Articles

  • Saddling Donkeys

    Bible stories can be so weird sometimes. Like 1 Kings 13 where a "man of God" is killed by a lion for eating and drinking before leaving town. But the weirdest thing is the repetition of the phrase, "saddled the donkey." Why make such a big deal about saddling donkeys?

  • A Book About What Happens When People Begin to Question Church

    Yesterday morning my wife looked out the window and saw a package on our doorstep. She asked if I was expecting a book, and I said, "Oh, I bet it's the one I'm in!" Sure enough, it was my copy of Finding Church: Stories of Leaving, Switching, and Reforming, edited by Jeremy Myers and written by a bunch of people.

  • The Key Ingredient in any Sermon

    I love preaching. There I said it. Somehow, because of the way God wired me, I absolutely love getting in front of people and unfolding the Scriptures with them in a way that (I hope and pray) leads to life transformation. Believe it or not, I also love the whole process leading up to preaching the sermon. I love studying the text. I love reading the commentaries. I love looking for and brainstorming stories and illustrations. I love pulling all the ideas together. I love outlining the sermon. I even love practicing the sermon.

  • Three Reasons I'm Stoked About the New Book, "Finding Church"

     The book, Finding Church: Stories of Leaving, Switching, and Reforming, will be released in early December, 2012. The book is edited by Jeremy Myers and will consist of 36 stories by people who have either left their churches, switched to another church, or worked to reform their churches.

  • 4 Benefits of Starting Your Meetings WITHOUT a Devotional

    Last week, I wrote about a practice we use at my church to start off our leadership team meetings. We call it "dwelling in scripture" (this name comes from The Missional Leader by Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk). In that post, I explained how we do this; in this post, I want to explain why it's such a great practice.

  • A Great Way to Start a Leadership Team Meeting

     In my post on building community in a membership class, I mentioned that one of our key practices is something called "dwelling in Scripture." But it's not something I use only in membership classes. I use it in nearly all of my regular leadership meetings: Session (our board of elders), Deacons, and staff. It's so easy to do and so beneficial for the spiritual growth of our teams.

  • 3 Practices to Build Community in your Membership Class

    I'm always amazed when I hear of churches whose membership process consists of little more than one or two classes. I've heard one large church pastor say, "Why make it hard to become a member? Why make people sit through a bunch of classes?" I don't agree with that approach. Not that we need people to sit through a bunch of classes. But I think we lose something really important when we rush people through into membership.

  • 8 Steps to Dealing with Criticism Effectively

    I've been getting some constructive criticism from some folks in my church these past few weeks. I hate getting constructive criticism. You know why? Because it means I'm not perfect. It means I could be doing something better. I would much rather hear someone say, "Way to go, pastor!" or "Great job, pastor!" That has a much sweeter ring to it, doesn't it?

  • How to Keep Kids from Leaving Their Faith After High School

    We just finished a sermon series at my church based on the book Sticky Faith by Kara Powell and Chap Clark (I provide an outline of that sermon series below). This is a breakthrough book in the area of youth ministry. The problem this book addresses is the fact that 40-50% of kids who grow up in the church end up leaving their faith and the church after high school.

  • Want to Lead Change? Disappoint Your People

    Kathleen Ward at Church in a Circle recently posted about how to bring about change in an established church environment. Which is the environment I'm most familiar with. And her post got me to thinking about what is involved in leading change.

  • Did Jesus Have a Wife? (And does it matter?)

    A couple of members of the church where I pastor sent me links to articles describing an ancient fragment of papyrus that seems to indicate that Jesus was married.  One article was in the Huffington Post and the other in the New York Times.  Both church members asked for my thoughts, and I thought I'd share them with you here.My Thoughts on the Possibility that Jesus was Married1.

  • 2 Reasons We're Afraid to Experiment in our Churches

    Experimenting isn’t a word that gets used much in church circles. It’s more of a scientific word. It’s tends to be used in the fields of biology, chemistry, physics, medical research, etc. But it’s not a word you hear used much in the world of ministry, mission, and theology. But I think it’s a word we need to adopt. It’s a word that needs to become a part of our everyday vocabulary.

  • Why Missional Leaders Must Experiment

    My 7-year-old son hates trying new food. A couple of months ago, we told him he had to eat two—two!—green beans before he could leave the table. He got so upset over this that he started crying. (I actually got it on video, but won’t post it because I don’t want to jeopardize future employment or romance for him.)

  • Why Missional Leadership is Hard

    Let me say that this blog is not coming easy to me. I’ve got a list of about 50 blog topics I want to write about, and when I look at my list I think to myself, “I have no idea what I want to say about that right now.” Here’s a cheesy segue… That reminds me of what it’s like to try to lead missionally.

  • 5 Steps to Being a Better Learner

    Here’s the problem with most leaders. We think we know everything. The reality, however, is that we don’t. The solution? Learn. Here are 5 steps to being a more effective learner.

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