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- Advice & Ideas for Pastors, Staff and Leaders
- Building a Better Church Website
- Christian Education ~ Ideas and Advice
- Green Jesus
- How to Be a Successful Teacher
- Ideas for Changing the Church
- Neil on the Loose
- Neil's "Brain" Articles
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List of 25 Last Posts
- Creating Free Online Sign-up Forms and Questionnaires
- How and When to Direct Mail Your Neighborhood
- Google Reviews Your Church? (Yes they do!)
- Looking for a new church ~ Part III
- Looking for a New Church ~ Part II
- Looking for a New Church ~Part I
- Making a Church Website using Google’s Blogspot
- On the Loose in Sarasota
- Ten Characteristics of a Healthy Youth Ministry
- Tashlikh -A New Year’s Ritual
- Rethinking Youth Ministry
- O that crazy perfect Teen Brain
- What the Pastor Shouldn’t Say
- Installing a “Fav” icon in your church website
- Problems with Pastoral Prayers
- How to open many websites with one click
- The Rising Cost of Driving to Church
- Memories, the Science of Commitment, and Rebalancing Teaching vs Worship
- The Problem with Teenage Sunday School Class
- The Christian Athiest (and online church)
- Performing Church Cleanup
- “Priming” -the science behind Sunday School
- Good Stories Really Do Get Inside Your Head
- Scanning the Congregation for Malware & Trojans
- More Ways to Cut the Church’s Utility Budget
Category Archives: Ideas for Changing the Church
How and When to Direct Mail Your Neighborhood
The US Postal Service has lately been advertising its “Every Door” DIRECT MAIL services which allow businesses (and churches!) to blanket households in their area. Last month I got one of those mailings from a nearby church inviting me to … Continue reading
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Ten Characteristics of a Healthy Youth Ministry
This link takes you to one of the best written pieces about youth ministry I’ve read in a long time: http://kendadean.com/636/what-are-the-top-10-characteristics-of-a-healthy-youth-ministry/ “Top 10 Characteristics of a Healthy Youth Ministry” I don’t know anything about Kenda Dean, other than she does youth … Continue reading
Performing Church Cleanup
Lately I’ve been enjoying the similarities between “things I need to do on my computer” and “things I need to do to my church.” In fact, I sometimes believe my computer is a PARABLE ABOUT THE CHURCH. Shoot, this is … Continue reading
*Sigh* Quality Control (lacking) in the Church
It’s so sad. Churches struggle and complain, and wonder why members are apathetic. But then you look at their LACK OF QUALITY CONTROL …and it’s no wonder people are half-hearted in some churches. Dirty buildings Poor signage Typos galore in the … Continue reading
Myth-busting in the Church
Hopefully you’ve seen the TV show? Mythbusters tests (and usually explodes) long-held myths and urban legends. I wonder what the test results would be when they took on our “friendly, relevant, uplifting, and compelling” church services? Or what the test result … Continue reading
Chips Happen -identifying & fixing problems
Denial and ignoring problems are a HUGE problem in the church. This post discusses the importance of identifying & fixing problems, …and some helpful strategies to do so! Have you seen the Safe-Lite commerical about the small crack in the windshield? “You think … Continue reading
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The Pastor’s Personality
Do Pastors and their Congregations start to look like each other? I think so. And obviously, this can become unfortunate! Most pastors that I know WANT to be leaders, but do NOT want to lay claim to just how much … Continue reading
The biggest problem churches face today is…
DYSFUNCTION. I used to think the Church’s general problem was lackluster programming and preaching, or congregational apathy. But the more time I spend in various congregations, and the more conversations I have with pastors and Christian educators across North America through … Continue reading
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Is Sunday School Going Extinct? or…
Is Sunday School going extinct? …or are some churches merely suffering from their own ineptness, uninspired leadership, and the accumulated effect of bad habits? (Now you know where I come out on the issue!) According to a recent Barna Research … Continue reading
What’s your church’s “interface” ?
How do visitors and members connect with and understand your church? Who is reaching out to them? How often? Are they being “invited” to anything? How do they know what’s going on? And how do they stay in touch with … Continue reading
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Cut Costs without cutting your program
In tough economic times, donations in many churches go down and then the bean counters come after the “program budget,” i.e., children and youth ministries. The problem is that drastic cuts in program budgets are often penny-wise and pound foolish. If you lose too … Continue reading
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Chapel or Church?
I’ve been attending a church that I think is really a “chapel.” Not that I think “chapel” is a bad word. Read on…. It’s primary mission seems to be to provide worship on Sunday -offering to God, and renewing our faith … Continue reading