Local Predicament: A Case Study (2)

A week ago I started to write about the importance of understanding your local predicament in developing clarity about your church’s vision and effective methods to accomplish it.  Too often pastors have a way they want to do church and they’re going to do it, regardless of where God has put them.  They don’t study…

Read More

Local Predicament: A Case Study

From 1995 – 1997 I worked at a church in a suburb twenty miles west of Washington D.C.  Most everyone worked in the city, and the commute took over an hour.  Our church offered small groups and some people participated, but it was difficult for most.  People were consumed with their jobs.  And even if…

Read More

Critics

What forms your vision? How do you evaluate how you’re doing? I’m afraid for a lot of us, and for a lot of our churches, it’s our critics. When we’re told that we can’t do something or when someone lets us know they don’t like what we’re doing, we change course. But I was just…

Read More

Preconceived

Rene Laennec is the guy who invented the stethoscope. (I knew you’d been wondering.) He is famous for exhorting doctors to, “Listen, listen, listen to your patient! He is giving you the diagnosis.” Sounds stupid, doesn’t it? It’s a “duh” moment. “Really?! You don’t say. If I’m a doctor and want to know what’s wrong…

Read More

I Saw In My Head

I’m not a huge golf fan, but I’ve become a pretty big Bubba Watson fan. The guy seems to really live out his faith, and he’s way goofy. Last month Bubba won the Masters with what seemed to be an impossible shot. After his from on the second hold of the play-off landed in the…

Read More