224 results found for: church

growing

How to Get Your Church Growing Again

Guest Post from Aaron Buer. Reposted with kind permission from Breeze. From time to time, we all get stuck. Our churches get stuck. We get stuck in our personal lives and we get stuck in leadership. It just happens. It’s normal. Often, stuck doesn’t mean that things are terrible. It just means that things are comfortable. It means we are coasting. I realized a while back that our ministry was coasting. We were stuck in the land of “good enough.” Thankfully, in this season, our church leadership was beginning to take dramatic steps away from “good enough” and toward “excellent.” […]

resolutions

4 New Year’s Resolutions for Your Church

Guest Post from Aaron Buer. Reposted with kind permission from Breeze. Hey, it’s a new year! Let’s talk about resolutions. I’m not talking about your personal resolutions, although, I hope you’re able to keep those. Let’s talk about resolutions for your church. It might be a good idea to capitalize on the season and set some goals. There’s an opportunity here. I have a few suggestions to get the ball rolling. 1. Clarify the Mission Everyone is thinking about goals in January. So, what’s the goal for your church? In other words, what’s the mission? What are you trying to accomplish […]

America

Is there a Need for Church Management Training in America?

In America today, many churches are struggling to effectively disciple and grow their churches. In fact, church attendance has been declining dramatically since the 1960’s (Tobin Grant, Religion News Service, January, 2014). One of the main reasons seems to be our changing culture in America. It used to be that virtually everyone went to church.  It was part of our American culture. People went to church in many cases because it was what most Americans did on Sunday mornings. Pastors did not have to work that hard in getting people to come or remain in church. But that is not true […]

health

Do you care about the Quality or Health of your Church?

Assessing the most important thing your church needs right now for greater fruitfulness requires a certain attitude of heart: Jesus said: “I will build my church.” (Mt. 16:18). Pastors are called to be God’s Co-Workers in that project (1 Cor 3:9). That means: Jesus gave you responsibility over his church, so your role is ‘stewardship’. As good ‘stewards’, we need to re-evaluate what Church is about, according to Jesus’ modeling and instructions to his disciples. Will you agree that it is about… Worshipping our God, Edifying our believers, Caring for and relieving people’s pains and problems, Proclaiming the Good News? […]

decisions

3 Ways Church Leaders Can Make Better Decisions

Article on making decisions from guest blogger Aaron Buer at Breeze Church.  I’m currently obsessed with the stories of the Old Testament Kings of Israel. Their stories are fascinating. There’s also a lot to learn from these guys – the good and the bad. Speaking of good and bad, King Solomon was a jumbled up mix of good and bad. On the one hand, he is described as the wisest man in history. On the other, he basically enslaved his people and apparently married every woman he met. 700?!? Come on bro. Let’s focus on his strengths. He was next-level […]

sermon

Is Church More than a Sermon?

In this podcast “Church: More than a sermon,” Drs. Darrell L. Bock, Michael Svigel, and Barry Jones discuss the question, “Why does church attendance matter if we have worship music, sermons online, and fellowship with other believers everyday?” and related inquiries from participants.  Timecode: 01:39 Why should we go to church? 07:20 Why can’t seminary substitute for the local church? 11:25 The culture of the consumerism and the church. 16:20 Women and the church 19:55 Communicating the importance of church as a minister 23:15 What if the church is not spiritually forming? 25:20 How do we stress the importance and expectations of community? 32:45 Is it a […]

hard

5 Hard Truths About Healthy Church Growth

Reshared with kind permission by the author Carey Nieuwhof. Most church leaders I know would love to see their church grow. Similarly, most leaders I’ve met want their church to grow for what we might call the ‘right’ reasons: they sincerely want more people to encounter the love of Jesus Christ. That’s amazing. And yet there’s a strong reaction against growing churches by many leaders. For some reason, many people love to take pot-shots at growing churches and large churches. Some are categorical denouncements. I don’t know what to do with those. Sometimes I sense that underneath the anger are […]

big

Big Church or Little Church?

Shared with permission from The Table podcast In this episode, Dr. Darrell Bock and Dr. Gary Bershears discuss ecclesiology, focusing on the opportunities, challenges, and value of churches of any size. 00:24 Introduction of Gary Breshears 00:44 Topic Introduction 01:08 What kind of Church Drs. Bock and Breshears attend. 03:10 The Church: a building, a people, or a presence? 05:20 How should we think about the church? 07:47 What is the “Social Gospel?” 12:10 How should the church relate to community service projects? 16:50 How should we think about “mega-churches?” 19:40 Is the church for discipleship or evangelism? 24:30 What is the positive impact of the “megachurch?” 33:19 Does […]

commit

7 Steps to Start Becoming a Church People Want to Commit To

A lot of recently unchurched people are like some of the rowdy kids in school. They’re ditching because they’re not being challenged. by Karl Vaters People who don’t go to church, don’t want to go to church. They’re not rolling out of bed late on Sunday morning wishing they had somewhere more churchy to be. In fact, a growing number of people who do go to church don’t want to go, either. If we don’t give them something worth committing to, they’ll be gone soon. As I mentioned in my last post, People Aren’t as Loyal to a Church Or […]

leaving

5 Reasons People are Leaving Your Church

Guest post from Aaron Buer of Breeze Church. Recently I was invited to speak at a church in our town where a friend of mine is the senior pastor. While I was speaking, I experienced something incredibly distracting. I kept recognizing people. “Hey! They used to attend my church!” They were everywhere! This of course led to all sorts of questions, the biggest of which was: Why did they leave? Ever been there? One of the hardest parts of church leadership is watching people walk away. I want to take some time in this post to talk about reasons that […]