Free Resource
church body check-up
Having a healthy body means having regular physicals and exams with medical specialists. Having a healthy church body means that we do the same thing as its leaders. We think this idea of evaluating systems is so important, we want to give you a free Church Body Check-up.
Living Soulistically
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...
The Day I Met Arnold Palmer
Known as the ‘King’ of Golf, Arnold Palmer had his own ‘Army’ of fans. I was one. When I heard of his passing a few years ago, it brought to mind a summer day in Lexington, Kentucky, 35 years ago. Arnold was playing in a tourney there, where I was a youth...
No One Understands a Preacher Like Another Preacher
A little boy asked his Daddy, who was a preacher, “Daddy, every Sunday morning when you come out to preach, I see you sit up by the pulpit, and you bow your head for a long time. What are you doing?” The father replied, “I’m asking the Lord to give me a good sermon...
The only thing that doesn’t change in a church
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...
What is a ‘prevailing church?’
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...
Taking Risks for God
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.
An Unintended Application
I have always been amazed at how God consistently and often surprisingly fulfills the promise of Isaiah 55: As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields...
The Youth Sports Cartel
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 –...
Sometimes you have to kiss a Lizard
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...
Bon voyage!
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...
