2018
Big churches and small churches design their budgets very differently.
While large churches spend their time balancing percentages, designing requisition sheets, and tracking an increase or decrease of giving as one measurement of the church’s health, small churches deal ...
One of the airtight principles of church leadership is that you can tell what a church’s priorities are by looking at where they allocate their funds.
That is true in some churches, but not in all. Maybe not in most.
Here’s why.
The vast majority of churches are small, ...
Are you an underliner? I am. Unless I’m reading for pleasure, it’s almost impossible for me to pick up a book unless I have something to underline or highlight it with.
When people read books, they tend to underline or highlight the sentences they agree with. Give ...
Not all change is good.
The church exists to worship the God who never changes, as seen in a book whose newest pages are 2,000 years old. That’s some serious long-term consistency.
But the way that permanent message is delivered always changes. Traditions that we think of ...
Finishing well in ministry really matters to me.
Especially since I now have more ministry years behind me than in front of me.
I want every day of my ministry life to matter. And I want to end it having brought honor to Christ, his church and my family.
This has become even more ...
What do pastors, politicians and major league coaches have in common? A whole lot of people who’ve never done their job are convinced they could do it better.
The less experience they have the more certain they are, because those who’ve actually done it know how hard ...
Preaching matters.
According to no less an authority than the Apostle Paul, the spoken message of Christ crucified is one the ways God has chosen to bring his message of salvation to the world (1 Corinthians 1:18-25).
Because preaching matters, those of us who are entrusted to ...
Are you a pastor trying to make needed changes in the church, but meeting a lot of resistance every time you introduce something new, like a worship song, curriculum or order of service?
Here’s a universal truth that I discovered through decades of experience trying to ...
Introducing people to faith in Christ is a central component of what it means to be the church.
Like me, many of you were raised and still minister in an environment where the Great Commission is followed by a public call to salvation at the end of every church service.
The Altar ...
Last week, Saddleback Church celebrated an amazing spiritual milestone. Since their founding 38 years ago, they have baptized 50,000 new believers.
That is something the entire body of Christ needs to pause and thank God for. 50,000 people making commitments to Christ in one ...
Numbers matter, because people matter.
If we keep track of them correctly, the right numbers can give us a lot of helpful information about a church and its ministries.
For many years, I kept track of church attendance numbers very carefully. As the church grew, I calculated growth ...
Six months ago today, our church made our biggest transition in a quarter century.
After being the lead pastor for 25 years, I stepped aside so that Gary Garcia (the youth pastor who has been with me for that entire time) could take my position, while I became the teaching pastor. ...
There are a lot of misunderstandings about small churches and the people who pastor them.
- That we’re a problem to be fixed
- That we could be bigger if we’d just follow the latest 8-step church growth plan
- That we can only do good ministry when we hit a certain critical mass
There’s a scandal going on in the church today.
It is one of the biggest scandals in church history, yet it remains invisible to most of us.
No, it’s not the sexual sins of some of our leaders. It’s not the physical, emotional and spiritual abuse of church members, ...
How was church attendance yesterday?
In our church, we started the first service with more people on stage than in the audience.
It filled in to a normal summer crowd later, but for a while it was looking rough.
That’s the way attendance is in a small church. You can have ...
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