Tag: lies
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The Lies We Buy Into
Laying in the grass in our front yard last night, Paul and I were chatting about his 9th birthday. His birthday turned out great. Since his party is this weekend we just did the family thing on his actual birthday. After dinner, he blew out the candles on his birthday cake and opened his presents.…
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The Goal of the Staffless Church
Which came first? The staff who ran the programs or the programs which required the hiring of staff? No offense to my friends who work at churches– but I wonder if their goal is to secure a job for life or to work themselves out of a job as quickly as possible? When I read…
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2 Lies of Church Employment
Each week I encounter a new story of a church worker that angers me. These are stories from youth workers who have been wronged by the people they trusted with their lives… their church employer. Churches who fire them because they didn’t reach the right kids. Churches who fire a staff member because their spouse…
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What to Say When the Youth Pastor Leaves
It’s June. Professional youth ministries most dangerous month. I’ve served in three churches and all the hiring, firing, quitting, and retiring with the youth ministry seems to happen in June. It’s a wicked combination of the end of the school year and for a lot of churches, the end of the budget year. I could…
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Lies of Youth Ministry, part 2
The second lie of youth ministry is that it is all about discipleship. This is a lie which starts with bad hermeneutics, continues with training built around selective theology, and is encouraged by inward looking church leaders. Here’s how this lie plays out. Most youth ministers are wholly focused on building the size of their…
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Lies of Youth Ministry, Part One
Boys and girls in youth ministry we’ve got some problems. We in youth ministry, as a tribe, believe some lies about who we are, what we’re about, and how we should be reaching students. Let’s address these and move forward to fix them, OK? #1 Your ministry is “successful” if you have 10% of Sunday…
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3 Lies of Church Growth Experts
Right now there are a lot of people making a lot of money telling churches how they can grow. Along the same lines, there are a lot of church boards and pastors wasting a lot of time discussing church growth strategy. An observation. Have you noticed that churches that want to grow (100 to 1000…