Dear missionally frustrated pastor…
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The spiritual practice of invitation. part 1
My next couple of posts will explore the simple act of extending an invitation. I'm convinced that invitation is a spiritual practice with enormous missional potential.
In this post, I’ll be asserting that Jesus demonstrated invitation; that invitation is the best marketing tool imaginable; (which is because) invitation leverages the trust that exists within a relationship.
So, what do I do about it?
Reading about the lifecycle can be pretty depressing. It’s fine if your church is in the first few stages. But discovering you’re leading a church that’s in the latter years of its organisational life is about as fun as swallowing cod liver oil.
My topic today is “What do we do about it?” My argument will be that leaders can turn their churches around if they acknowledge that there’s a problem, look deeper at their church’s particular stage in the lifecycle, and get some help.
The church life-cycle (part 2)
My last post explored the first four stages of the church life cycle: The Dream, Birth, Adolescence, and Adulthood.
My post this week is a little more sombre. No human organisation lives forever, and churches are no exception. The Church (capital C), as Jesus promised, will last, but its local, contextual iterations will not. The second half of the lifecycle includes (becoming an) Institution, Decline, and finally, Death.
In support of the Baptists (& Pentecostals): A postmortem of a postmortem
The talking points around the church water cooler last week were Central Easter Camp’s decision not to host an event in 2024 and Scottie Reeve’s dissection of what this means for the Kiwi church.
The church life-cycle (part 1)
Churches, like human organisations of all kinds, have lifecycles: they are born, they live- sometimes for centuries, sometimes for months, and they die.
The mixed blessing of corporate change tools
There is a section in your local bookshop dedicated to leading businesses through change. Most of it is well written and compelling. But exactly how relevant is it to the church?
Why is my church so hard to change?
While leading any kind of change is challenging, churches are arguably the most difficult of all organisations to change.
What makes this the case?
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