Spoiler Alert: Are Churches Going the Way of Hollywood Predictability?
Did movies get worse? Over the holiday I saw Wonka at my childhood movie theater. That cinema features one screen, no online reservations, and seats reminiscent of jury duty. However, I walked there from my parents’ house and got admission, candy, and a drink for $10. Not bad. So, I’m not knocking the theater experience, but instead […]
Disciple Making in the Megachurch: Q&A with Bart Shaw of Trader’s Point Christian Church
Can large, long-established churches move to a disciple-making core focus? What steps need to be taken? I recently caught up with Bart Shaw, Campus Pastor and Lead Discipleship Pastor at Traders Point Christian Church, a fast-growing, multisite, nearly 200-year-old church in the Indianapolis area. In this conversation, Bart describes many of the steps Traders Point […]
Why Care About the Rural Church? A Q&A with Tyler VanWey
Editor’s Note: Why care about the rural church? While it’s easy to focus on growing urban and suburban churches because of their population density, it also becomes easier to forget about the importance of churches in rural areas. To help me better understand the rural church and its strategic importance, I reached out to Tyler […]
Challenges for Multicultural Churches
One of the challenges of leading a church that desires to be multicultural is very simple: many of us have never seen one. We’ve graduated from multicultural universities and passed through multicultural airports and stood in multicultural lines at Five Guys. But most of us haven’t been part of a multicultural church. Sure, we can […]
Announcing the Public Launch of Renew Movement Church Planting
The Exponential Church Planting Conference in Orlando, FL, starts today. It is the largest gathering of church planting leaders on the planet with a registered attendance of 5,500 church leaders. I will be leading a pre-conference for RENEW.org and a main track focused on renewing the teachings of Jesus to fuel disciple making. At the […]
Structuring Churches for a Better Kind of Growth
A while back a friend of mine, a pastor of a growing church, asked me for some advice about what next hires he should make in order to help his church keep growing. His church had about 450 people attending regularly, and he wanted to know a good hiring strategy for growth. I was a […]
Is Your Church Healthy? Let’s Be Careful…
How would you feel if a consultant came in to evaluate your church and delivered a report like this one? I have seen all that your church is doing. I saw your love for each other. I saw your faith, your service to each other and to the community around you. I saw your hard […]
Gardening and Spiritual Growth
Last year I built a 4’ x 8’ raised garden bed in the backyard. Other than watching countless YouTube videos of people discussing their secret soil formulas and watering schedules, I talked to my good friend and mentor Danny for advice. Danny grew up on a farm and always had a flourishing garden. His backyard […]
