Our church year begins with Advent, but self-reflection and goal-setting are good for all of us and the turning of the calendar is as good a time as any to start. This year, why not resolve to be more generous? As we argue in Giving Up, generosity is at the heart of the gospel. To…
Giving Even When You Receive
Last week, I talked about how to encourage generosity at the end of the year by making growing generosity a part of your teaching ministry, and teachers need to be creative. We’ve talked about getting creative by making a Christmas Wish List for your church. It’s a way to engage the people directly with the…
Make a Christmas Wish List for Your Church
We’ve talked a lot about increasing generosity at the end of the year. As we’ve posted elsewhere, the end of the year brings challenges. You’ve got this year’s budget gaps, next year’s budget planning, end-of-the-year appeal letters—it’s a lot. On top of that, Christmas is fast approaching. There are two temptations during seasons like this…
Trellises and Vines
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: Some days our churches feel very aligned with these descriptors, don’t they? We imagine…
Stop Casting Vision
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…
People of the Book
We’ve made two wrong turns so far, and that’s my fault. I keep looking up from the map on my phone at the mountains surrounding us here in northern Washington state. We are looking for a retreat center in Sumas, a town that seems to be mostly small farms patched in among the forested hills….
Hack Next Year’s Budget
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 of these tips, tricks, and rules of…
The Vital Role of the Small Church Leader
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 or leading a small congregation, often feel frustrated by a lack…
Announcement: Giving Up is Coming Soon!
It’s Ready 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 hope…to you!…
Ash Wednesday: Are You Really Only Dust in the Wind?
On Ash Wednesday, clergy around the world will draw a cross-shaped smudge of dark black ashes on the foreheads of millions of people. It is the ancient rite of The Imposition of Ashes which signals the start of Lent. The words that accompany the ‘imposition’ on Ash Wednesday are simple, sober, and true. Over the years I…
Why the Parish?
It surprises many people entering Anglicanism from other Christian traditions that we use the term ‘parish’. They had always referred to their church as simply “church” or “congregation,” but now they hear the word “parish.” What is a parish? How is it different, and why? Let’s lay out two understandings of what defines a parish. The first is a canonical designation, or how…
Be the Church: Facing Nominalism
Recently, we were told that the Christian church in America is “hemorrhaging members” and that the church is shrinking. It is true that the number of Americans who claim to be Christian is shrinking. However, as usual, Ed Stetzer provides some real clarity in his interpretation of statistics. Turns out that people are not so much “leaving church” as they…
