2016
I can’t do it all.
Neither can you.
Even though I love saying ‘yes’.
Yes to God. Yes to people. Yes to crazy ideas that might turn out to be great ideas in disguise.
But I’ve learned that saying ‘yes’ means more when it’s balanced by the ...
Jesus was the most culture-challenging, paradigm-shifting, tradition-breaking, change agent who ever lived.
How did his followers become so boring?
Want cutting-edge, society-shifting change? Church is the last place people expect to find it.
Want dry, stuffy, moldy, old traditions ...
It never gets easier. No matter how many times you hear about it.
And we're hearing about it a lot more lately. In epidemic numbers.
Another pastor announced to his stunned congregation that he couldn't do it anymore. He loved them. He was proud of the kingdom work they'd ...
Finding God’s will for your life is not as difficult as we make it out to be.
In fact, 90 percent of God's will for my life is the same as 90 percent of God's will for your life. (Actual results may vary.)
If it was portrayed in a Venn diagram, the two circles would ...
In over 35 years of pastoral ministry, I've known and worked alongside hundreds of pastors. I've met thousands.
I can count the dishonest ones – the wolves in sheep's clothing – on one hand. With fingers left over.
But there are some lies that even the ...
Talking and writing about healthy small churches is a revolutionary idea. It shouldn’t be, but it is. And it probably will be for a while.
But dents are being made. Let me tell you about some that are happening now.
This fall, I’ve been invited to teach about small ...
You give away a lot more than you realize when you’re on the internet.
Now that I operate a website, I get to see some of those secrets because I can read the search terms that have led people there.
I’ve always known that Mondays are hard for pastors. I now have direct ...
I hate either/or choices. I like both/and.
But life doesn’t always give us that.
Take church growth and health, for instance.
Usually, a choice for church health is also a choice for church growth. But not always. Sometimes it's one or the other. Especially in a smaller ...
A healthy church is a great place of healing.
But an unhealthy church causes problems for everyone who touches it – including the pastor who’s called to help turn it around.
More people get sick in hospitals than anywhere else. Because that’s where the sick people ...
I read another one of those church growth blog posts recently. You know the ones. A list of steps your church can take to break through whatever growth barrier you’re facing.
It was a very good list. Every one of the principles was about church health. In fact, as I read ...
I love dialog.
It’s great hearing and reading other people’s opinions. Even when they disagree with me.
Because good communication matters to me, I want to enhance all of our dialog – especially online – with a friendly word of advice to a particular group ...
If you’re a missionary, evangelist, or someone else who spends time trying to get in touch with pastors on the phone, I feel for you.
Pastors are notoriously bad at answering or returning phone calls.
I admit, I’m one of them.
It’s not because we’re lazy, ...
The push to build bigger churches continues full steam ahead.
I regularly get cries for help from small church pastors because of the damage this push is causing.
Today I’m posting two of them.
Because of the personal nature of these messages, I’ve left the names off. ...
There are a lot of books and articles about how a healthy church should behave.
That’s appropriate. We should always have a picture of our desired future in our hearts and minds.
But what does a pastor do with an unhealthy church?
I’m going to propose a radical idea ...
Every time I preach there’s a chance I’ll say something stupid.
Sometimes my mistakes are harmless, like when I quoted God at the burning bush telling Moses, “Take off your feet, you’re standing on holy ground.”
Other times people get hurt. Sometimes ...
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