Author: Administrador

Mike Mozart photo – Flickr By Aaron Earls Chick-fil-A has famously closed their doors on Sundays since Truett Cathy first founded the restaurant in 1946. Despite recently opening a location inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium, home of the Atlanta Falcons, the store sits empty during Sunday football games. While viral videos have expressed the impossible longing for … Continue reading “4 Times Chick-fil-A Has Opened on Sunday”

Belle Co photo – Pexels By Ryan Sanders Small group pastors like to talk about stages of group life. We like graphs and bell curves and Venn diagrams. Bruce Tuckman created the most famous list of small group stages in 1965: Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing. And while Tuckman’s list has stood the test of … Continue reading “6 Milestones For Stronger Small Groups”

Agung Pandit Wiguna photo – Pexels By Aaron Earls Prayer and church attendance obviously benefit someone’s spiritual health, but research has found it also has lasting benefits for a person’s mental health. Forbes reports a new study from Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health found those who were raised religious or spiritual as children … Continue reading “How to Raise Spiritually Mature and Mentally Healthy Kids”

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images – Mark Warner Flickr By Robert Carnes Ride sharing drivers fall into one of two categories—either they don’t say a word, or they won’t stop talking. Once while getting a ride to the airport, I had a driver who was firmly in the latter category. But I didn’t mind because of what … Continue reading “Lyft Your Eyes to Jesus: Why Ride Sharing Can Be the Next Ministry Frontier”

By Bob Smietana Most Christians in the United States probably wouldn’t think to send church planters to Loving County, Texas. But according to the 2010 U.S. Congregations and Membership Study, almost nobody goes to church there. Only six of the county’s 82 residents had ties to a local congregation, according to the study, which collected … Continue reading “America’s Hidden Mission Field: Why We Need Rural Churches”

By Bob Smietana Back in the 1970s, things looked pretty bleak for a pair of churches in rural Kansas. Alert Covenant Church and Clay Center Covenant Church were small and aging with so little money they were forced to share a retired missionary as pastor. Both were barely hanging on. Then, little by little, things … Continue reading “Rebound in the Heartland: How Two Struggling Kansas Churches Grew Deep and Wide”

By Bob Smietana Mike Waddey began praying the minute he pulled into the parking lot at First Baptist Church in Maury City, Tennessee. Waddey had come to Maury City (population 665) to interview for the role of pastor at First Baptist. He was familiar with church life in rural America, having been a pastor in … Continue reading “How Two Small Churches Are Reaching Their Community Through a Cross-Cultural Partnership”

How our church found new life through the gospel By Mark Clifton Each year hundreds of churches in North America cease to exist. Churches that at one time impacted their communities with the gospel and could only see a bright and growing future now have closed their doors forever. It’s a tragic number. The loss … Continue reading “Resurrecting a Dead Church”

By Annie Downs Joe was my grandfather’s first cousin. He and his wife, Earlene, were like another set of parents to my mom as she grew up. They had one son, who died tragically the same week I was born. To honor their loss and their relationship with my mom, my parents made them my … Continue reading “I Am Hurt, But Not Slain”

Ian Espinosa photo Unsplash Why Songs of Lament Are Important to Cultivating Spiritual Depth By Keith Getty “Hello, how are you?” “Great!” We all are familiar with this everyday occurrence. In fact, odds are that the majority of our interactions throughout a normal day fall into this kind of category—into courtesy, niceties, and the like. … Continue reading “When the Downcast Can’t Reach Our Hymns”