You may have noticed that people are getting busier. This can make things tricky when it comes to trying to schedule meetings with people… this is why I have started using Schedule Once and Doodle. Group Scheduling There are few things as frustrating to me as trying to schedule a group get together. The church leaders that I work with are extremely busy, making it difficult to get together with them one on one. Attempting [...]

A recent study done by Ed Stetzer and Lifeway Research points to a decline in church attendance on Easter for Americans. The study suggests that 41% of Americans are planning on attending services on Easter, 39% will not be attending, and 20% are undecided. This morning we debate the meaning of this, how churches can learn from this study, and what this says about the culture we find ourselves in. What do YOU expect attendance to [...]

Chuck Lawless recently wrote a great piece over on Thom Ranier’s blog. Entitled Seven Mistakes in Public Speaking, Lawless hits on the things that we all need to review from time to time… but one of his mistakes was something that I feel like I have been seeing a lot of lately: Inviting indifference – Maybe you’ve heard speakers do it: “I’m sure this is not exciting, but it’s important.” “I really haven’t had much time to prepare, [...]

Through the years, we’ve seen (and pulled off) a bunch of crazy stunts aimed at drawing a crowd to a ministry event. A Miami pastor is attempting to do just that, by promising to eat a cockroach on stage if enough people attend a weeknight college group meeting. Pastor Rich Wilkerson Jr. has a history of engaging in these kinds of stunts through the years… going so far as getting tazered on stage at one [...]

Over the last few years I have been fascinated by the approach of a pretty significant trend in the evangelical world. Over the course of the next decade, we will be seeing a changing of the guard in many churches as the baby-boomers begin to transition out of day to day leadership, and into retirement. We have already heard Bill Hybels and others begin to address the idea of succession planning, and while it will [...]

Last week Aaron Jackson painted his home on Orleans Street in Topeka. While painting a home is nothing remarkable, the paint job is something to behold: he painted the home to resemble the rainbow flag. When asked, Aaron’s neighbors across the street had this to say: We thank God for the Sodomite Rainbow House. It is right across the street from the ONLY church that loves people enough to tell them the Bible truth about the filthy, [...]

Have you been watching The History Channel series The Bible? The series creators have found themselves at the center of a controversy surrounding their use of Mohamen Mehdi Ouazanni to portray Satan. Ouazanni, a Moroccan actor who has often portrayed satanic characters, bears a striking resemblance to President Barack Obama. Roma Downey and Mark Burnett have denied any kind of insinuations, saying: Both Mark and I have nothing but respect and love our President, who is a fellow Christian. “False statements such as [...]

Do you find yourself having a hard time recruiting the church leaders that you need? I have rarely met a church leader who would answer that question with a no. Rich Birch tends to disagree… According to his blog, UnSeminary, God has provided all the leaders your church needs… you just need to know where to look. Rich points to five major groups of leaders that many churches miss: People with Followers Young People Moms [...]

Email is messy. I have had a love hate relationship with email for years. One one hand it is a fabulous tool for quickly communicating with team members, while on the other hand it can be frustrating trying to remember who has seen what, who has replied to what, and who you are waiting to hear back from. The arrival of Gmail helped to better organize email communications, by gathering messages into a conversational grouping, [...]

Jack Schaap, former pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond, will be sentenced today after pleading guilty to having sex with an underage girl. This entire situation is horrible: a powerful pastor taking advantage of a girl from his congregation. We need to be praying for the victim, the families involved, and for the church. While it is easy to say “that would never happen to me” the truth is that no pastor wakes up one [...]