Church
WHERE TWO OR THREE COME TOGETHER.
“Where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them. Mt 18 20 How often over the centuries has this remarkable promise of Jesus encouraged the faithful of all generations and cultures? How many times have seemingly very ordinary opportunities for fellowship been transformed by the thought that the Lord of […]
Are We Fracturing the Fellowship?
Good strategies for ministry are a bit like new drugs: they offer excellent outcomes initially but you can never predict the side effects. It is so easy to try new angles in the Lord’s service with all good intention not realising that there may be some very real down sides. The old formula of three […]
BEWARE THE SPIRITUAL TOURISTS
Pastors can usually pick them at forty paces. It often comes as a hunch backed up by some simple observations. Evasive answers about their last church, a gentle refusal to give away too many personal details, often an absence of personal warmth all convey a largely hidden agenda. Now this is not to suggest that […]
COUNTRY CLUB TO MISSION BASE: THE STRATEGIC ROLE OF THE PASTOR
Whichever way we look at it, all the talk about church growth is not being matched by actual on the ground growth in many places. It’s a paradox really. Never have there been so many books, tapes, videos and conferences all focussing energetically on the most effective ways to grow the church. This is the […]
Surviving the Culture of Criticism
A few years back a pastor who left his congregation under a cloud defined rather wistfully the kind of church he would like to be called to in the future: one where he would be accepted for who he was, where the leadership had great vision and where there were no critics. He is still […]
THE BODY LANGUAGE OF YOUR CHURCH
Silly as it may seem, most people already have formed a few ideas about your church before they ever go on site. And they will form a few more should they manage a visit to a service. The body language of your building speaks with great clarity and the messages conveyed may not necessarily bring […]
THOSE VISION STATEMENTS: THERE’S MORE TO THEM THAN MEETS THE EYE
If you are looking for the flavour of the month around many churches, go no further than the dreaming up of vision statements, the setting of goals and the identifying of measurable objectives. If you are really taking the Gospel seriously, you will surely be drafting up a directions manual for the next five years […]
Let’s Find Our Prophetic Voice!
When it came to recruiting prophets, the Almighty should have worked through a professional head hunting agency. Instead, He constantly got stuck with the retiring, the reticent, the young, the inept and the battler. As for terms and conditions, He never got it right. His prophets should have had Work Care, plenty of long service […]
Bob and Muriel: Could Your Church Reach Them?
Bob and Muriel are real people. They are in their early fifties, the parents of several adult children. There are a number of grand children one of whom died recently after alleged physical abuse by a de facto son-in-law. There is a daughter in her early twenties living at home. She is an unmarried mother […]
The Church as a Camp Fire
Any mention of “boiling the billy” quickly recalls the image of the camp fire, of the drovers and their dogs, of great herds of cattle toiling along the endless stock routes of the inland, of an era which is almost past. See the curling smoke drifting carelessly skyward into the orange glow of another day […]
Categories
Articles may be reproduced in any medium, without applying for permission
(provided they are unedited, and retain the original author/copyright information - and a reference to this website :-)!
26,756 articles online.
Protected by Akismet, Digital Ninjas and an Ion Cannon. Really.
Blog with WordPress