Josh Blakenship loves to design church stage environments on a budget:

Another year has come and gone. As 2015 comes to a close I started to look through all the graphics, videos and pictures I have taken this year at my church. I came across a few things I loved and a few things I liked a little (or a lot) less.

Designing stage environments is one of my favorite things to do. I love being able to totally transform our stage every series. I love being able to connect people with the message of Jesus by simply changing the look and feel of the environment.

If you follow this blog, you know the church I serve at is not exactly swimming in tons of money. My guess is that you are also working on a tight budget. The good news that it can be done. All of these designs cost me less than $50 to make. Hopefully you’ll be able to take these ideas and create your own!

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Paul Baloche shares tips for troubled times:

These days it seems like every other week there’s a breaking news crisis that sends shocking images to the front pages, spreads fear like a virus and gives us all pause for thought. So what do you do when tragedy strikes in the very week that you’re on the rota to lead? We asked Paul Baloche for his top tips.

1. Use Your Words… Sometimes all it takes is for you to say something at the start to help people join with you. I might talk about how good it is to gather and remember God, how we can lift our prayers to Him in song even though our hearts might be heavy. Sometimes people need to be reminded that we can stand in proxy for our brothers and sisters who are grieving and living in fear. We can stand in the gap, asking God to pour out His spirit on others, to dispel fear with faith and continue to cause justice to rise up.

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Paul Rezkalla challenges the idea that unbelievers will come to church when we make church less “churchy.”

The day has finally arrived for us to not only entertain the idea of the “seeker-friendly” church, but also to embrace it. This move isn’t made in order to capitulate to culture; rather, it flows from a proper understanding of the gospel.

The New Testament endorses the seeker-friendly church. Jesus was a big fan, as was Paul. Peter and the other apostles avidly promoted it too, as evidenced in their letters to all the seeker-friendly churches they planted. Because it was the model in the first century, the 21st-century church should also be radically seeker-friendly.

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