How To's

The first year church plant isn’t a sprint toward big crowds, impressive programs, or viral social media moments. If you’re anything like most planters, you’ve probably felt the subtle pressure to “hit the ground running” and measure success by numbers, buzz, or attendance. That’s a nice dream, but here’s the pastoral truth: the first year…

If you’re wrestling with where to begin the journey of church planting, thinking creatively about church plant locations can open doors you didn’t know existed. Too often planters default to the obvious storefront or auditorium option, not realizing that the place where you launch your church deeply influences how your community connects with the gospel.…

Every church planter eventually asks the same quiet question, usually late at night, usually after another attendance report. How do you actually measure church plant success? Is it numbers? Giving? Survival past year three? Or is it something harder to chart but far more faithful? Church planting lives in the tension between faithfulness and fruitfulness.…

Perhaps the most dangerous place on the church campus is the pastor’s counseling office. When the minister is shut up in a tight space with a vulnerable female who confides in him the most personal things of her life, often the two people do something completely natural and end up bonding emotionally. The bonding process…

Frank Laubach, literacy pioneer and beloved brother in Christ, used to call short prayers “prayer arrows.”  Short sentences sent heavenward to praise, give thanks, intercede or summon the Lord’s assistance have a potency all their own. The hypocrites think they will be heard for their “much speaking.” (Oh, I pray for two hours every morning. You…