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Over the last couple years I’ve had the opportunity to sit with a number of pastors seeking to increase the missional posture of their church. As expected, this has proven to be easier for some than others, and more of an art form than a science. But among the many variables, we’re beginning to see a few common threads emerge among those seeming to gain “missional momentum”. Here are the top three practices we’ve observed.

It’s not how many walk an aisle on Sunday in church that measures success, but how many walk with Jesus in the world everyday. For far too long the church has been afraid of the world and the affect it would have on her. In contrast, missional-minded people choose to have an affect on the [...]

How many friends do you have? One church planter has 2,500 friends in his Facebook account, reminding me of Solomon’s comment.  ”A man of many friends comes to ruin.”(Proverbs 18:24) Friendships can lead to positive or negative consequences.  For a pastor’s wife, a few precautions might be helpful.  We all want healthy relationships, and not [...]

Last month I introduced you to coaching, with the first of two key acronymns:  WAIT.  If you want to learn about WAIT, see this blog post:  Coaching Quickstart – Part 1.  This month I’m giving you the second acronym:  GROW.  I learned this from John Whitmore’s Coaching for Performance.  GROW is a template—a coaching guide—to [...]

Many tend to think that planting a church is something that only a select few congregations can do. The rational for avoiding the conversation ranges from issues like low-corporate self-esteem, territorialism, money and health. The battle cry of many small congregations goes something like this: “We need to grow first. We are not healthy enough [...]

What lessons can we draw from the demise of the Crystal Cathedral? No matter what you think of that congregation, know that at one time it was a thriving model on the American landscape of churches. It was an amazing, trend-setting place that was super creative. Things slowly changed however. Mostly the Cathedral stopped defining [...]

I planted a church back in the relative dark ages of church planting when very few formal resources existed. Planting was usually called pioneering, and for good reason. The prevailing philosophy of the day seemed to be slanted toward the survival of the fittest. After all, a pioneer was going where no one had gone [...]