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Kim Miller’s REdesigning Churches: Creating Spaces for Connection and Community (Abingdon, 2013) provides valuable how-to advice on reviving tired church interiors and offers inspiring examples…
I believe church leaders have much to learn from prayerful and careful consideration of a broad range of management and organizational practices. And based on…
Jessicah Duckworth’s book Wide Welcome speaks to the question of how congregations can best welcome newcomers, engage them in Christian practices, and nurture their faith.…
In their book Better Together: Making Church Mergers Work (Jossey-Bass, 2012), Jim Tomberlin and Warren Bird examine the recent wave of church mergers. The book makes…
How do you reignite a church when it seems that no one wants to lead? In every space and place, God wants transformation to occur.…
What if you knew that your congregation were on a collision course with its demise? What would you do? Whom would you tell? How would…
Readers of Leading Ideas are familiar with the Lewis Center’s focus on the church’s challenge to “reach more people, younger people, and more diverse people.”…
Congregational revitalization happens when the community and the church come together to make it happen. But it can’t be the church saying, “This is what…
The story told in John 21:15-19 is almost too familiar. Three times Jesus asks if Peter loves him, three times Peter says yes, and each…
In June 2011, Steve Jobs made a twenty-minute presentation to the Cupertino City Council to introduce Apple’s plans for a new corporate headquarters, affectionately known…
Dan Aleshire, executive director of the Association of Theological Schools in the U. S. and Canada, went back to his home town in Ohio to…
Many churches today are pioneering a shift in which they are truly engaging their communities in mission. These churches are not only deploying their own…
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…
The community where I live in South Korea is one of the five top places where Koreans want to live. So to reach new disciples…
A new report by the Leadership Network reports on the current state of churches having more than one site. Below are some of the findings…
In Promise and Peril (Alban, 2009), David Brubaker tackles the conundrum churches face: Change usually leads to conflict, but change is required to make progress.…
Just as the congregation of Israel was composed of twelve tribes, today’s churches have different voices that are heard in their communities of faith. Transformational…
“Where your treasure is so will your heart be also,” Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:21. We live in a country and culture where heart…
As we begin thinking about fall stewardship campaigns, our minds may turn to the parable of the talents (Matt. 25:14-30), the story of a master…
Worship attendance at Gardendale-Mt. Vernon United Methodist Church in Gardendale, Alabama, has increased more than 5 percent each year since 1999. One reason for the…
Recently, the Associated Press reported that Southern Baptist churches suffered a loss of members in 2007. This may seem hard to believe for many that…
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…
The multi-site church approach is not a new one, but one that is rapidly growing in appeal, according to the authors of The Multi-Site Church…
How can churches today be as vital as the early Christian communities described in the Book of Acts? How can we reclaim the fruitful piety…
Leading Ideas had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Bishop Robert Schnase, author of Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations (Abingdon Press, 2007). Here are some highlights…
Matt Miofsky reviews Inside the Organic Church by Robert Whitesel, which tells the story of 12 emerging congregations. Bob Whitesel’s book, Inside the Organic Church:…
Amy Yarnall writes about the launch of a new satellite worship service by two churches on a two-point charge. Last spring, a new worshipping community…
In his book, Leading a Local Church in the Age of the Spirit, Bishop Jonathan Gledhill writes about the primacy of vision and strategy which, once…
Ann Michel compares two research efforts that help define the qualitative factors of congregational effectiveness and their impact on growth. What makes a church strong?…
A pastor who went to a 100-year-old church in serious decline tells a story of renewal that came about by focusing on strengths not what’s…
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.
