What if I told you that there is a growing church located in a declining town in rural Kentucky? What if I told you that this church is over 193 years old? What if I told you that the colorful and legendary Restoration Movement leader, “Raccoon” John Smith,...
Imagine baptizing more people into Christ at your church in one day than you have baptized in a month or even a year. Imagine hearing stories of life-change reverberate throughout your ministry for weeks and months...not to mention eternity! Not only is this...
Sometimes, I make up words. Do you ever do that? Occasionally, no word already in usage satisfactorily captures what you want to get across. So, you just make one up. I get it. In a session earlier this year, I told my counselor that I want to help local...
Change is in the air. Fall is here, the temperature is dropping, and the leaves are changing. Daylight Saving Time weekend (a change with our clocks) is just around the corner. If there is one thing I’ve learned in life and ministry: change is...
Gene Appel, a good friend and admired pastoral colleague, recently led a tremendously helpful and practical webinar on the topic of leading change for the CCL Network. Gene co-authored a book with Alan Nelson, titled How To Change Your Church Without Killing It, in...
In baseball, you can’t steal second and keep your foot on first. You have to venture into ‘the zone of the unknown’ and take some risks to win the game. The same is true for a church working right: prudent risks advance His mission.
I am a huge sports fan. Huge. I spent my last 20 years on the west side of Cincinnati and sports are a big part of the culture. After all, it’s the hometown of one Peter Edward Rose. There are so many things I love about sports. I love to play and I love to watch –...
Officer Tori Matthews of the Southern California Humane Society got an emergency call one day. A boy’s pet iguana had been scared up a tree by a neighbor’s dog, and then fell from the tree into a swimming pool, sinking like a brick. Officer Matthews came with her...
I recently retired (I prefer re-fired!) as the lead pastor at a church by the name of Whitewater Crossing Christian Church. If that church (or yours) was a ship, what kind would it be? The S.S. Whitewater. It’s not a canoe. It’s not a pirate ship (I hope!) What...
