It takes a community to form a disciple. The congregation exists to be that community. Children, youth, and adults together in the community of faith provide the resources that aid the forming of disciples. The Spirit present in that community…

Depending on whom you ask, continuing education for ministry is either flourishing, with assets that have never existed before, or struggling to survive. Troubling symptoms include increasing costs amidst anecdotal reports of decreasing support for staff and programs sponsored both…

Recently, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released the first set of findings from its massive U.S. Religious Landscape Survey 2008. As I studied the report and tracked its initial coverage in the mainstream media, I took special note…

When I was starting out as a twenty-seven-year-old pastor, all I could think of was how much our congregation needed to grow, change, revitalize, and transform. Then I attended a small-church seminar, thinking that this would teach me how to…

While it is important to consider healthy congregational responses to difficult behavior, it is vital to consider the responsibilities of church leaders. The truth is that many congregations either do not know how to respond to destructive behavior responsibly or…

Jesus spoke challenging words to those who would follow him. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34-35). The cross had only one purpose in the ancient…

Every autumn I ask my beginning preaching students to go the library and survey English and American books about preaching from the late nineteenth century to the present to see what common themes they can detect. I give them a…

When churches plan, one of the things they often plan to do is grow. They have their reasons: the Great Commission, for one, and the fact that spreading the gospel is a main point of the congregation’s purpose. But when…