Kevin Miller has served as a writer, editor, and director at Christianity Today for nearly three decades. After being ordained and working as an associate at a larger Anglican church, he now serves as the rector of Church of the Savior in Wheaton, Illinois.
The church had been planted a little over a decade before Kevin arrived, and […]
Churches desire to grow, as well they should. We are, after all, followers of the Great Commission. We desire for more and more people to come to know and proclaim the coming of God’s kingdom.
However, when church leaders want to focus on growth, they often make a crucial mistake. Often, our focus is on getting people to our front door. […]
So far, we’ve talked about awkward questions that boil down to money. And surely, money can be an uncomfortable topic to tackle. Who should have access to the giving records? How much should we pay the pastor? Does the pastor need a retirement fund
The awkward questions are easy to ignore, but leaders can’t shy away from topics that have the potential to cripple ministry if left unaddressed. What goes unspoken can create divisions and spread distrust.
Read Part Two
If you haven’t caught up, here’s what we’ve discussed:
The decline of the American church is often overblown. However, we have felt a seismic shift in cultural values in the 21st century. Even in the ‘Bible Belt’, it can’t simply be presumed that most people’s moral frameworks are founded on even a hazy understanding of the Bible.
In looking for guidance in the behaviors of […]
Matt Canlis wasn’t too different from most young ministers at the tail end of seminary. He was full of big ideas for big churches. But unlike most young ministers, he benefited from a mentoring word from Eugene Peterson, who counseled him to put off being swallowed up by the “American Church Machine” and discover a different, older form […]
by David Roseberry
I have been so grateful for the many people who have responded to the vision of Giving Up. Several rectors have texted me and told me that the book made a difference in their thinking and in their planning for the last three months of the year. And, thankfully, in the way their church responded.
One […]
Advent is a time of waiting. As one who didn’t grow up but had to grow into the church calendar, the movement from increasing anxiety as Christmas approached to cultivating patient anticipation refreshed my hectic heart.
December is a hard time for church leaders to slow down. But the always-on, always-connected world we built with blind optimism in progress is now […]
After the events in Charlottesville in August, I came across an article by Doug Paul of Missio Alliance with a catchy and convicting subtitle: “When a Generation of Church Planters Reach Only White People” In reviewing the book The Creative Class, Paul argues (persuasively) that in creating ‘hip’ church plants, many young pastors may be inadvertently signaling a […]
It’s the time of year when church leaders are starting to see lots of red—and it isn’t always early Christmas decorations! Lots of churches have deficits they need to close by year’s end. I have been there many (MANY) times.
Sometimes, these gaps are relatively small. All you need is to remember to ‘double December’ and take a breath. (If you […]
The Church is a tended vine. The metaphor runs through all of scripture, from Isaiah 5 to John 15. It’s our model for making disciples. But have we taken a moment to ask what we know about the plants themselves? Consider:
Though we love talking about ‘casting vision’, but often our ‘vision’ is just too big for anyone to grasp. It’s too wide to take in and leaves people feeling overwhelmed and even paralyzed by possibilities.
Barry Schwartz has some remarkable (and terrifying!) research about “the paradox of choice.” When we are confronted by too many options, we become anxious and […]
Writing an Appeal Letter is about saying “will you” and then “thank you”.
A few years ago I had to do what every Rector or Sr. Pastor should do about this time of year: write a year-end appeal letter. (If you need convincing that you should, read here.)
My church was […]
It is that time of year again. Budget time! As pastors, leaders, vestries, and boards are wringing their hands about the close of this year, plans for next year are being drawn up.
Over the years I developed a few ‘hacks’ for church leaders. I’ve collected a few […]
You can see the latest sneak peek at Giving Up: How Giving to God Renews Hearts, Changes Minds, and Empowers Ministry on CT Pastors. This excerpt reveals five big ideas that church leaders can use to jumpstart generosity in your church. Check out the whole book on Amazon.
David Roseberry’s book, Giving Up, provides concrete ways to jumpstart financial giving in churches. His wisdom, gleaned from decades in ministry, gives church leaders applicable tools to do the work they need to do, which requires members of churches to be generous with their resources.
The Public Religion Research Institute just released an invaluable new resource to help church leaders see what’s been happening across the American religious landscape. Their American Values Atlas is an up-to-date, representative dataset drawn from over 100,000 interviews conducted in 2016.
The mission of LeaderWorks is to help church leaders do their work. In that effort, James K.A. Smith and Tim Keller have blessed us richly with their recent conversation in Comment Magazine.
Church leaders who have just begun their ministries, whether planting a church […]
After years of gathering ideas, studying Scripture, preaching “The Money Talk”, collecting three decades worth of wisdom…and months of writing and re-writing, the book is finished.
We took our final pass at it with our red pens and now it lives with the publisher and then onto the printer…and then I […]
Every week or so, we’ll highlight one of the sites we’ll visit on our upcoming Israel tours for pastors or for everyone. The stories of these people and places in the Bible have the power to form us, first as humans made in the image of God, but also as servant leaders who have been called […]
I received a note yesterday that tourism from the United States to Israel is growing—and not just by a little bit. Compared to 2015 and 2016, tourism to Israel is up 20% from January to June. So far this year, 400,000 Americans have travelled to Israel—90,000 in the month of June alone.
Thanks to a generous supporter of LeaderWorks, we would like to announce our new Assistant Director, the Rev. Kolby Kerr. Kolby is a fantastic young priest in our ACNA and will add greatly to what LeaderWorks is able to offer. You’ll be hearing a lot from him on the blog, so I wanted to give him a chance to […]
The Rev. Ray David Glenn and I are friends. We have known each other since 2010. When his wife died suddenly seven years ago, he and I became even closer. (For reasons I cannot explain, RD is the ONLY person I ever routinely Facetime with. It cannot be that actually wants to […]
