Give Us This Day — Trusting God with Our Needs

-
Image
  by Bart Denny Have you ever noticed how the Lord’s Prayer shifts gears? It begins with God — Our Father… hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. It’s all about His holiness, His priorities, His will. But then, without skipping a beat, Jesus invites us to pray something incredibly down-to-earth: “Give us today our daily bread.” — Matthew 6:11 That’s not just a request for food. It’s an invitation to trust. 1. Trust God Daily — He Knows What You Need Jesus could have said, “Give us a year’s worth of provisions,” or “Fill my retirement account now.” But He didn’t. He taught us to ask for daily bread. It’s a reminder of how God fed Israel with manna in the wilderness — just enough for each day, no stockpiling. Why? Because God was teaching them to depend on Him one day at a time. We like to plan ahead. We want the five-year blueprint. But Jesus says, “Live in the now. Trust Me for today.” Practical step: Each morning this week, pause before you check your pho...
Post a Comment

Successful Revitalization of Small Evangelical Churches Hinges on Leadership Development

-

My doctoral dissertation, focused on how successful church revitalization pastors act to develop and empower next-generation leaders.

A Phenomenological Study of Pastoral Leadership Development Behaviors in the Revitalization of Small Evangelical Churches

Available at https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/4002

Abstract

Church revitalization has received renewed interest in the last several years. Rainer (2014) says that a congregation’s failure to develop and empower next-generation leaders is one of the leading contributors to church closure. Likewise, Clifton (2016) and Stetzer (2007) highlight the importance of developing next-generation leaders during church revitalization. 

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the leadership development behaviors of senior or solo pastors who successfully led revitalization in a small evangelical church. This study defined a small church as one averaging 65 or fewer in attendance at the beginning of the pastor participant’s tenure (Rainer, 2022). Leadership development behaviors were defined as those intentional practices the pastor undertook to develop male leaders from within the congregation. The theories guiding this study were transformational leadership (Bass & Riggio, 2006), authentic leadership (George, 2003), and servant leadership (Greenleaf, 1977), which encourage empowering and developing leaders and comport well with a biblical view of leadership. Further, a view of leadership development as discipleship espoused by Geiger and Peck (2016) informed the study. 

This study involved semi-structured interviews with eleven small church revitalization pastors, developing overarching themes in revitalization leadership development for small evangelical churches. This study found that developing male next-generation leaders was critical to successfully revitalizing small, evangelical churches. In the early years of revitalization, pastors should be prepared to serve as the sole leader developer, undertaking development through deep and authentic personal relationships. Further, revitalization pastors must empower next-generation leaders to act in substantive roles.

Comments

Post a Comment

All comments are moderated. I welcome respectful disagreement with my posts. Such discussions can cause me to consider perspectives I hadn't examined before. However, I also reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason. Why? Simple enough, this is MY blog, with MY thoughts, and I want to have a civil conversation that is, at all times, God-honoring in nature.

Popular posts from this blog

Leadership Development in Local Church Revitalization: A Review of the Literature and Suggestions for Further Research

-
by Bart L. Denny This article identifies a gap in the existing literature concerning leadership development in the context of local church revitalization. The article further suggests how existing leadership and leadership development theories could be applied to church revitalization and proposes further investigation and research areas. Observers and practitioners in the field of church revitalization unequivocally make the case that for a local church to reverse its decline, the pastor must develop a new generation of leaders (Clifton, 2016; Davis, 2017; Henard, 2021; Rainer, 2020; Stetzer & Dodson, 2021). The extant literature links the decline of churches to a lack of leadership and identifies renewed leadership as a vital component of church revitalization. However, little has been written, theoretically or practically, about the process of leadership development as it applies to local church revitalization. Moreover, little empirical verification supports church revitalizat...
Read more

But some doubted...

-
Image
by Bart Denny “The eleven disciples traveled to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped, but some doubted.” —Matthew 28:16–17 (CSB) I try to be faithful to Scripture when I write or preach. I want to draw out lessons and apply them to daily life without saying more than the text itself says. My goal is to dig deep into God’s Word and share what I find—without putting words in God’s mouth. But I can’t help wondering—have you ever heard someone really focus on that last phrase in Matthew 28:17? “But some doubted.” In the very presence of the risen Christ—after seeing Him crucified, buried, and now alive—the disciples worshiped. And yet… some doubted. That moment has always fascinated me. We often say, “seeing is believing.” But here were disciples looking at Jesus with their own eyes, and still, something inside them wavered. Was it too good to be true? Could it really be Him? After everything they’d seen—the horror of the cross, the...
Read more

Faithfulness Over Fruitfulness: Rethinking Ministry Success

-
Image
by Bart L. Denny, Ph.D., Th.M. I’ve often heard it said—sometimes harped on—that Christian ministry is about more than faithfulness; it’s about fruitfulness. But I’m not so sure. At least, not in the way it’s often meant. Yes, there are times when ministries remain barren despite having every resource to yield a bountiful harvest. But that kind of fruitlessness is often the result of unfaithfulness—not a lack of results, but a failure to labor faithfully, wisely, and prayerfully. What Is Faithfulness, Really? Every Christian is called to ministry. But I write here especially to those in ministry leadership. For us, faithfulness includes the courage to honestly assess our work, let go of ineffective strategies, and adopt biblically informed, context-appropriate approaches. It means seeking mentorship, inviting accountability, and doing the hard work of loving people, preaching truth, and building community. That’s faithfulness. We shouldn’t expect kingdom growth if we hav...
Read more