10:25 that we are “not to give up meeting together … but…
Read MoreThe Church after Covid – Where Is It Going?
A recent Christian Post article reports on a Barna study of church participation during the recent “lockdown” weeks of the Covid-19 crisis. The Christian Post article opens with this: One-third of all practicing Christians haven’t been watching either their own church online or another church’s streaming worship services since the state lockdowns in response to…
Read MoreFaithfulness When Progress is Slow
In 2010, I attended a funeral at Victory Baptist Church in the rural town of Whiteville, NC. I did not know then that in December of 2013, I would become the pastor of this small church and begin praying that God would bring new life to this congregation. But before that could happen, God needed…
Read MoreSunday school vs. Small Groups
Don Johnson A recent blog opened with this shocking statement (shocking to some, at least): This fall we are going to do something that will seem crazy to many. We are going from a small group model to a Sunday school model (under a different name). Most church growth material over the past 20 years…
Read MoreWhy We are in Manhattan
Background and Burden Matt Recker Manhattan, New York, is an island where one can reach the world within just 22.83 square miles of space. One of the five boroughs of New York City, Manhattan is the second smallest county in the United States. Conversely with its 1.6 million people, Manhattan is the most densely populated…
Read MoreEvery Christian is a Teacher
Thomas Overmiller What common feature do you find in the following four verses taken at intervals from the book of Acts? And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith (Acts 6:7). But the word of…
Read MorePutting Things in Order
An anonymous pastor The old saying “easier said than done” comes to mind as I think upon what the apostle Paul’s admonition must have sounded like to Titus (1:5). After appointing spiritual leadership in the churches, Titus was to go about his work of “setting in order” (the term refers to the setting of a…
Read MoreEclectica: Shrinking the Church
Just one article to call to your attention for this edition – and we think it is a pretty significant one: How To Shrink Your Church In One Easy Step (link below the jump) The basic thesis of the article is summed up by this: Every major American church that has taken steps towards liberalization…
Read MoreWhat Do We Build That Lasts?
Wally Morris For a brief time in high school, I was the president of our local archeology club. I grew up in southern Georgia near the coast, an area of arrowheads, shark’s teeth, and colonial history. Just north of where I lived is St. Simons Island where John and Charles Wesley ministered to the soldiers…
Read More