Post-Pandemic Church Growth: May 13
Churches have been reopening now for many months, mostly to great disappointment. So many church members and pastors believed that there would be a flood of relieved church members and guests rushing back to fellowship, worship, and in-house worship only Read more…
Vision First
Too often, our churches appear to be on autopilot – we do what we do because it’s what we do and pretty much all we’ve ever done. Worship looks like worship. Sunday school looks like Sunday school. The bulletin looks Read more…
The Evangelism Conundrum
We just saw this stat: 47 percent of Millennial Christians believe it’s wrong to share their faith with others. Not 47 percent of Millennials, 47 percent of CHRISTIAN Millennials. That’s a staggering statistic … but let’s be honest, it’s not Read more…
Church Turnaround A to Z
It’s been said that the only thing more difficult that starting a new church from scratch is to turn around an existing church. However, rekindling growth in a church that’s been in decline or on a plateau is one of Read more…
Building Connections: On and Off Line: May 27
Whether you’re doing in-person worship, on-line worship, or a hybrid, the reality is that if you’re not making good connections with your members, your guests, and your visitors, then you’re dead in the water. In today’s world, making connections is Read more…
The Fine Art of Communicating
Believe it or not, Christians aren’t well known for being great communicators. In fact, we have a fairly wide reputation as being argumentative, closed minded, and biased. In this episode, Drs. Kris and Bill have a conversation (?) a discussion Read more…
Invite: The Nuts and Bolts
The first process for growing your church is to effectively invite people who are outside of the church to come and check you out. Whether you’re inviting to worship online, worship in person, a Sunday school class, or a Friday Read more…
Create a Christmas Eve of Dreams
Create a Christmas Eve of DreamsYour Christmas Eve worship service is most likely the one service where you’re most likely to get the most receptive visitors of the year. Although there’s an expectation that the worship service will be all Read more…
Teaching Prayer
Where did you learn how to pray? If you’re like most of us, you learned by listening to others who were praying. If you were raised in church, the primary example was the pastor and the pastoral prayer. The problem Read more…
Measuring Maturity
When your nominating team meets, are they looking for warm bodies to fill positions, or are they looking for mature disciples with passion? We’ll get to the passion part in another episode, but how can you tell whether or not Read more…
The 5 Faces of Jesus
It’s a loaded question, as in, it’s a GREAT question for sharing why you’re a Jesus followers: “Why do you go to church?” But the response is too often a mumbled conversation about how wonderful the people are or how Read more…
The Fine Art of Communicating
Believe it or not, Christians aren’t well known for being great communicators. In fact, we have a fairly wide reputation as being argumentative, closed minded, and biased. In this episode, Drs. Kris and Bill have a conversation (?) a discussion Read more…
Ministry – Too Important for Volunteers
Everything your church does has eternal consequences. Lives and souls and families and eternities hang in the balance. With that in mind, do your really think that a cadre of mere volunteers have the commitment level and the expertise to Read more…
Role of the Lead Pastor: Priorities – May 20
Whether you’re a solo pastor, or a pastor with serious staff, where you choose to invest your time is critical. In this episode Dr. Bill sits down with Paul Borden, author of How to Make or Break Your Church in Read more…
Vision First
Too often, our churches appear to be on autopilot – we do what we do because it’s what we do and pretty much all we’ve ever done. Worship looks like worship. Sunday school looks like Sunday school. The bulletin looks Read more…
Teaching Prayer
Where did you learn how to pray? If you’re like most of us, you learned by listening to others who were praying. If you were raised in church, the primary example was the pastor and the pastoral prayer. The problem Read more…
Ministry – Too Important for Volunteers
Everything your church does has eternal consequences. Lives and souls and families and eternities hang in the balance. With that in mind, do your really think that a cadre of mere volunteers have the commitment level and the expertise to Read more…
Church Marketing 101
A decent definition of marketing is “getting the word out.” Many churches – most churches – are invisible to their neighbors. Add to the thousands of churches that have jumped online during the pandemic, it’s become difficult to make a Read more…
Effective Church Membership
Effective Church Membership: Some churches have done away with church membership … let’s be honest, the only ones who really count today are those who actually show up (and in most churches, that’s well less than 50 percent of their Read more…
Effective Church Communication
Effective Church CommunicationWhen you start hearing complaints that the church leaders (or the office) aren’t communicating well, it might mean the office is engaged in a closed-door policy. But most of the time it means you’re either facing a power Read more…