Since we’re in the middle of the biggest baseball event in the whole world, I thought I’d provide a review to a book that I listened to (audio version) recently. The book is Shattered, by Frank Pastore.

Continue reading “Christian Book Review: Shattered by Frank Pastore” »

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We’re continuing with some powerful game-changing information for your ministry—the basics of branding. If you read the last article, you now understand how vitally important effective branding is. Hopefully, you’ve even taken some practical action-steps toward implementing the information. This second article from Justin Murphy takes the information farther with some practical steps for church branding.

Continue reading “Church Marketing Basics – How to Brand Your Ministry (Part 2)” »

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If you think that your church brand is not that important, you’re wrong. Church branding is incredibly important, because it’s about more than just a nifty logo with pleasing colors. It’s about your message, your testimony, your influence, and your role in reflecting God’s character. I’ve asked Justin Murphy, Principal and Creative Director for Your Creative People, to write a two-part article series on church branding–what it is and how to do it. In the arena of church marketing, with all its perversions, distractions, and confusion, some biblically-based advice is needed. Get ready to listen. Continue reading “Church Marketing Basics – How to Brand Your Ministry (Part 1)” »

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In its 70ish year cultural history, the television has displayed more images, broadcasted more news, changed more history, spawned more controversy, perverted more minds, educated more intellects, birthed more stars, made more money, and individually affected more people than we probably know. For good or ill? For better or for worse? These kinds of questions plunge us into a morass of mudslinging, vitriole, passion, anger, and spilled ink. But it does do us good to occasionally bring up the TV issue, ask a few questions, suggest a few biblical guidelines, and reevaluate our behavior in light of our life goal—bringing glory to God.

Continue reading “Christians Watching TV—Blessing, Curse, or Inbetween?” »

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Today’s post is a contribution by Joe Carter. No stranger to blogging, Joe is the online editor for the First Things magazine.  He blogs at Evangelical Outpost, which earned him the 2005 Weblog Award for “Best Religious Blog” and a spot on the “Best Spiritual Blog” list by Beliefnet.com. Along with his contribution to two books  (How to Argue Like Jesus, and The New Media Frontier, Carter serves as an adjunct professor of journalism at Patrick Henry College. Today’s post is a powerful challenge for anyone who has heard the siren song of the “Info Tech god.” Continue reading “Spending Time with God…The Info Tech God” »

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Ridge Burns is a unique guy. First he’s unique, because he’s the only person who I’ve known that has worn the same style of red shoes (yes, red) for a quarter of a century. Second, he’s unique because he leads the the oldest domestic mission organization in the U.S. Ridge Burns is a leader who has a gift for mobilizing God’s people, and a knack for instilling a passion for gospel living. He’s creative to the hilt, but he leverages the gifts that God has given him to exalt Christ in communities around the United States. The history of the American Missionary Fellowship is an exciting story of change and evangelism over many years. The mission was founded in 1790 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although their name has changed, the core purpose has never changed—”to glorify God…[and] preach the gospel to all people” (from the website). We interviewed Ridge Burns, Executive Director/CEO of AMF to gain an inside look at the organization. Here’s a bit of our conversation.  Continue reading “Missionary Interview – Ridge Burns of American Missionary Fellowship” »

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When visitors come to church, what do you do with them? What should you do with them? While nearly every church wants church visitors, the issue of what to do once they come to church is sometimes a perplexing one. As a result of visiting various churches re and observing the good, the bad, and the downright awkward, here are some considerations for how to handle church visitors.

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Churches are dying. Today, at least ten churches will die. Today, fifty pastors will resign or retire. As a whole, the church appears to be on the decline. Fifty years ago, so the aged saints intone, churches were exploding with growth. People were heading down the aisles in droves to get saved; crowds would stand outside the open windows just to hear the preaching; the church was sending new missionaries overseas nearly every week. But as the decades rolled on, the church quieted down. And now, in a cavernous auditorium with a capacity of 600+, there are 34 people in attendance on any given Sunday morning. The church, it would seem, is dying.

Continue reading “Does Your Church Need to Die?” »

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Dave Kraft has kindly contributed the following article, “The Comparison Circus,” to the blog. Dave serves as the Pastor of Coaching and Leadership Development at Mars Hill Church along with Mark Driscoll and the rest of the team. Kraft blogs at davekraft.org, where he provides a valuable library of articles and helps for leaders. He is also a regular contributor to the Resurgence blog. He authored the book, Leaders Who Last, published early this year.

Continue reading “The Comparison Circus – A Guest Post by David Kraft” »

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If you are a worship director, choir director, worship leader or music pastor at your church, then you need to get your hands on the new Voxos Choir library from Cinesamples. With this advanced sampling technology, you immediately have a full-fledged choir consisting of sopranos, altos, tenors, basses and even a boys choir at the tip of your fingers. It is not synthesized; it is not looped; it consists of actual recordings of a real choir, sampled, digitized and mapped to a virtual library that you can access using a keyboard and a computer. Confused? Let me explain a little how the technology works.

Continue reading “Cinesamples Voxos Review – Choral Library PowerHouse for the Worship Leader” »

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