Do a Self-Assessment Most people like, appreciate, and even adore the church they attend. It’s likely why you go there. It’s in our nature to see the positive in our Sunday morning destination. It’s also human nature to overlook flaws or deferred maintenance issues in our church facility. What may stand out as a concern […]
Celebrate Strengths, Correct Weaknesses, Seize Opportunities, and Minimize Threats SWOT is an acronym that stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Many organizations—both for-profit and nonprofit—undergo a SWOT analysis. Here is a Christian SWOT analysis. With this information we can look to celebrate or capitalize on our strengths and correct our weaknesses. These are internal […]
We Honor God When We Take Care of His Temple In the post “Take Care of God’s Temple,” we talked about honoring God with our bodies because the Holy Spirit lives in us. But there is more to this idea of our bodies being God’s temple. Collectively the church is God’s temple too. That is, […]
What Is Versus What Should Be As I read and study the Bible, one common thread I’m always looking for is passages that will inform how the church should function. I want to align what we do at church with what Scripture teaches. Too often, however, our church practice isn’t all that biblical. Instead, we […]
We Must Take Care to Not Judge Others for Their Faith, Practices, or Beliefs Most Christians evaluate people by a set of criteria they use to judge their faith. It’s as if they have a set of Christian litmus tests to decide who are true adherents and who are heretics. Sometimes these Christian litmus tests […]
Four Keys from the Early Church Just days after Pentecost, the people who follow Jesus begin to hang out. This is the first church. What did they do? In the book of Acts, Doctor Luke records four key things: In addition, they meet every day at the temple (outreach) and in homes (fellowship). They share […]
If We’re to Influence the World, We Can’t Let the World Influence Us I’ve written a lot about personal influence, but not so much about church influence. As followers of Jesus, we should seek to influence others, to have a positive impact on them. This means we must seek positive influences for our lives and […]
Consider Giving Ten Percent of Your Time Some churches talk a lot about tithing, of the need for us to give them ten percent of our income. In addition, I’ve heard a sermon or two about applying this ten percent guideline to volunteering at church, to tithe your time. It’s an interesting concept that we […]
Who Makes Things Happen at Your Church? When something needs to be done at your church, who does it? Many people would say it’s the pastor. They view their clergy as paid employees who are supposed to do the work of the church and serve them. But should they? Paid Staff The idea of having […]
We Must Stand Firm Against Society’s Attacks on Marriage and Children As followers of Jesus, we need to reclaim what the Bible teaches about family. This is because the biblical ideal of family has taken a hit in today’s culture. Therefore, we must counter this and celebrate the family. Today’s secular society views marriage as […]