New England news & perspectives
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Forget about the Back Door
“Pastor,” we heard the conference speaker say, “your front door is the most important, but you can’t forget to pay attention to the back door.” That sounds like good advice, doesn’t it? Growth comes through the front door, but growth is retained by means of the back door. The voice of wisdom might be understood to say that depth of discipleship is best attained by keeping the back door closely guarded. (In case these terms are unfamiliar, the front door refers to people coming to your church for the first time while the back door refers to people quitting your church).
True tradition: Healthy growth and change, Part 3
It’s inescapable. All churches have traditions. There are Southern Baptist traditions, and there are groups and varieties within the Southern Baptists with their own brands of tradition. Individual churches develop their own distinct traditions.
The importance of women’s faith to the Church
Written in a time and culture that devalued women, the Bible is remarkable in the honor it ascribes to the faith of women. For example, this theme is one of the elements we see clearly in the Gospel of Luke. Let’s take a look at what we can learn from the stories the Holy Spirit prompted Luke to record.
6 things this Easter weekend taught me about revitalization
While this Easter still looked different from Easters of the past, it was amazing to be able to celebrate the resurrection together both in person and online. As I have been reflecting on what I saw and heard from church members this Easter weekend, God gave me six insights for the ongoing process of revitalization that should be taking place in every church.
Building momentum for church revitalization
It has been said that your church zip code is not an accident, and neither is your position in the church. God has placed you to speak into the brokenness of your community and capture your town for Christ. However, sometimes we do not feel like we have the momentum to do so.
The good news is that the people in your church can actually be the key to getting moving forward. Think back to high school physics when you learned that to gain momentum you need two things: mass and velocity. In religious terms, a church gets moving when a number of people buy into Jesus’ vision (mass) and decide to act on it (velocity).
Ten shifts New England churches are making
The metrics of the church scorecard are changing at a fast and furious rate during the pandemic. In the past few months, we have seen drastic shifts in our New England churches as they adapt to their new normal of functioning. Although there are struggles, most churches are showing clear signs of perseverance, persistence, and engagement. Here are ten positive changes our BCNE Church Growth Team has seen in the last few months.
Fruitful ministry hides in plain sight
It’s like searching everywhere for your glasses while wearing them on your head, or looking for your cell phone while holding it in your hand: sometimes we overlook fruitful places of ministry located right in front of us. You could say they are hidden in plain sight.
Understanding digital generations
Some experts say that we have five to six generations living on the earth right now. These generations can actually be broken into four digital categories in a technological world. During this year’s pandemic, these categories became evident and naturally shifted people’s perspectives, resulting in the tensions we feel regarding technology and over the way we communicate.
Using the church for the community
It was a few years ago. It was hard to believe that we were genuinely considering selling our large beautiful facility, including our 1,100-person 19th century sanctuary. At an annual meeting in our much smaller church chapel, we had an open discussion about the future of our facility. Many expressed Spirit-filled statements of the church being more than a facility. It was a good time of reflecting on who we are without 217 Main Street. At the same time, members expressed the heartfelt blessing that both the location and the beauty of the facility had been for us. It was a spiritually mature conversation.
Healthy transfer growth
In a church revitalization, our hope is to be a disciple-making church pointing the lost to Christ. No one wants to have a church full of transfers (Christians who formerly attended other area churches).
However, sometimes transfer growth is a necessity. In sports, teams that lack key players or strength in certain positions make trades to secure and fill in the holes in their rosters. Church replants, usually with only a few core people to help the pastor, may need members from other churches to come alongside them and help them grow and thrive.
Four opportunities for growth in crisis
This global pandemic we are facing has given churches a blank slate of opportunity. In conversations with pastors around New England, I have been hearing many insights on how this crisis is forcing churches to rethink and refocus priorities and processes. Here are some lessons churches are learning as they strive to establish the new normal. As obvious as they seem, it is important for us as pastors and leaders to measure how well we are leading our churches in these areas.
Our first steps toward a unified future: What Anglo pastors can do to build bridges with Black and brown Christians
This last week for me has been mentally exhausting, to say the least. On one hand, I have been pastoring during a global health crisis for the past three months. On the other hand, for last month or so I have been trying to shepherd black and brown people as we handle a myriad of emotions from seeing our people murdered in their homes and in the streets.
It has not been easy.
Reentry plans: Strategy is a great start, but strategy alone is not enough
I have spent untold hours over the last couple of weeks reading through numerous reentry plans and guidelines offered up by church strategy consultants, a wide-variety of denominational bodies and churches who are further along in their bell curve than my local community. As a pastor who is now beginning to work with my teams on planning our own attempts at returning to public gatherings, I’m thankful for those who are a few steps ahead of me and have not only spent time thinking through an endless list of issues and considerations to arrive where they have, but also have made their work available for others to learn from. I believe that each of these offerings has been fruitful to me and worth my time. I have also learned three very clear things:
The three keys to an effective church
Our presence on the weekend at their church likely reinforces what many church planters, pastors, and church attenders think: what they “do” at their weekend service is the most important thing they do weekly for the ongoing effectiveness of their church.
I’m writing today to tell you I don’t believe that is true.
What rugby taught me about discipleship
When I was 23, I stepped into an adventure that I had no idea would shape a significant part of my 20s: I attended my first-ever rugby practice. I knew nothing about the sport except for the single college club match I watched live. Like anyone stepping onto the field to learn a new sport, I was nervous that I would look dumb, embarrass myself and get laughed off the field. But something unique happened – the coach sent the team to practice and spent about 30 minutes with me.
The way God works
Their pastor resigned unexpectedly. They later found out he was having an affair with a church member. Many of the young families had left the church for the cool new church in the next town. The church checkbook was almost empty. By this time there were only six people left in the congregation.
Ethnic churches and the challenge of reaching second-generation Americans
Approximately 50% of BCNE churches in Greater Boston are ethnic churches. And God is at work among them. In fact, some of the largest churches in Boston happen to be Asian, African-American and Haitian! Very impressively, most of the pioneers who planted these churches did so without the benefits of special training, financial support or church partnerships that many church planters receive today. Ethnic churches in Greater Boston are robust, and continue to multiply. I love attending the worship gatherings and enjoy having fellowship with the gifted pastors who lead these churches. Yet there is a unique, life-or-death challenge that virtually every ethnic church pastor faces: the challenge of reaching second-generation Americans.