It’s time to get out of the (church) box, says the gifted and creative rector at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Mohegan Lake, NY. The Rev. Claire Woodley says the Matthew 28 command to ‘Go!’ has sent her to regular visits to local businesses where the offers to pray with employees, open up a coffee shop [...]

Kermit Moss, Sr says getting into the neighborhood, with the unchurched as well as the churched, is a key to his ministry at Manhattan Bible Church, in New York City. The gifted teaching pastor, an African American called to shepherd in a Spanish speaking neighborhood, says it’s even more important for him to work at [...]

Author, speaker, and former fundamentalist pastor Steve McSwain says the best way to see healthy growth in today’s churches is for a greater sense of openness to prevail. Steve, whose Huffington Post bio calls him the ‘voice of SBNR (spiritual but not religious)’ brings a sobering relevancy to the work churches are embarking upon today. [...]

Ministry in smaller congregations takes expertise and enthusiasm for people not programs, says United Methodist minister and small church consultant Ron Crandall. A retired seminary dean, Ron has a contagious excitement for the small church, and says that building a core team of leaders within the congregation is key. In this interview, Ron unpacks this [...]

Presbyterian pastor Byron Wade says one way he’s energized his mainline congregation is to change the vocabulary that speaks of maintenance to that which speaks of mission. Byron’s Davie Street Presbyterian (USA) no longer has committees, but Ministry Teams – that take ownership and intentionality toward the work they’ve been called to do. In this [...]

Our pastors take care of us, that’s their job – but should my job also be to take care of them? Retired Presbyterian pastor, author, and consultant Stephen McCutchan says, ‘Absolutely!’ He is deeply involved in the Pastoral Care Network whose litany is: Healthy Clergy, Healthy Church, and he’s devoted his life to coming alongside [...]

Just a few months into his new position at First Presbyterian Church of Charlotte, NC, Pendelton (Pen) Peery is doing a lot of listening. This dynamic pastor, and leader of the PCUSA renewal movement called Next Church, Pen has learned to listen for the unique gifts his new congregation possesses, with plans to first begin [...]

Ed Kruse’s consulting business is all about the Uninvolved, the Underinvolved, and the Unclaimed. Ed, a former pastor and stewardship executive, founded healthierchurch.org a few years ago to help congregations activate and reactivate their membership (in fact, if you hurry, you can still register for their April 11 gathering in Chicago – click here for [...]

The Well is a United Methodist church plant that, by most indicators, is a home run. It’s hip, it’s relevant, and on its first Sunday, 7 months ago, welcomed more than 800 people. However, pastor Arthur Jones says the challenge of discipleship-making remains: how do we help young people deepen their knowledge of Scripture, increase [...]

Author, journalist, and pastor Jason Byassee says it was the natural move at his rather large, well-established Boone United Methodist Church in North Carolina: that his first hire would be someone charged to coordinate care of those who were not already members. Jason, an author who writes for the Christian Century and is a popular [...]

How does a church of 19 (mostly grandparents) get to nearly 150 in just a few years? Intentional Christian practice found at the heart of the Methodist tradition. Matt Smith, co-founder of The Table at Central United Methodist Church says the growing congregation, that already has one ‘plant’ at a local coffee house, is all [...]

Taking what’s best of the old and freshening it up with the new is the challenging work facing nearly every congregation today says Duke University theologian, author, and UMC minister L. Gregory Jones – so how do we do this? Dr. Jones says one strategy is that church leaders need to keep up on the [...]

Ministry in real-life Mayberry has its blessings and challenges..Steve Lindsley, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Mt. Airy, NC, says it’s great to be involved in such a loving community, however the financial struggles take a toll. In this interview, Steve tells us how the laying off of the church music director has actually invigorated [...]

‘Exegete’ means to interpret – and long-time Presbyterian pastor and consultant Tom Tewell says this is what congregations need to do in their neighborhoods – to interpret what God is doing there. Tewell, who heads Macedonian Ministries of the CF Foundation (here’s a link to some of their recent work), says that the simple act [...]

Ordained Methodist, PhD candidate, and USA Messy Church coordinator Andrew Holmes ponders the role of ‘fun’ when it comes to Christian worship – and at the end of the day he’s in favor of it. Holmes, who cites numerous Scripture texts suggesting the playfulness of God, is also writing his doctoral dissertation (St. John’s, Durham [...]

He grew up in the pews of his denomination, now Pastor Quinn Caldwell is taking the helm at Plymouth Congregational Church in Syracuse, NY and is ready to make some noise. Caldwell says many mainline denominations suffer from a sense of complacency, as if the highest calling of the Christian was quiet dignity. He is [...]

Danielle Shroyer and her faith community, Journey: Dallas, are done with distractions (even denominations) and yearn to grow more deeply into Christ through their shared journey together in community. This multi-denominational (post-denominational?) gathering sprung from a traditional church before heading out on its own, and a place where this part-time pastor uses rented space to [...]

It’s called the Parish Collective – and the idea is to link churches to their geographic boundaries – lifting up the community in the name of Christ. However, these aren’t Roman Catholic, Lutheran, or Episcopal congregations, per se, they’re the collective of Christians in one area who are committed to improving that area. Co-founder Tim [...]

Celebrating juvenile things as if they were adult things. It’s a problem that plagues contemporary society, says professor Tom Bergler, whose new book, ‘The Juvenilization of American Christianity‘ chronicles our modern propensity to extend adolescence as long as possible – which is having detrimental affects on the Church. In this interview Dr. Bergler tells us [...]

Moving from a 400 member church to White Memorial Presbyterian Church, which is several times larger, has been an exciting adjustment for Pastor Christopher Edmonston. He’s found out what many church leaders discover when their ministries grow: the skills needed to run larger churches are markedly different from those of smaller congregations – yet the [...]

Valley and Mountain is not your typical church – in fact now, in its infancy, it is best described as a movement – which may be where the next generation of vibrant congregations is going. John, a gifted United Methodist Church minister, is a few years into this Seattle, WA plant, which meets in different [...]

Average sermon length is now over 17 minutes these days – signalling the first increase in average American sermons in 200 years – says Thomas Long, Candler professor and preaching expert. There are several reasons, says Long, one of them is that people are looking for ‘useful’ sermons – that take longer to unpack. This [...]

Mark Scandrette believes churches need to function less like classrooms and more like karate studios. This innovative pastor and author of Practicing the Way of Jesus, says congregations need to find ways to connect much more deeply with people, allowing room for practice, failure, and transformative interaction. In this interview, Mark describes the ‘learning labs’ [...]

You were made in the image of God – is it time for some restoration? That’s the tag line for Episcopal priest Christopher Martin’s latest project: The Restoration Project – which aims, through sequential classes, small group discipleship, and personal rules of life – to deepen the spirituality of local congregations. In this interview Christopher [...]

Please excuse the riff of the infamous James Carville line (‘It’s the economy, stupid’) – but for Anglican Benedictine Chris Webb, in a world where churches are tempted to major in so many things – from social justice to education – they must never forget that spirituality is their first call. Chris, who recently wrote, [...]