Strengths of a Small Church webinar now online

For those of you who missed the webinar, The Strengths of a Small Church, with Brandon O’Brien and me, the video is online now.  Tim Avery at BuildingChurchLeaders.com put it up yesterday at their site.  The seminar was well-attended with lots of participation in the comments and chat portions of the webinar screen.  The webinar [...]

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Kids love VBS and it shows!

Kids love VBS and this 45-second video clip proves it! Part of the VBS fun is learning the songs and motions, and getting into the spirit of the theme. You don’t need a lot of high tech stuff, but you do need some enthusiastic leaders, which we’ve got this week. The audio isn’t great, but [...]

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VBS Off To A Great Start at Saddle Ridge Ranch

We partner with 4 other churches in our community to do VBS each year. Each church takes a turn leading VBS planning, and hosting the community for VBS week. This year we’re at Chestnut Level Baptist Church for Saddle Ridge Ranch VBS. The other churches participating include our church, Chatham Baptist; Watson Memorial United Methodist [...]

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Favorite hymns and lemonade

This was the scene at our church for Favorite Hymn Sunday. We’re meeting in our fellowship hall because there is some sort of electrical problem in our sanctuary. But, we served lemonade and cookies between Sunday School and worship, so everybody was happy. Or maybe they were happy because I didn’t preach this morning. Who [...]

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Bruce Feiler, Council of Dads author, speaks about his cancer, his kids and his plan for their future

Bruce Feiler, author of the book, The Council of Dads: My Daughters, My Illness, and the Men Who Could Be Me, talks about his diagnosis with bone cancer, and of his plan to provide his two daughters with a ‘council of dads’ in case he’s not around for them in the future. This is a [...]

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Saddle Ridge Ranch VBS set is taking shape

Debbie is painting the backdrop and set for our community VBS.  This year the theme is “Saddle Ridge Ranch,” which is available at LifeWay stores.  We partner with 4 other community churches — a Presbyterian church, two United Methodist churches, and another Baptist church — for VBS each year.  All of our churches have about [...]

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Crafting a new definition of forgiveness

Debbie commented today, after looking at all the books on my desk, “Do you know you have 31 books on forgiveness?” Actually, I didn’t but she’s pretty close.  I’m working on a writing project about forgiveness.  In the process, I am trying to craft a new definition for forgiveness, which is harder than you might [...]

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Small groups are the building blocks of small churches

Our church is typical of many established, small town churches.  Three years ago, our congregation was made up mostly of older adults.  Of course, older adults are the backbone of many congregations.  They provide a higher-than-average amount of financial support, they attend with above-average faithfulness, and they love their church. Our senior adults are wonderful, [...]

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What is the Gospel?

I have resisted getting into this because I keep telling myself, “This is not what you do here at Confessions of a Small-Church Pastor.”  Normally, I don’t engage in theological discussions, particularly those that are the equivalent of how many angels can stand on the head of a pin.  But, today I can’t help myself [...]

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Sermon: Facing the Impossible

When facing the impossible God might have another idea.  After all, God still does the impossible work of changing lives everyday. Facing The Impossible I Kings 17:8-16, 17-24 Luke 7:11-17 Galatians 1:11-24 An Impossible Mission Have you ever faced a situation you thought was impossible?  One in which there seemed no way out, no solution, [...]

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