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Showing posts from October, 2020

Declining Churches Searching for the Silver Bullet Pastor

  The problem of declining churches in America was nothing new when the COVID-19 pandemic first struck in March 2020. I tend to ignore 2020 through 2022 when measuring whether a church has declined. But let’s be honest: if you look back to March 2020 and compare your attendance and financial giving back then to that of today, in March 2024, and both are lower, on average, by more than a few percent, your church has declined. If you had a children’s ministry before the pandemic, and you now struggle to wrangle up more than a few kids on a typical Sunday, you have declined. Your church needs revitalization. Sure, there are other, less tangible measures of health. How are you doing evangelistically? Are you reaching your neighborhood with the gospel? Are you making disciples? Maybe your church has already taken proactive steps in the direction of revitalization. Perhaps you’ve already decided to make some hard decisions rather than kicking the can down the road. If so, good on you! Sadl

A Yielded Life: God’s Battleplan for Christian Victory

 As I write this, we are on the brink of another national election here in the United States. I have to admit that, right or wrong, I’ve kind of tuned out from the news and especially the election coverage.  I mean, to be honest, I wasn’t recovered from the last election. I’ve tuned out the banter around the election because it’s bad enough to look on TV or the internet and watch the candidates and their surrogates sniping, bickering, and fighting back and forth.   That’s bad enough, but it’s even worse when I look on social media, and it’s friends and family, people I love and care about that are fighting. It’s people who claim to know and love the Lord that are very publicly shredding each other. You dare criticize their candidate, then you’re probably not even a Christian as far as they’re concerned. Honestly, it makes me sad. It feels like so many Christians are convinced that if Jesus was here on earth today, He would vote exactly the way they would.   Perhaps unconsciously,