
Is Closing a Church Ever a Good Thing?
Tim Snyder of the Lewis Center Staff writes that closing a church often brings conflict, denial, and shame. But death is a natural passage in…
Subscribe free to "Leading Ideas" at churchleadership.com/leadingideas. Every Wednesday, "Leading Ideas" delivers information, resources, and strategies for forward-thinking church leaders.
Tim Snyder of the Lewis Center Staff writes that closing a church often brings conflict, denial, and shame. But death is a natural passage in…
Is your congregation cut off and inwardly focused? Primarily a storehouse of resources? Or a connector that brings things together? The images of swamp, reservoir,…
How can a congregation be more effective in developing a missional presence? In this episode we speak with Tom Berlin, lead pastor at Floris United Methodist Church in Herndon, Virginia, about how being adaptive can help churches live into a more fruitful missional sensibility.
How can your congregation help those in paid staff roles perform most effectively? Ann Michel of the Lewis Center staff outlines five ways to clarify…
Lewis Center Director Doug Powe says we all have characteristics that others recognize but we can’t quite see in ourselves. Effective leaders see past these…
Why do some congregations grow more quickly than others? In this episode we speak with Matt Miofsky, founding and lead pastor of The Gathering in St. Louis, about the book he wrote with Jason Byassee, 8 Virtues of Rapidly Growing Churches.
Sustainability is increasingly difficult for the ever increasing number of churches worshipping small numbers each week. Lovett Weems captures the dilemma for church leaders and…
Worship attendance and revenue figures don’t tell the whole story in gauging your church’s effectiveness. Rich Birch suggests some novel indicators that can reveal growth…
Michael Kurtz explains that churches are quick to add new programs but slow to eliminate older ones, creating ministry clutter and program overload. Regular pruning…
Robert Schnase’s five key practices — radical hospitality, passionate worship, intentional faith development, risk-taking mission and service, and extravagant generosity — have helped thousands of…
This article is reprinted by permission from Leading Ideas, a free e-newsletter from the Lewis Center for Church Leadership of Wesley Theological Seminary available at churchleadership.com.