To the Point: A New Way to View Small Church Vitality
Editor’s note: This information adapted from an article by Dr. Lewis A. Parks which appeared in Leading Ideas on October 14, 2015. This To the Point version…
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Editor’s note: This information adapted from an article by Dr. Lewis A. Parks which appeared in Leading Ideas on October 14, 2015. This To the Point version…
It is increasingly common for a congregation to share a pastor with another congregation and for pastors to be serving more than one church. Lew…
Lewis A. Parks, author of Small on Purpose, describes how smaller congregations can easily squander their last resources for ministry attempting to keep up with…
Lewis A. Parks, author of Small on Purpose, says the small church offers a surrogate family for those whose basic family unit is dispersed or…
I spend my working days as a pastor trying to name reality for my congregation as we wind a precarious way between the heights of…
You pick up some books because of the author and some because of the title. This one called to me for both reasons. Through Edgar…
A previous generation of students such as Carl Dudley, David Ray, and Anthony Pappas have catalogued the unique culture of the small church, here defined…
How do we rebound from setbacks to our best-laid attempts to exercise responsible leadership in ministry? I recently returned from a large denominational gathering where…
My mother attended a one room schoolhouse for all but the last two years of her public education. As a Baby Boomer, I grew up…
These are anxious times for the lay and clergy leaders of small congregations. The repercussions of a disappointing economy, aging and shrinking membership, and a…
Bob Farr offers a generous collection of tools for congregational development in his book Renovate or Die: Ten Ways to Focus Your Church on Mission…
I have served as pastor of small, mid-size, and large churches. And some of them grew, especially the larger ones. Large churches that grow larger…
Church leadership literature often seems lacking in psychological depth. It feels Machiavellian in its world view and behaviorist in its focus, particularly if your seminary…
Small membership churches have a history of making do without a lot of leadership from persons outside. Many were started by laypersons gathered in homes,…
When small church lay and clergy leaders gather, the first comments you often hear reflect an understandable anger, defensiveness, and dread of an imminent future.…
The Ministry of the Missional Church (Baker Books, 2007) by Craig Van Gelder is not leadership in search of theological rationale. It is a theology of…
Many of us intuit that there is a critical deficit of theology in contemporary congregations. Like Anthony Robinson, we have seen the “Pecos River syndrome,”…
Some books remind us of the church’s mission to those on the margin of life. We read them; we feel bad. Nothing changes. Other books…
Lewis Parks examines basic concepts of family systems theory as a positive framework to understand the dynamics of small membership churches. While teaching pastoral care…
This article is reprinted by permission from Leading Ideas, a free e-newsletter from the Lewis Center for Church Leadership of Wesley Theological Seminary available at churchleadership.com.