Tag «How To»

The First Seven Things to Do When a Child Accepts Christ in Your Church

A child in your church decides to follow Christ. There is no greater decision! Now what? As a pastor, I’ve sat with numerous parents over the years and walked through the next steps. These conversations are some of the most rewarding in ministry! Only recently did I sit down and create a checklist of items….

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Four Types of Church Members Based on Their Frequency of Attendance

The New Testament, from Acts 2 to Revelation 3, is about the local church. That is a big portion of the Bible! The local church is God’s plan A to carry out his mission on earth, and He did not give us a plan B. Sure, the local church can be messy. It’s made of…

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What Lottie Taught Me about the Gospel and Social Justice

I heard injustice cry from the trafficked woman who stood beside me at a train station in Asia, her pimp glaring from a few feet away. Everything within me wanted to grab her hand and rescue her. “Just grab her and run,” was all I could think. But our conversation ended abruptly, and I don’t…

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One of the Most Powerful Ways to Revitalize Your Church that Almost No One Does

Prayer walking can revitalize a church. At Church Answers, we’ve heard some incredible stories of how a church started a prayer walking ministry and experienced revitalization. The problem is not enough churches are emphasizing this spiritual discipline. Those that do are seeing powerful results. What is prayer walking? The concept is simple and can be…

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A Dog, a Confession, and a Prayer Request

After almost 32 years of marriage, my wife and I adopted a rescue dog a couple weeks ago. I grew up with dogs, but Pam has never been around a dog for any length of time. Still, though, we took the plunge after hosting/fostering this dog for three weekends so he could get acclimated to…

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Please Destroy Any of My Recorded Sermons

Most of my recorded sermons are on cassette tapes. I know what you are thinking. I am old. I served as pastor of four churches and as interim pastor of nine churches. Many of the churches recorded my sermons and distributed them via cassette tapes. There are a lot of my sermons out there. I…

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The Most Important Leadership Tool

Who or what do you lead? There are books, conferences, blogs, podcasts, and masterclasses on how to be a better leader, but we often forget that the person we lead first and most is the one in the mirror. It is easy to spend all of our time trying to figure out the next strategy…

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Five Ways to Honor the Past While Not Losing the Future

I once caught a deacon throwing choir robes out of the second-story window into a giant fire on the ground below. “What’s going on?” “Fire hazard.” By the look and smell of the robes, I agreed and went about my business. There were probably one hundred burning robes in the fire—enough for every person in…

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How to Evaluate Your Church’s Discipleship Program

*This article is an excerpt from Disciple: How to Create a Community That Develops Passionate and Healthy Followers of Jesus. Some months ago, I published the book Disciple: How to Create a Community that Develops Passionate and Healthy Followers of Jesus. In that book, I point out that many churches that think they’re disciplemaking churches…

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How To Avoid These Costly Financial Mistakes Your Church Could Be Making

At BELAY, we’ve been helping busy leaders for over a decade, and we’ve learned, no matter what organization you lead, finances are paramount to your success – and church finances aren’t any different. Poorly managed church finances can hurt a pastor’s ability to lead church members and reach the local community. After all, very little…

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