Personalized Weekly Mentoring
You are invited to be part of a mentoring group. Join with your peers and continue to learn! A good leader constantly desires to improve in all he does. Instead of seeing himself as arriving at a state of proficiency, he continually pursues learning and growing. Jim Vogel and John Greening are readying for their [...]
Don’t Waste Your Curriculum Resources
Take an honest look at the Sunday School classes at your church. Are teachers utilizing their curriculum to the greatest potential, making their jobs easier and increasing their effectiveness? I have the distinct privilege of working at a place that produces curriculum. I see firsthand the extraordinary level of expertise that goes into the smallest [...]
A Worship Resource for Christmas (and the Rest of the Year)
Our church plant is using two songs this Christmas season from RESOUNDworship. RESOUNDworship is a group of songwriters based in the U.K. who are “seeking to resource the church with heartfelt, crafted, accessible worship songs.” Their website provides free access to the songs this team has written and produced for churches. The first of the [...]
Worship Book Recommendations
Here are some book recommendations to help you, and perhaps your church, think through congregational worship and the accompanying issues. The Worship Architect. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010. Recommend by Scott Greening Constance Cherry uses the analogy of architecture and buildings to work through how to craft corporate worship services. She proposes a Biblical foundation [...]
Worship-Centered versus God-Centered
David McGrew (associate professor, Baptist Bible College) has written a thought-provoking article on worship leaders being most concerned with being God-centered in our worship.
Community Evangelism
On Sept. 24, we posted a terrific article by Ken Davis (Baptist Bible College) on servant evangelism. In this article, he laid out theological and practical reasons that our churches should participate in servant evangelism. In addition, he gave helpful examples of its effectiveness. Today we have links to follow-up articles.
Pastoral Mentoring Group
This week we are looking at the topic of the pastor’s spiritual life. The pastor is the spiritual leader for the church, but where does he turn? Every pastor at some point in ministry needs encouragement, someone with whom to talk through ministry trends and the issues they present, someone to discuss struggles with, and someone to [...]
When a Monster Comes to Church
In almost every area of our society, sex offenders and pedophiles are considered monsters. But are these people beyond hope? What should we do when one begins attending our church?
A Tool for Hispanic Ministry
Oramos Cantando/We Pray in Song is a bilingual Spanish/English hymnal produced by GIA Publications, Inc. You may find it beneficial in a cross-cultural ministry.
Reaching Your Jerusalem
The following is a quick encouragement and challenge from Chuck DeCleene, missions professor at The Master Plan of Evangelism by Robert E. Coleman and
Reaching Families
This week our theme is “Reaching Families.” We’d like to share ideas for reaching not just children but entire families with the gospel and seeing them come to know Christ and join the church. One outreach ministry that targets families is
More Fun with Sermon Templates
This week we are featuring a series of articles by Pastor Jamie Hart on using technology in ministry. By Jamie Hart In a previous post, I showed you how to create a sermon template by modifying the heading styles in a Word document. As I mentioned, using the heading styles unlocks some amazing functionality. Let [...]
Ministry in the Cloud
This week we are featuring a series of articles by Pastor Jamie Hart on using technology in ministry. By Jamie Hart I’m a Microsoft guy for many reasons—not the least of which is the fact that, as a software instructor (I’m bi-vocational), the MS Office applications help me pay the bills! But when it comes [...]
Outlining in Microsoft Word
This week we are featuring a series of articles by Pastor Jamie Hart on using technology in ministry. By Jamie Hart If you use Microsoft Word, chances are you have a love/hate relationship with the application. And if there is any part of MS Word that you hate, chances are it’s the numbering and outlining [...]
Why the GARBC Needs Old People, Part 2
I’m pretty impatient. I’d rather get something done today than have it drag out for months. It probably comes with the territory of being young. As we consider why we need older people in our lives and we delve deeper into the concept Nat so ably illustrated, what wisdom can we gain from older people? One [...]
Weddings: Using God’s Word as the Foundation
A marriage between a Christian couple whose foundation is based on God’s Word is a joyous thing. As a result, many Christians saturate their wedding ceremonies with Scripture. Even vows have come to include the Word of God. What a better opportunity to publicly declare a couple’s commitment and to proclaim Christ. Here’s just a small list of [...]
Weddings: Whom Will Your Church Marry?
The summer wedding season is almost upon us, so this week on The Quest we are going to focus on questions and issues related to wedding ceremonies. I’m starting this off by asking the following questions and providing our church’s policy for each one. 1. Whom will you marry, or whom will you allow [...]
Where Do You Get Your Graphics?
It’s possible that you belong to a church that has a media minister of some kind who designs the graphics and images for church ministry use—PowerPoint presentations, promotional materials, etc. Some of you might even have your own sweet skills in graphic design. However, it’s likely that most of us search online for quality images [...]
Scripture for Funerals
Last weekend I had the privilege of officiating the funeral of a church member. (No, the picture to the right is not of me nor of the funeral at which I officiated.) As an assistant pastor, this isn’t something I do regularly, so in preparation for the funeral I compiled a list of Bible [...]
Great Song: “Because of Your Love”
Cody Crigger, music and administration pastor at Willow Creek Baptist Church, West Des Moines, Iowa, has found and used a wonderful new song. The following is his description of the song, the song lyrics, and links to the song on the artist’s website and iTunes. Because of Your Love The beginning of ”Because of Your Love” beautifully explains unique [...]
Creative Congregational Christmas Caroling
Christmas is a wonderful time of the year! I believe this to be true in large part due to the music of the season. There is nothing better than hearing the songs of the season in malls, restaurants, radio stations, and most of all in church. It seems that at Christmastime, a worship leader never needs to [...]
Church Management Software Chosen!
A while back, I posted an entry concerning church management software. At that point, our church was trying to decide between three different options. My associate was doing the legwork of research, and he gave a brief synopsis of each program. After weighing all the pros and cons, we finally landed on our choice. Drumroll. . . [...]
Which Blogs Do You Follow?
Like many of you, I subscribe to various and sundry blogs in order to keep up on what’s out there in theology, church ministry, and Christianity at large. Which blogs do you follow? Mine are listed below.
