By themselves, entrepreneurial values in church planting are not bad, but there is a fine line between tailoring church to people’s needs and making church a commodity. In church planting this line often gets blurred.
Church planting may lead to marriage woes, food stamp eligibility, reports study
Financial stress is overtaking many church planters, leading some to even consider quitting the calling altogether, new research shows. An April study by The Barna Group found that only 41 percent of church planters feel personally secure in their finances,…
Ed Stetzer leaving LifeWay for Wheaton College
Missiologist and researcher Ed Stetzer is leaving after nine years as executive director of LifeWay Research to become executive director of the Billy Graham Center for Evangelism at Wheaton College, the Christian liberal arts school near Chicago announced May 16….
Healing the world in one of Philadelphia’s toughest neighborhoods
With a name like Strawberry Mansion, it would be easy to assume one of Philadelphia’s most notorious neighborhoods is full of lavish abodes and Lamborghinis. But Wayne Weathers, a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship church starter and pastor of Vision of Hope Baptist…
Paige Patterson details missiological ‘battle’ at IMB
By Bob Allen Four months before the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board announced plans to eliminate between 600 and 800 jobs, a seminary president said about 750 missionaries need to be removed because they are ineffective or doctrinally unsound….
Time for panic or hope?
The Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting wrapped up last week. As usual there have been several statements and statistics which are causing at least minor stirs. Their announcement of a court petition to uphold the traditional definition of marriage may…
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…
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…
Great Commission and Great Commandment without synergy?
Do you remember where you were and what you were doing on the morning of September 11, 2001? I do too. That is a morning very difficult to forget. I was sitting in the lobby restaurant of a hotel in…