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Showing posts from December, 2023

Under the Weight of It All

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by Bart Denny Read: Philippians 4:4–9 Most of us know what it feels like when life doesn’t suddenly explode—but slowly gets heavier. Not dramatic. Not loud. Just… weighty. You’re still functioning. Still showing up. Still doing what needs to be done. But inside, it feels like the walls are closing in, and the pressure keeps building. That experience is more common than we're comfortable admitting in church. And it’s exactly the place where the Apostle Paul speaks in Philippians 4. Paul’s words in Philippians 4 matter because they weren't written from comfort. They were written from confinement; Paul was in prison as he wrote this letter to a church under pressure from the threat of persecution. Faithful People Still Feel the Weight One of the quiet lies many Christians believe is this: If my faith were stronger, I wouldn’t feel this anxious. But Scripture doesn’t support that assumption. Even faithful Christians can feel overwhelmed. Even prayerful people can lie awake at night...

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...