I’ve said before that one of the more challenging aspects of leading a church is knowing what to measure when evaluating how things are going. The two most common metrics are nickels and noses. We count the number of people and we count how much money they give each Sunday. Most churches count these things […]

Just after his baptism, Jesus goes into the wilderness to be tested. At stake in these tests is what kind of Messiah will Jesus be?
He faces three temptations:
1. Use his power to turn stones into bread.2. Throw himself from the pinnacle of the temple and force God to save him, while claiming a promise […]

As a follow up to the Late for Church? post, I’m going to share with you a story someone sent to me today.
It seems that sometimes it is good to be late.

In I Sold My Soul on eBay, Hemant Mehta describes a number of experiences he had while visiting churches across the country. He visited all different kinds of churches from the very small to the mega variety. What makes this book so interesting to me is that Mehta is an atheist. His descriptions of each […]

Here’s a good question that came in at the end of the comments of this post.
Is it possible for a local church to be both attractional and missional and still make an impact on the culture ? For example : Can we still invite people, have gospel meetings, seminars,vbs, etc. and also reach out to […]

Sam sent me this article and it reminded us both of something we did at the church we both used to work with.  Instead of passing the offering plates, we put an offering box at the back of the room and simply reminded people that it was there each week.  I don’t remember there being […]

It’s been a great couple of days. I flew out to Fresno on Thursday, spoke at the Zoe Conference Friday, flew back Friday afternoon and then had a nice sabbath rest yesterday. This morning I presented a teaching on communion.
We’re in the middle of teaching series called “Reboot 07.” Like most churches […]

Greg Taylor and I have an article in the latest issue of Leadership Journal.  Check it out and if you want to talk about it, come back over here and leave a comment.
The article is intended to be an open and honest telling of the Garnett story as we’ve experienced it.  We’re sure not trying […]

Here is another bit from Wood in Leading Turnaround Churches. What do you think about this?
Power struggles are fundamentally irresolvable. The question in a power struggle is, who will lead and who will leave? American culture has contributed to the unwillingness of many church leaders to deal with power struggles. Our […]

Missions is the new worship.
That’s what a friend said to me the other day. I think he said he’d heard it from someone else. Since what this phrase meant to its originator is lost to us, I’m going to engage in some postmodern meaning making and tell you what it means to me.
In […]