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The holiday season is demanding. Pastors and church leaders must move from one event to the next in rapid-fire succession. The whirlwind lasts from Thanksgiving to Christmas Day. Most pastors get a small break between Christmas and the New Year, and then it’s time to launch again. Ministry is a grind. The deadlines never end,…
The post Christmas Eve Is a Sunday This Year (The Big Opportunity) appeared first on Church Answers.
Churches decline for two main reasons—both having to do with a shift in priorities. First, they lose passion for the Great Commission and the Great Commandment. Second, as a result, they no longer give God glory. When a church no longer pushes outward with the gospel, the people will no longer look upward to God’s…
The post The Top Ten Misaligned Priorities in Struggling Churches appeared first on Church Answers.
I admit it: I’m pleading with church leaders with this post. I’m pleading on behalf of 19 million people in the United States. This past weekend, I led a collegiate conference at a local church. Every time I speak to college students, I’m reminded of two things: (1) they bring enthusiasm and potential to a…
The post An Urgent Plea to Churches appeared first on Church Answers.
I like outliers. Outliers are, by their definition, exceptions to the rule. They are different from others. Our Church Answers team closely watches church attendance, especially attendance since the pandemic. Most churches had a decline in attendance. Since many of these congregations are intentional about recovering from the decreases, we note what approaches these churches take. …
The post 5 Surprising Approaches Churches Are Using to Increase Attendance appeared first on Church Answers.
My wife recently found a box of old church bulletins with notes from my previous sermons. She is a prodigious note-taker. These old bulletins contained thousands of sermon points. How many of them did she remember? I didn’t ask. Only a few congregants will remember specific points I make in a sermon several years afterward….
The post Seven Tips to Make Sermon Points More Memorable appeared first on Church Answers.
Most of us have entered the twilight zone of worship announcements at some point. A person approaches you with awkward determination three minutes before the start of a worship service. A piece of paper unfolds multiple times. If there was a way to collect all these scraps of paper, we pastors could create an epic…
The post Why Your Church Needs More (Often) Announcements in Worship appeared first on Church Answers.
I realize this post is an unusual one for me, but I trust it makes sense at the end. I started writing this post on a plane going from Atlanta to Cincinnati to speak in a church meeting Sunday and Monday. As a native of Cincinnati and a life-long fan of the Cincinnati Bengals, I…
The post The Cincinnati Bengals . . . and Discipleship appeared first on Church Answers.
Church health will not improve until ongoing evangelism returns. A recent Church Answers poll found that only 1% of churches have an ongoing evangelism effort. This finding corroborated a more extensive longitudinal study we’ve been conducting since 1996, in which the lowest church health score across denominations is in the category of evangelism. The trend…
The post The One Thing that Solves Most Church Problems (Only 1% of Churches Actually Do This) appeared first on Church Answers.
I’ve had the privilege of learning from Christian leaders—clergy and laity alike—for almost 50 years. As a seminary professor who teaches courses in leadership, I pay attention when I see leaders who seem uniquely gifted. I offer this list of characteristics today (1) to push myself to evaluate my own life and (2) to challenge…
The post 6 Unique Characteristics of the Best Christian Leaders I’ve Known appeared first on Church Answers.
Throughout my teens, twenties, and thirties, I always had several Bibles close at hand—yet I rarely remember picking any of them up unless I was walking out the door to go to church. Even though I always sensed there was something special about the Bible, it wasn’t until God allowed me to reach the end…
The post Why Discipleship Matters appeared first on Church Answers.