Cultivating Churchmen
I love all the local churches, whether small or large, that I have had the opportunity to worship in and serve alongside of. Many of the believers who were part of those churches were not only formative to my own growth in Christ but also displayed, in their own ways, the beauty of the gospel that is shown in and through the local church. My affection for two specific churches is particularly strong because I grew up in one and...
HSF Conversations: Ordinary Means of Grace Church Planting
In this episode of HSF Conversations, Ed Goode and Daniel Mann, church planters in Illinois, join us to discuss ordinary means of grace church planting. We discuss church planting books and blogs, whether or not those resources promote ordinary means of grace ministry, what ordinary means of grace ministry is, and what ordinary means of grace ministry looks like in the life of the church. About Ed Goode: I grew up in a happy home and...
The Church as the Plausibility Structure
“You might be the only Bible that someone ever reads.” This phrase has been repeated in youth group rooms and from pulpits across our country. The sentiment is good. It is a reminder for individual Christians to take seriously a biblical ethic. If believers claim to believe the Bible is true, then they should follow it so that their lives would reflect that truth. Moreover, non-Christians often will not start with the Bible in their...
Church Leadership Lessons from Malachi 2
In many ways, a leader’s competency can be assessed by the response of those he is leading. For example, a teacher’s competency to teach may be assessed by how well his or her students retain the information being taught in the classroom. If students learn the material and pass their exams, the teacher has probably done well educating his or her students. On the other hand, if nobody passes his or her exams, the teacher may not have...
Book Review: Small Church Essentials: Field-Tested Principles for Leading a Healthy Congregation of Under 250
Small-church pastors often set out to read practical ministry books only to find that most of them are geared toward larger churches. The ideas they promote would not work in a smaller congregation, so the small-church pastor must take the general principle of what the book teaches and adapt them for his own setting. Of course, pastors of larger churches must also discern how to apply the principles set out in a book, since so much...
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