50 Ways To Strengthen Adult Education
Vital churches provide ways for people of all ages to grow in faith through learning. These 50 Ways can help your congregation build a strong…
Browsing: Faith Formation
Articles
What’s Your Goal for Visitor Follow-Up?
Lovett H. Weems, Jr. says the traditional approach to visitor follow-up aimed at moving people quickly toward membership may not fit well in an era…
The Lent Challenge
Tom Berlin, pastor of Floris United Methodist Church, challenges his congregation to deepen their spiritual journey during Lent by taking up the disciplines of worship,…
Organizing a Missional COMMUNITY
Hal Knight and Doug Powe discuss nine characteristics of transformative Christian communities that allow them to nurture spiritual growth while also remaining open to others…
A Spiritually Inviting Food Pantry
Sue Nilson Kibbey, author of the new book Flood Gates: Holy Momentum for a Fearless Church, describes how a food pantry ministry provided the opportunity…
Do Your Church Events Serve a Healthy Purpose?
Is your church calendar crammed with one event after another? Church consultant Tony Morgan says many congregations just keep scheduling the same events without ever…
6 Ways to Jumpstart Leadership Formation
Pastor Mike Slaughter says one of the key factors determining the effectiveness of a congregation is the presence of principled leaders who demonstrate a vital…
Why Typical Groups Miss Typical Members
Lovett Weems reports on research suggesting that it’s possible for the less engaged to become more engaged in your church, but not by asking them…
7 of John Wesley’s Practices Can Change Hearts Today
Roger Ross, author of the book Meet the Goodpeople, looks to the Wesleyan Revival for examples of effective ways of sharing faith. He says seven…
Spiritual Growth through Mission Participation
Mission and service activities are increasingly the entry points through which people, particularly younger people, first connect with our churches. We hope that mission participation…
Creative Lenten Activity Encourages Reflection
Lent, the forty-day period before Easter, is set aside as a season of soul-searching and repentance. The forty days of Lent reflect Jesus’s withdrawal into…
50 Ways to Increase Active Engagement
Strong and growing congregations typically have a very high percentage of people who are actively involved in learning, serving, and leading. These 50 tips will…
What is Your Faith Development Process?
How does someone in your church go from being new to being an authentic follower of Jesus Christ? Many churches provide really fuzzy answers to…
Music — the Bellwether of Church Health
After air quality, music is the single greatest environmental factor for your community, because it determines how people feel in your church. It has the power…
Welcoming Newcomers to Your Congregation
How can you best welcome the next newcomer who crosses the threshold of your congregation? Consider Jesus’ call to the disciples. When he said, “Follow…
Wide Welcome: How the Unsettling Presence of Newcomers Can Save the Church
Jessicah Duckworth’s book Wide Welcome speaks to the question of how congregations can best welcome newcomers, engage them in Christian practices, and nurture their faith.…
A Keystone Habit for Our Time
A much-talked-about book currently is The Power of Habit. The author, Charles Duhigg, attempts to answer the questions, “Why do habits exist, and how can…
Helping Youth Have a Faith of Their Own
The fact that youth participate in church less as they get older and often are not present in church as young adults can lead church…
Four Doors that Lead to Faith Development
People arrived at church for the first Sunday of a four-week stewardship emphasis. They were surprised to see a door with a door frame in…
Cultivating a Consequential Faith
Congregations have been doing a lot with teenagers, but it isn’t always leading to consequential faith, maintains Kenda Creasy Dean in Almost Christian: What the…
Churches Where Youth Exhibit Highly Devoted Faith
Kenda Creasy Dean reports in her book Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church (Oxford University Press, 2010) that…
Friendships and Reaching New People
Every church believes itself to be a welcoming and friendly fellowship, but this isn’t always true. If our churches are to become spiritual communities where…
Five Practices of Fruitful Living
The genius of Bishop Robert Schnase’s Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations (Abingdon 2007) was to identify foundational habits that, when properly implemented, enable the church…
Five Practices of Fruitful Living
United Methodist Bishop Robert Schnase, author of the best-selling Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations published by Abingdon Press in 2007, has a new book on…
How Full is Your Menu?
Occasionally I like to visit a local Mexican restaurant. As I scan the menu, I search for items I’ve never tasted. However, I often feel…
Tell Me About a Time
As I sat tapping on my computer keyboard in a Midwestern Starbucks, an unexpected event unfolded nearby. A manager sporting a green apron sat down…
Reintroducing the Language of Sacrifice
I have never been an enthusiastic fan of the word “sacrifice” because so few church members in this culture understand or appreciate the term or…
Tips for Strengthening Adult Education
How can your church offer a strong and inviting program of Bible study and Christian education for adult learners? It is important to offer a…
Fruitful Ministry Includes Harvesting
I am convinced that we in the church do not understand the concept of harvesting. I can’t begin to count the times I have heard…
Congregations Nurturing Future Leaders
In a previous issue of Leading Ideas, Robert K. Martin connects pastoral leadership with gardening. One look at a neighbor’s garden reminds him that the…
