Jeff was the new children’s pastor at a mid-sized church in Florida. He had come well-recommended even though all of his prior experience had been at a smaller church where he wore many hats. Jeff and the senior pastor at the church had developed an instant rapport and he had sailed through his meetings and interviews with the selection committee.
Read More >My wife and I were in church services the other week and the pastor was into a spellbinding message about spiritual warfare. Just at the time when the congregation is doing great missions work, breaking ground for a building program, reaching many more families in the community — Satan would be stalking the church trying to bring it down, he said.
Read More >Healthy organisms grow. Healthy people grow, healthy animals grow, healthy trees grow, healthy plants grow and healthy churches grow. It is a characteristic that God supernaturally breathed into all living things. And the body of Christ — the local church — is a living thing.
Read More >I’ll never forget the phone call I received from Joel Osteen to let me know his father — long time Houston pastor John Osteen — had passed away. It was January 1999, not a great way to start a new year. John Osteen birthed Lakewood Church on Mother’s Day 1959 in the most humble possible way — a rural feed store outside of Houston.
Read More >Step back and think about branding a church that still worships in a building built in 1891 (that’s not a transposition of numerals either) and in the center of that sanctuary stands a pulpit 118 years old. Then add the geographic context of being located in a city that is home to so many great churches.
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There is a buzz of activity in the air of downtown Dallas, and Robert Jeffress and First Baptist Church of Dallas will add to that buzz when the church begins to recreate its campus this fall. “We’re experiencing reinvigoration of the downtown area,” says Jeffress. “Ten years ago 300 people lived downtown, today 6,000 people live in the downtown freeway loop and it is growing every day.
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Born in England, Pete Briscoe saw ministry for his first eight years with his parents, Stuart and Jill Briscoe, as they worked with the Torchbearers group in northern England. Torchbearers, founded by Major Ian Thomas, “is all about teaching people that life is found in Christ and not in themselves,” Briscoe says.
Read More >The CFO is a senior leader who deals with all the business areas of the church, proactively involved so that the decisions affecting the financial affairs of the church are handled on task and on target.
Read More >When we were starting Antioch Community Church, Waco, TX, in 1999, we were definitely operating on a shoestring budget. It was going to be a walk of faith. Before we even had our first public service, our church believed that God would provide $150,000 to buy a dilapidated grocery store that would become our home after some major renovations.
Read More >While traditional interaction occurs face-to-face, a growing percentage of church-goers connect through another medium — the Web. For Crossroads Church in Grass Valley, CA, their church lacked the kind of online presence that leadership felt was necessary for connecting with their congregation and reaching out to their local community.
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