It’s stretching, right? Standing up to preach every weekend. Insecurity mixes in with your faith that God will work through you. You know He can do it through you – unless you get in the way. Here are seven practices I use to improve the quality of my preaching. Which should you add to your preaching […]
Recent Articles
Why you Need to Fight for Sundays
I’ve seen squared-away Marines wipe away their tears during church. I’ve had people tell me that they don’t know why, but they cry every week during church for months when they first start coming. I know why, and I bet you do, too. There is a spiritual transaction that happens when we come to church […]
7 Steps to the Church of your Dreams
Do you have pipe dreams for your church? Visions of what you would like to see, but maybe won’t. My pipe dream would be to see our church so well organized that everyone knows exactly what to do. Our greeters would welcome people just right every time. The nursery workers would have mad baby skills. The […]
How to Use a Better Standard to Measure Church Success
I don’t know where we got the idea that church success should be measured in nickels and noses (or attendance and dollars). I affirm that large numbers in church is better than small and more money for ministry is better than less. But if Jesus’ goal is to build his church, I believe there are better questions than, “How many were here last week? And How much did they give?”
How to Let the Bible Master You
During the final week of writing The Bible Questions, I had an epiphany. As I started the final five chapters on how to study the Bible in life-changing ways, a thought popped into my head: It really is possible for people to be mastered by the Bible. How could that happen? Malcolm Gladwell, in his excellent book Outliers quotes […]
The Cure for Crazy Busy
Does your to-do list feel long and heavy this week? How long has it been since you took your foot off the gas? Join the club. John Ortberg’s book Soul Keeping: Caring for the Most Important Part of You crossed my path last week and I decided to download it and take a quick look at it […]
How to Help People Answer their Bible Questions
Everybody has questions about the Bible. One of our regular responsibilities as church leaders is to answer those questions. But where can you go for answers? 2 Types of Questions I’ve discovered that people usually have one of two types of questions. 1. The first has to do with what you find in Scripture. Open […]
How to Make Connection Card Follow Up Powerful
We are always trying new things, making improvements, arguing about it, and tweaking again how we use Connection Cards to follow up with guests at New Song. These are our best practices. Right now. See which ideas will work for you. Why bother with Connection Cards? Connection cards are the insert in your program where you ask for your […]