Let’s Start Meeting Up
Ministry is better with people who get it. You know the feeling. You hit on something that is working, or you wrestle with something that is not, and you wish you had a few people in the room who understand exactly what you are working through. People who lead the way...
Ask, Do Not Assume: Simple Questions That Open Real Conversations
Most pastors know a lot about their community that turns out, on closer examination, to be assumptions. We assume what the young families in the neighborhood are struggling with. We assume what the older residents are worried about. We assume why the new folks moved...
Yesterday’s Wins Don’t Fund Tomorrow’s Mission
Scripture “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23 NIV) Jeremiah wrote these words in the rubble of Jerusalem. Everything he had trusted was...
The Missing Ingredient: Apprenticeship in the Local Church
Ask an older pastor how they learned to do the job, and you will usually hear a name before you hear a degree. It will be the senior pastor who let them tag along on hospital visits at 23. The elder who taught them how to read a budget. The mentor who took a phone...
The Coffee Shop Question: Learning From the Places People Actually Gather
Your community has living rooms that are not in anyone’s house. They are the places where people actually gather. The coffee shop where the regulars know each other’s orders. The diner where farmers meet at six in the morning. The laundromat where parents fold clothes...
The First Innovation Is Internal
Scripture “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10 NIV) David did not start with strategy. He started with himself. The Hebrew word for “create” is the same word used in Genesis 1, the kind of work only God can do. A...
Why Seminaries and Local Churches Need Each Other
There is a conversation happening inside theological education that most pastors have not heard. While pastors navigate the realities of their own congregations, seminary leaders are sitting with hard questions about how the Church forms its leaders. The best are not...
Take a Walk: The Simplest Way to Start Seeing Your Neighborhood Again
The single most underused pastoral tool in the American church is the 30-minute walk. Not a walk for exercise. A walk around the blocks surrounding your church building, slowly, with your eyes open and your phone in your pocket. Most pastors have not done this in...
Comfortable Churches Don’t Make History
Scripture “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” (Revelation 3:20 NIV) Laodicea was a wealthy, comfortable city. Even so, Jesus did not stop knocking on the...