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Why do some congregations grow more quickly than others? In this episode we speak with Matt Miofsky, founding and lead pastor of The Gathering in St. Louis, about the book he wrote with Jason Byassee, 8 Virtues of Rapidly Growing Churches.
Sustainability is increasingly difficult for the ever increasing number of churches worshipping small numbers each week. Lovett Weems captures the dilemma for church leaders and…
Worship attendance and revenue figures don’t tell the whole story in gauging your church’s effectiveness. Rich Birch suggests some novel indicators that can reveal growth…
Michael Kurtz explains that churches are quick to add new programs but slow to eliminate older ones, creating ministry clutter and program overload. Regular pruning…
How can congregations more effectively practice fruitful ministry? In this episode Bishop Robert Schnase discusses his revised book, Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, with Lewis Center Director F. Douglas Powe.
Data from the Lewis Pastoral Leadership Inventory™ (LPLI) suggest that younger clergy share many of the same strengths as their older colleagues and that they…
David McAllister-Wilson, president of Wesley Theological Seminary, posits the metaphor of a delta region to describe the dangerous yet fertile waters the church must navigate…
Mike Schreiner and Ken Willard say too many churches are driven by structure and programs, not the imperative of making disciples. They outline 16 symptoms…
Minnesota Pastor Lee Ann Pomrenke reflects on the painful reality of having to bring a congregation or a ministry to an end. While there is…
Lovett H. Weems, Jr., says that churches often invest a great deal of energy in activities without ever asking how they relate to what God…
Lee Kricher, pastor of Amplify Church in Pittsburgh, says every church has things that distract members and visitors from the church’s mission. He writes that…
Is your church calendar crammed with one event after another? Church consultant Tony Morgan says many congregations just keep scheduling the same events without ever…
What do you do when someone in your church presents an idea for a new program or ministry? New initiatives can be empowering and energizing.…
At the beginning of every year, many people take time to evaluate their lives and determine new priorities and directions. The same should be true…
In tennis, players usually give their maximum effort on the first serve, knowing that if they fault on that one, they will have another opportunity.…
What is your current worship planning system? Your first response may be, “We don’t have one.” In reality, every congregation has a planning system, but…
If your life is anything like mine, you may find yourself at the beginning of the year focusing on numbers from the past year. In…
Whether by training or intuition, fruitful leaders develop a set of practices that serve them well and bear much fruit. These practices often become second…
Each summer my family spends a week at the beach. And every year my daughters, their friends, and I build a sand castle. We’ve discovered…
Judith Sutera, a Benedictine sister, has spent decades as vinedresser for her monastery’s garden after careful apprenticeship with a mentor wise to the ways of…
Worship attendance matters. Learn how to improve it, so that your congregation bears more fruit. Our churches exist to glorify God and to share God…
The current focus on setting numerical goals for ministry and reporting on the results is not new, though it is now greatly expanded. In the…
The parable of the sower speaks deeply of my experience of church growth and vitality. In the parable, seeds were sown. Good seeds. It is…
Church leaders may think that leading in the business world is so much simpler than in the church since there is “one bottom line” and…
The fifteenth chapter of John’s Gospel contains rich imagery of the vine and the branches, an image that would have been obvious to those who…
I think the American Church is undergoing a reset. America is getting older; and the Church is even older. For a generation, expenditures have increased…
Last year I came to great clarity that God was calling our church to provide food for the hungry. I realize now that my efforts…
Imagine driving a car at night and the dashboard lights go out. With the headlights on, you can still see the road immediately ahead of…
Thousands of congregations are in serious trouble. Children are not being taught the faith. Disciples are not being made. Lives are not being transformed. The…
The genius of Bishop Robert Schnase’s Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations (Abingdon 2007) was to identify foundational habits that, when properly implemented, enable the church…
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.
