5 Unfortunate Trade-Offs Churches Are Making Today
Sometimes short-term decisions feel like wins but, in reality, these trade-offs are drifting you further and further from your mission and vision.
Browsing: Growing Strategies
The Unstuck Church: Reader Questions Answered
A few weeks ago we hosted a private webinar for folks who pre-ordered their copies of The Unstuck Church. The group that participated sent in questions ahead of time, and we thought a few of them might be good ones to answer for blog readers as well. Here were a few of those questions and how we answered them:
Why Small Churches Get Stuck: They’re Unwilling to Move to Two Services
Most pastors of small churches want to reach and impact more people over time. Adding a second service at the right time and for the right reasons can help them in that effort. However, church leaders and congregants in smaller congregations often raise passionate objections whenever this topic is considered.
Why Small Churches Get Stuck: Valuing Busyness Over Relationships
The activities may be different today, but the majority of smaller churches we meet are still operating with a 1970s mindset.
Should Your Church Spend More Energy Keeping or Reaching People?
It’s commonly said that you can tell if a church is insider-focused or outsider-focused by how they make decisions. Do they make decisions based on whom they’re trying to keep or whom they’re trying to reach? Oh, if it were only that simple.
6 Signals a Church Must Change to Survive | The Unstuck Church
The preservation phase is a challenging season for churches. The signs of decline and lack of health become obvious, but the pain typically isn’t bad enough to foster a desire for change. Wondering if your church is stuck here? Here are some of the characteristics of churches in the preservation phase.
Early Signs Your Church Is Headed for Decline | The Unstuck Church
Churches are typically in the maintenance season for months or even years before they realize it.
Understanding the 7 Phases of a Church’s Life Cycle | The Unstuck Church
Most churches start, grow, thrive, decline and eventually end. But I believe God’s plan for our churches is that they grow in maturity towards a peak of sustained health. How can you avoid getting stuck in one of these phases and succeed in experiencing sustained health?
When Large Churches Get Stuck: Prioritizing Relationships Over Events
When churches are small, relationships drive everything. Relationships are the reason people show up to events. But that dynamic is different in large churches. If the goal is to encourage relationships that foster spiritual growth, bigger events actually make it more challenging. So how should large churches define what is a “win” for their events?
5 Questions for a Better Discipleship Path – Defining a Simple, Effective Discipleship Process (Part 2)
If we’re going to build a framework that helps move people toward maturity and Christ-likeness, we’ve got to think clearly about identifying steps where progress can be measured. Can you imagine what would happen in the church if it were to be intentional about moving people through a purposeful pathway? First off, we would need to have one. And secondly, it would need to work. But if those things were true, we could turn the world upside down in a single generation. These 5 questions will help you consider how to improve your discipleship process.
6 Indicators of Spiritual Growth – Defining a Simple, Effective Discipleship Path (Part 1)
In the church world we have a measurement problem. Not necessarily with finances or attendance, but with the one thing we’re tasked with doing: making disciples.This raises a fairly important question: What does spiritual progress look like, and how can we help people recognize movement in their own journey? Here are six indicators that someone is growing spiritually…
Reaching Millennials: We Need to Check Our Attitudes Toward the Next Generation
It’s so much easier to read the headlines — to watch the show and allow the stereotypes to create monsters out of the people coming behind us — than it is to listen. If we refuse to engage on a personal level with the people we go before, our churches will never succeed in reaching Millennials.