articles

Jon Nielson provides insightful and practical tips: “What do we do about our kids?” The group of parents sat together in my office, wiping their eyes. I’m a high school pastor, but for once, they weren’t talking about 16-year-olds drinking and partying. Each had a story to tell about a…

Jaime Brown on drummer drama: This is a post I can write at the moment, since (praise the Lord) I have the joy of working with several gifted drummers on my church’s worship team who do a great job and are joys to work with. But sometimes drummers can be…

The famed preacher spoke on a contemporary topic over 100 year ago: “How much public singing, even in the house of God, is of no account! How little of it is singing unto the Lord! Does not the conscience of full many among you bear witness that you sing a…

Joseph Mattera on the decline of doctrine: The following are signs of a hypergrace church: 1. The preachers never speak against sin. If you are in a church like this, you will notice that the word sin is usually only mentioned in the context of forgiveness of sins in Christ…

Ray Deck on using a dB meter: At some point, every pastor will face criticism about music volume. A few preemptive steps will go a long way to prepare you for the inevitable noise complaint. Noise complaints are usually subjective, made on feeling or impression. It’s important to measure the…

Tim Price on promoting from within: Worship leaders, more than most other church staff roles, seem to come from within. With a higher rate than pastors, youth pastors, etc., many worship leaders seem to have attended their church before serving on staff. There are probably many factors for this: culture…

Jon Acuff on church misspelling: Recently I did a post about noticing typos in the worship music. The comments on that post were funnier than the post. Here are the best, completely real, typos people have noticed at church: 1. “Lord, You are more precious than silver… Lord, You are…

If you’ve ever driven by a church with a clever saying on its marquee, you know how important a sign can be. “Call 911: This Church is On Fire!” “Exercise Daily: Walk with the Lord.” “Exposure to the Son May Prevent Burning.” All of these signs say different things about…

One of the dirty secrets of Christianity is that there are numerous crooked pastors, priests and church financial secretaries embezzling funds. The International Bulletin of Missionary Research projected that $37 billion would be stolen by Christian religious leaders in 2013 and this fraud will reach $60 billion annually by 2025.…

Bruce Benedict on shepherding your team: I recently had a worship leader ask me how I disciple my worship ministry. It’s a great question and one to which I’ve floundered quite successfully over the years. There are a surprising number of ways that we can gently and consistently disciple our…

Gary Durbin on struggling with a congregation who doesn’t seem to worship: “Don’t they love God?” If you’ve been a worship leader for any amount of time, you’ll experience and/or ask questions like these eventually. I know I have…MANY, MANY times throughout the last several years. There’s been times where…

Steven Potaczek on getting back to basics: Several years ago, when I was doing any odd job to make enough money to get by, I got involved doing studio session work. As a keyboardist/pianist, my job was to make the song shine as brightly as I could. The producer would…

Dr. Tim Spivey on the pastor/worship leader relationship: There are certain ministry roles have more conflict between them than others. Senior Pastors and Youth Pastors, Church Administrators and Youth Ministers, for example. There is also sometimes significant tension between the Worship Leader and the one preaching Sunday. This is obviously…

Adelle M. Banks and Angela Abbamonte from ReligionToday.com report on the effects of contemporary worship on church growth: When a congregation moves from a traditional to a contemporary style of worship, the change can often lead to painful conflict in the pews but also, according to a recent study, higher…

Larry Taunton: When a Christian foundation interviewed college nonbelievers about how and why they left religion, surprising themes emerged. “Church became all about ceremony, handholding, and kumbaya,” Phil said with a look of disgust. “I missed my old youth pastor. He actually knew the Bible.” I have known a lot…