Posts

Showing posts from 2023

He Came Down...to Deliver

Image
  by Bart Denny What follows is the sermon I intended to preach at Pathway - A Wesleyan Church on November 30, 2025, the first Sunday of Advent, when we would have lit the "Hope" candle on the Advent wreath if heavy snowfall had not preempted our service. This is the first message in a series titled He Came Down: The Wonder of God's Nearness. He Came Down... to Deliver Exodus 3:1-15 Introduction Have you ever walked through a season when you felt… unseen? When you wondered, “Does anyone know what I’m carrying? Does anyone understand? Is anyone even listening when I pray?” As we step into Advent, we need this reminder: Advent tells us we are not forgotten. Advent isn’t about people climbing their way to God. It’s the story of a God who comes down into the very places where we are — the ordinary, the unnoticed, the overlooked. And that’s why we’re not beginning this Advent series where you might expect. Instead of Bethlehem or Nazareth, we’re starting in the wilderness of ...

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...