by Tracee Swank | Jul 9, 2026 | Discipleship, Leadership, Mission, Movement, Tracee J. Swank
Somewhere in the last half century, the Church quietly learned to think of pastors as products. Not crudely. Not on purpose. But the language revealed the assumption. We spoke of pastoral searches the way people speak of hiring. We talked about the pastoral market. We...
by Tracee Swank | Jul 7, 2026 | Discipleship, Mission, Movement, Tracee J. Swank
After all the walking, listening, and honest reflection, the temptation is to do something big. Do not. Not yet. The history of established churches trying to pivot is littered with well-intentioned big launches that exhausted the congregation, fizzled within a year,...
by Tracee Swank | Jun 23, 2026 | Discipleship, Mission, Movement, Tracee J. Swank
Walks and conversations are the heart of knowing your community. The data is the frame around them. In ministry, we often want to know all about the demographics and statistics and rely on those to shape ministry. Public data will never tell you why the young mother...
by Tracee Swank | Jun 16, 2026 | Mission, Movement, Outreach, Tracee J. Swank
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...
by Tracee Swank | Jun 11, 2026 | Leadership, Mission, Movement, Tracee J. Swank
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...
by Tracee Swank | Jun 9, 2026 | Mission, Movement, Outreach, Tracee J. Swank
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...
