The SHINE Blog

Articles, Articles, Articles

Ok - so I read a lot. I’m going to try to post on a regular schedule (hopefully once a week) some of the articles I have read lately. These will be articles having to do with church and church ministries or church philosophy. This post will be rather long, because I’ve been saving these articles until I could get around to posting them. If you read one of these and want to discuss, leave a comment.

Our first category for today is Church Marketing

• 15 Ways To Improve Your Church Marketing
• 10 Ways To Stop Me From Discovering Your Church: Does your church erect invisible barriers toward people getting connected with your church? Is it easier to find the Lost Ark rather than your church on a Sunday morning?
• Push and Pull People to Sunday School/Small Groups: Do you or do you not believe that moving people into Sunday School/small groups is an essential part of your church’s ministry philosophy? If you believe it is optional, then it will show. It will impact everything you do as a church.

Next we have some College Ministry articles… (thanks to Kevin for the first one)

• Is God Silenced On College Campuses?
• Exploring College Ministry: A great site I just found where the blogger is going on a year long road trip to see what kinds of college minstries are out there.

Here’s some thoughts on churches and church life…

• Corinth: Why Paul’s worst church may be our best model. “I think it’s time somebody came to the defense of the church in Corinth. Okay, so they’re all dead now. But they live on in two of Paul’s letters for all the world to see. I think Corinth, arguably Paul’s worst church, may be our best model for church today. Better than Purpose-driven, Willow Creek, or any of the other models out there. Here’s why:”
• Just Be The Church
• Budgets, boards and sausages: “People who enjoy sausages and respect the law should never watch either being made.”
  - Otto von Bismark (apocryphal)
  “Let’s add to that church budgets and board elections.”
• We May Be Small, But We’re Powerful
• Let’s Stop Being Idiots For Christ!
• Has The ‘Notion of Sin’ Been Lost?: Is sin dead? No, not by a long shot. Yet as Easter approaches, some pastors and theologians worry: How can Christians celebrate Jesus’ atonement for their sins and the promise of eternal life in his resurrection if they don’t recognize themselves as sinners?

Here’s two articles about outside “threats”

• Apologists Ask Churches To Step Up Response To Militant Atheism
• Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons fastest-growing ‘churches’ in US: The two fastest-growing church bodies in the United States and Canada, according to a newly published report, are ones whose beliefs are known to conflict with traditional Christian teaching.

Finally…I love statistics and studies. Here are three recent articles from the Barna group…

• Barna Finds Four Mega-Themes in Recent Research: A special analysis of thousands of interviews the company conducted during 2007 identifies several patterns that are significantly affecting the development of American culture. Those transformations were described as Americans’ unconditional self-love; nouveau Christianity; the five Ps of parenting; and designer faith with rootless values.
• Americans Embrace Various Alternatives to a Conventional Church Experience as Being Fully Biblical
• New Statistics on Church Attendance and Avoidance

Sorry so many on this post - I told you I had been saving them up!

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Written by Brian Beasley.

"But seek first His Kingdom and His Righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well." Matt. 6:33

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April 1st, 2008 Posted by Brian Beasley | church articles | 2 comments