Building a house takes time. There are endless steps, all sequenced, specialized, and permitted. Some stages call for machinery, while others demand painstaking, knuckle-bruising labor. Expertise and exertion, struggle and time. We’re watching this unfold in our neighborhood, cinder block by cinder block. What began as an empty lot suddenly featured a large cement pad […]
Tag: church
Board Reports & Jesus’ Return.
As the cliché goes, the best time to prepare for next quarter’s board meeting is the day after you leave this quarter’s board meeting. That’s when the board’s interests are clear and compelling, and you can harness all the seasoned wisdom and savvy anecdotes you just gleaned from a curated team of experts. Which elements […]
Doing discipleship as a church
Let’s say the goal of church is to help us become like Jesus Christ. Not just a few of us, but all of us, together. This theme is signaled by Jesus and repeated elsewhere in the New Testament. But what does it look like? A friend and I once interviewed scores of authors, pastors, and ministry […]
The fifth church essential: my own willingness to belong
It’s easy to write about church essentials. It’s like writing about exercise, or parenting. Until I’m committed, I’m only shouting from the stands. The reality of church for most of us is that we play a passive role. We’re the audience. Attendees. The best church on earth is only as healthy as the mindset of […]
Four essentials of a church: love
Love is like heat. So many things in life seem wonderful — pizza, a shower, a cup of coffee, a seat by the window, an iron — until you realize they’re cold. After all, what do you call a morning when you step into the shower and find there’s no hot water? A bad way […]