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 [...]

Isn’t Church just like any other charity? Why shouldn’t I give more to the Red Cross, opera house, or some place that’s actually ‘doing’ something? When most Americans give less than 1% annually to charity, and  1 in 5 Christians give no money to charity, why should I? Mark Allan Powell’s book, Giving to God, [...]

Eating, exercising, sleeping… do they have an impact on our spiritual lives? Author and speaker Valerie Hess says you betcha’.  And she’s keen to tell us all about it in her new book, The Life of the Body. Valerie celebrates the opportunities Christians have to live more fully into their calling, while lamenting that the world [...]

The pastor of the fastest growing urban congregation in the Lutheran Church (ELCA) says what draws people to join St. Paul’s is the energy and vibrancy that hits them the first minute they come through the door. Peter Marty says things were not that way 16 years ago when he arrived to pastor a church [...]

Applying Purpose-Driven principles to a mainline church? Bethlehem Lutheran may be the first mainline congregation to apply Rick Warren’s famous philosophy – and it’s been a great success. Nearly 20 years ago Pastor Chris Nelson attended a conference at the now-famous Saddleback Church in Southern California. When he returned he did not change the music, [...]

Nearly 40 years ago founders of The Alban Institute set out to resource local congregations – and it’s current president, The Rev. Dr. James Wind is continuing the task. Since its humble beginnings Alban has branched out into publishing, conferences, and newsletters (both print and email) that share valuable resources with congregations. In this interview [...]

Preaching, as our weekly opportunity to dazzle them with brilliance or even channel the Almighty, is on the way out says Luther Seminary’s preaching instructor David Lose. More and more, he’s come to believe the preacher’s job is about practically equipping folk to experience God in their everyday lives. David is a driving force behind [...]

Traditional churches tend to be late adapters to new technology, taking our time to do it right. And Lutheran pastor Keith Anderson says that time is now. Keith, co-author of the upcoming book Click2Save: The Digital Ministry Bible, gives us some tips on what kind of Internet involvement may be appropriate for established churches. In [...]

It’s high time established churches got over their ‘Edifice Complexes’ and returned to their first call – says ELCA bishop Mike Rinehart. He’s encouraged that his Synod has made evangelism its first priority, so this self-described bull in a china shop is charging forward. In this interview hear how the Synod’s plan to place 2 [...]

Sure, they’ve been going on for centuries, but Dr. Paul Westermeyer of Luther Seminary says today’s church arguments over music have rarely been this mean-spirited – or this simple to solve (note the difference between simple and easy…). Yes, liberating our congregations from the manipulative and emotion-based musical proclivities of the surrounding culture is our [...]