By Natalie Aho Ah, the days of typewriters, carbon copies, handwritten notes and little stress about whether everyone knew when the church picnic would be. Life for the church secretary wasn’t very complicated in the 1970s, I suspect, and neither…
No magic bullet for church survival, Rick Warren and other Baptists say
By Jeff Brumley For years now, some agencies and experts who coach church planters and struggling congregations have tried to steer over-eager or desperate clients away from the quick fix of sizzling worship services or other gimmicks to draw big…
Everyone needs to go to Arabia
By Bill Wilson One of the pressing concerns of 21st-century individual and congregational spiritual life is the question of depth. To be blunt, there isn’t much. Study after study has revealed the sad truth that much of what we call…
Left behind
By Marc Brown As worship pastors, we spend ourselves working and asking God to build a team (a choir, an orchestra, a band) that will help our congregations hear, know and respond to God. As our ministry grows, usually the…
Dreaming with God
By Bill Wilson I’ve made a transition in recent years in the way I think and talk about God’s will. For many people, the will of God is a mysterious, elusive and frustrating concept. Too often, we have made it…
Life by the clock or life by the compass?
By Bill Wilson Which do you live by: Clock or compass? If the clock dictates, your life is consumed with the immediate and pressing issues of the moment. Clock life is focused on short-term results. If the clock rules, you…
The new apostasy: Staying put
By John Chandler My colleague and friend J.R. Woodward, author of Creating a Missional Culture and leader of the V3 church planting movement, was recently leading a “Community of Practice” — a collection of church pastors and leaders working over…
Here’s to God!
By Brett Younger During the second Skype interview with the church in Chile I’m now serving as interim pastor while on sabbatical, a lovely woman from Holland said, “We don’t know many Baptists, so we need to ask three Baptist…
7 reasons why digital metrics matter to your church
By Natalie Aho Almost every receipt given to you these days has a survey link printed at the bottom. Businesses are so desperate for your feedback, they will waste paper and give away cash in exchange for your opinion. And…