Guest AuthorBy Deborah Ike Summer months provide an excellent opportunity to refresh and clean up the church. Decent weather makes it easier to handle outdoor projects. No school may mean some students are willing and able to volunteer a few hours to help. As...
Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” But what are good works? Professor R. Michael Allen explains in the course Law and Gospel: The...
By Jeff Chaves If we learned anything last year, it’s that the church live stream is an important tech tool. For many of us, the live stream is here to stay. If you’re like most church techies, you aren’t content with using the basic tools. You...
By Katie Allred Now that your church’s worship services are both online and in-person (as most are these days), how are you engaging your online visitors—or are you? Here are four tips for making sure your online guests aren’t an afterthought but...
By Trillia Newbell The other morning I woke up while my children were still sleeping and began to pray. I started thinking about my identity. Who am I? As I settled into my prayer time, I began to rejoice at the thought that I am a mother. It is...
By James Wasem Church leadership and tech teams have a perennial problem: maintaining technology systems crucial for ministry, both in the sanctuary and online. While much of the decision-making process is focused on budget, it is even more...
By Harold L. Senkbeil Where do you go when the calamities of life feel too heavy? We’re all tempted to turn inward, but perhaps we would do better to open the Psalms of lament instead. In the following excerpt from Christ and Calamity by award...
What do churches need to do church online well? Read on to learn what Jay Kranda, online pastor at Saddleback Church, has to say about this timely topic. *** A couple of months ago, I wanted to buy stock in Pinterest. I had never bought anything...
By Kenny Jahng Can you report on the health of your church at any given milestone throughout the year? Effective leaders keep their finger on the pulse of their community, and data gives the read. In the current environment, it can be hard to get a...
By Keri Wyatt Kent When is the worst time to launch a brand-new discipleship program? You might ask Discovery Church in Colorado Springs. You might also ask them how to grow your church during a global pandemic. In late January, Discovery Church in...
By Tobin Perry Developing generous givers isn’t about your church’s budget. It’s about discipleship. Jesus’ commission to make disciples and teach them everything he commanded (Matt. 28:18–20) means teaching people that giving is part of the...
By Jen Miles and Jason Morris When you think about helping people grow spiritually, Bible engagement and discipleship are probably at the top of your list. What if your congregation engaged with the Bible in meaningful ways every day? Today’s social...
By Adam McLaughlin There’s no shortage of ideas to communicate to our church members, and they all seem to creep into our announcements and church emails. Soon we’re communicating everything about everything—which becomes noise—instead of...
By Brandon Crowe When we ask, “What does the Bible say about work?” we often find a list of verses telling us to work hard and be faithful in our labor. But when we take a broader view of the topic, we can ask: how does the great commandment shape...
There are a number of things that make a church website successful, from aesthetics to load time to ease of use. But the most important thing about your website comes before the page even loads: your domain name. Your website domain name is one of...
With our ever-present sin, we must return continually to the ever-abundant grace of God in Christ Jesus. Sunday morning is one of the primary times to reflect upon grace and celebrate it together as a body. Here are five worship songs about grace...
“Death Was Arrested” was inspired by the epitaph of a tombstone found in a St. Mary’s, Georgia, cemetery. The inscription reads: Here rests what was mortal of Samuel Burr, age 42. In search of help far from home, death arrested his progress on...
Every person who steps into church is, to varying degrees, a sufferer. It’s part of the human condition. While it’s good that we sing songs about joy and victory in Christ, we misportray the Christian life if we never sing about suffering—and even...
“There was a man who had two sons . . .” “There once was a king who . . .” “In a certain town there was a judge . . .” When Jesus wanted to reveal what the kingdom of God was like, he often told stories—stories about widows and tax collectors...
This guest post by Elizabeth Vince is excerpted from Moment with God: A Devotional on Every Biblical Book. Childhood lessons about the consequences of bragging have stuck with me. As I learned about humility and modesty, I became...
This post is by Christy Tennant. It has been excerpted from Moment with God: A Devotional on Every Biblical Book. I must confess that sometimes I read about the forgetfulness of Bible characters and chide them in my mind. I think, “If God showed me...
This post answering the question “What do I do when it feels like God is asleep?” is by John Barry. It has been excerpted from Moment with God: A Devotional on Every Biblical Book. I say, “Help comes from God.” I tell people, “You’re not...
Reading the Bible regularly can be hard. Sometimes it can feel like it takes too much work to understand what Scripture is really saying. And the last thing you want is for your Bible reading to become stale, or to feel forced. If Bible study...
Today’s guest post is by Dr. Daniel Bush, author of Live in Liberty: The Spiritual Message of Galatians and Embracing God as Father: Christian Identity in the Family of God. Dan holds a B.Sci. from Michigan Technological University, the M.Div...
Today’s guest post is by Pastor Dan McEvoy from North Bay Christ the King Community Church, in Blaine, Washington. My first images of Jesus and the land he lived in were a cheap print of Da Vinci’s “Last Supper” at my...
Today’s guest post is by Pastor Sam Luce of Redeemer Church in Utica, New York. Sam has been a pastor for 17 years—14 of which he served as a children’s pastor. He received his BA in theology from Portland Bible College, and he’s...
Today’s guest post is by author and pastor, Dr. Larry Osborne. Osborne has served as senior pastor and teaching pastor at North Coast Church for more than 35 years. He helped oversee the growth of the church from a group of 128 meeting in a...
A while back, Randy Brown, creator of BibleBuyingGuide.com, shared how he chooses a Bible for preaching. Randy reviews Bibles in all price ranges to help people make the best choice for their budget. His mission is to promote Bible reading and...
Today’s guest post is by Michael Whitworth, founder and owner of Start2Finish. Michael preaches in Bowie, Texas, and is the author of several books, including The Epic of God and The Derision of Heaven. He writes regularly for the Start2Finish...