Why I will not endorse a candidate for president

Well, it looks like some pastors spiced up their sermons a little yesterday by endorsing (or disparaging) a candidate for President of the United States.  The pastors are part of an attempt to challenge the IRS rules on what non-profits can do regarding a political campaign.  Is that really smart?  I mean, the IRS has [...]

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Innovation’s Top 5 Traits

Outreach magazine publishes an issue each year featuring the most innovative churches in America.   These churches aren’t just big ones either, and the editors are looking for small churches that do things in an innovative way.  What makes the difference in an innovative church and everybody else?  These five things: New eyes.  Innovative churches [...]

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Sermon: The Mind of Christ

This is the sermon I’m preaching tomorrow, Sunday, September 28, 2008.   The Mind of Christ Philippians 2:1-13 NIV 1If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the [...]

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Review: The Great Emergence by Phyllis Tickle

Phyllis Tickle’s newest book, The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why, arrived yesterday. At 172 pages, this small but elegant volume (aren’t all Tickle’s books elegant?) both informs and disappoints.  Tickle takes on the daunting task of reviewing the major turning points or ‘Great’ events in the life of the Christian church.  Her [...]

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You feed them

“You feed them.”  Those were the words of Jesus to the disciples.  A big hungry crowd needed to be fed, and the disciples had come to Jesus for a solution.  Jesus challenged the disciples to feed the crowd themselves, but they protested they were not able to.  Now, we might get that opportunity, again, in [...]

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One reason small churches aren’t growing: saturation

Thumbing through an analysis of our community today, it hit me.  There are too many churches in our area.  Within a 5-mile radius of our church, there are 25 other churches.  And, this doesn’t even count churches without telephones, which include at least 8 more that I know of.  That’s 33 churches for a population [...]

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Leadership is changing — are you?

“It is no longer the time of the heroic leader — the leader who walks in and takes up all the space in the room.  The job of today’s leaders is to create space for other people — a space in which people can generate new and different ideas…”  The Changing Nature of Leadership, p. [...]

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The unaffiliated and the unattending

Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion reports that less than 11% of the US public considers themselves unaffiliated with any church or other religious group.  That figure is about 4% — or 10-million people — less than previously thought.  And, the unaffiliated hardly ever attend church — about 89% of them answer “never” when [...]

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Sermon: Standing Firm in the Struggle

Here’s the sermon I’m preaching on Sunday, September 21, 2008.  I hope you have a wonderful day at your church.   Standing Firm in the Struggle Philippians 1:21-30 NIV 21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22 If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor [...]

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Beyond the church food closet

 Most churches participate in some kind of food closet, which is primarily a way to supply emergency food to those who need it.  But, what if everyone needed food?  What if the global food supply system collapses or goes into deep distress?  How do churches help then? Chatham House, a UK-based thinktank, researches a wide-ranging [...]

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