Author: Rich

Church Marketing

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I suppose I used to think that the idea of church marketing was a bad idea. A concept from the business world, applied to a non-profit organization, whose mission is not competitive. However, I think the idea of sharing the gospel is marketing. In fact, all churches and all chrisitians are marketers. If we understand a little about sales and marketing, we realize that we use many of the same techniques and ploys in sharing the gospel that marketing and sales professionals do in their work.

We all should be marketing Christ. But along the way, we want to market our church. We want people who accept our message of hope in Christ, to also join our community. We want to recruit them to help us share that same message of hope with others. Continue reading “Church Marketing” →

Slowing Down

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I published my first post on this blog last year in March. Since then I have posted once or twice a week “religiously”. I felt that I had a lot to say about my own experience in ministry, ministry leadership, ministry volunteerism, and as a ministry participant. For a while now, I have been engaged on twitter, following a broad variety ministry leaders, ministry consultants, and pastors, and other weirdo’s like me. I have been greatly encouraged by all of you, and have been inspired to respond to some of your ideas in this blog.

I also started a new blog that is primarily about my “day job” as an IT consultant and application software development leader. More recently I started a blog about political, cultural and economic topics – in which I espouse some really oddball views.

Recently, my thoughts on ministry have slowed down, and I have been posting more biblical topics, and I don’t know that my skills and gifts lead these to benefit anyone but me. For the moment, I have decided to slow down the pace of posting on this blog from weekly to monthly – of course, I will continue to post as frequently as I am led.

Shrewd Managers

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Luke 16:1-15 provides us the parable of the shrewd manager. What does this mean for us as believers, or as church leaders?

Here is my current paraphrase:

An executive was told that one of his reports was “taking some liberties” with his expense account. This manager was hauled into his boss’s office and told to pack up his stuff and get out. The manager was terrified, because the job market was bad, and he was too proud to accept a position of lower title. So he quickly contacted some of the corporation’s customers, saying, “I am losing my job, but I will cut your bill in half before I go, if you will help me find a job”, to which they readily agreed. When the executive found out, he praised the dishonest manager for being clever.

 

When I think about this, what strikes me is not the dishonesty of the manager, but the willingness of his boss and his customers to accept this practice. It tells me that then as now, worldly people are motivated by money, and they are willing to overlook improprieties, if it means that they can profit from it. Continue reading “Shrewd Managers” →

Accountability vs. Discipline

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Church Discipline is not something that the unchurched understand. This may be partially because they perceive church like a social club or a charity organization and the aspect of discipline of members seems very cultish. They may also not understand the relationship of accountability that is formed between disciple and discipler. I had no idea about church discipline before I was a member of a church and watched one of my fellow members undergo such a proceding. Continue reading “Accountability vs. Discipline” →

Do Not Judge

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The Bible says that we should not judge others, because the same standard will be applied to us.

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven.” Luke 6:37

 

There are many, many passages in the New Testament about judgement. This may be the most quoted, and most misunderstood. The sense of judgement used here indicates a “cutting off” – a finality – that would prevent someone from being eligible for God’s grace. In a clear sense, in modern english – it says “Don’t write someone off, totally – such that you are no longer willing to “hope” for their salvation or repentance.” Continue reading “Do Not Judge” →

Five Signs of a Recovering Church

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A couple months ago, I read this article about five signs of a declining church, or something like that. When I wrote my curation post, I said that I might write a post about five signs of a recovering church.

Your church has been through a difficult time. A split, a staff member is disciplined, core members dribble away for a couple years, a big fancy mega-church opens a campus down the street and half of your congregation is now “over there”, your senior pastor left to answer a call in Tucumcari, NM. Stuff happens, and it can take the wind out of your sails.

What are 5 signs of a recovering church?

1) Leadership is not in denial about the underlying problems that caused <whatever problem> and are actively forming a plan to correct them. Continue reading “Five Signs of a Recovering Church” →

Sunday School vs. Small Groups

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Sunday School
Those of us who came to Christ (especially within the evangelical movement) in the 70’s and 80’s and before are very familiar with the notion of Adult Sunday School. We got much of our deeper teaching in this structure, usually either directly before or directly after our Sunday worship service. In the churches I attended in the 80’s and 90’s we had age based communities, that were rather larger (10-50 people) subgroups of the church, where people who had things in common could learn together. Usually there was a single teacher, or a rotation of teachers (opportunity for new teachers to develop) and a couple of administrative types (organize socials, coordinate teaching schedules, deal with coffee and treats, etc). The social life of the church was somewhat organized through these groups, who generally formed as new married couples, or new parent groups – who helped each other and grew deep friendships along the way. Kids grew up together. Often there were bespoke college age and adult singles classes, because they were different adult communities with different synergies that didn’t really fit well in the married adult communities. Continue reading “Sunday School vs. Small Groups” →

Mission Vs. Discipleship

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Talking about Mission vs. Discipleship and I have been noodling some dumb ideas for a couple weeks. A couple weeks ago when I was mowing the lawn for the last time this year, an analogy presented itself, and so I thought I would share that as a way of expressing how mission and discipleship work in the Body of Christ.

My analogy is that of an orchestra or other musical group. Mission is like the performance. We share our love for the music, and the composer with others who are not in our ensemble. Our mission is to help as many as possible take up an instrument. Continue reading “Mission Vs. Discipleship” →

Church and State

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I saw this article by Nova Spinack (internet entrepreneur, and pragmatist) who is advocating a separation of corporate interest and state. He patterns this after the separation of church and state (Establishment clause).

Except that most people today don’t understand certain truths about the founding of our country, the establishment clause, and freedom of religion. While I don’t claim to be an expert – I want to push a non-political view forward that will help us (Christians) understand what the founding fathers intended. Continue reading “Church and State” →