Features

How to Overcome Betrayal Trauma in Ministry

With their friends’ departures, pastors have had to recalibrate the very real cost of spiritual intimacy in doing life together.

Ryan Kwon: Nothing to Prove

“We’re so accustomed to the church being a noun. I want our bias to be action-oriented, and a movement that goes outward.”

The Rise of the Entrepreneurial Church: How Churches Can Fund Ministry Beyond Tithes

Entrepreneurial church models allow churches to step outside the walls of Sunday services and meet people where they live, work and gather. They open doors to relationships that lead to discipleship. They create spaces for people who might never set foot in a sanctuary to encounter the love of Christ.

Maximize Your Best Resource

Bobby Gruenewald: "Ninety percent of the people who visit a church for the first time go because a friend invited them."

Church Planting, Part 1: Picking the Launch Date

8 church planters describe their prelaunch process and how they chose when to launch

3 Reasons People Are Not Involved in Your Church

Ed Stetzer: “Not everyone is inactive for the same reasons. Once we know why, we can go about helping them move into service.”

Church Planting, Part 2: Choosing the Right Site

Church planters discuss how they chose the locations for their launch services and what unique factors about their communities affect their approach to ministry.

Church Planting, Part 4: Planning the Launch

8 veterans of the process recommend: Define success; count the cost; look beyond launch day—and remember to smile.

Soulfires: Crowning Achievement

After years of substance abuse, drug dealing and incarceration, a son of hopelessness encounters the God of hope.

3 Books That Shape My Ministry

Dan Kimball: "What I love about books is that they make us feel we are not alone on this mission."

Are You Scaring Off First-Time Guests?

Tim Peters offers a list of three common mistakes churches often make with first-time guests.