It’s been a little while since I’ve posted as I have been on vacation. While away, I attended a church whose worship was an almost perfect copy of the service spoofed in this video: Sunday’s Coming. Watching the video was both cringe-worthy and s...

The Simple Church or House Church movement gets a lot of attention these days. Depending upon your definition, as many as 4 to 33 percent of the American population is participating at least once a month. Tightly defined, the numbers are in the neighborho...

This past Sunday I had the privilege of preaching and teaching at The Meeting Place, an innovative church in Nanaimo, BC. Putting together worship at this church is a logistical challenge given that they gather several hundred people over multiple services in a re...

Will video venues eventually mean the death of preaching? This is the provocative idea argued by Bob Hyatt on his bob.blog.

Hyatt cites Shane Hipps in his book Flickering Pixels, who suggests that “every medium when pushed to an extreme, will reverse ...

Every year Outreach magazine publishes a list of the hundred largest and fastest growing churches in the United States. Ed Stetzer has published an excellent summary of the findings: Learning from America’s Largest and Fastest-Growing Churches.

The th...

Here’s an important article on the development of video venues for Sunday worship services. This trend is now well established, creating a kind of franchise effect for some of our larger and more influential ministries. One of the benefits cited for this app...

This past Sunday I had an opportunity to preach at The Meeting Place an innovative church in Nanaimo, BC, that was planted by one of my students a few years ago. The church has grown to be the largest church in the city, meeting in a movie multiplex every...

I was given this comment some time ago. It’s a strong opinion, but not a unique one. As I’ve said before, I think “the pulpit sermon” is fair game for some of these critiques. At the same time, I think that there are a lot of ways that some...

Last Sunday I attended church with my in-laws. It was a very large church by Canadian standards, perhaps the largest church in the country. I was impressed by almost every aspect of the experience. Everything was done well. Nothing was out of place. The musicians ...

It is interesting to me how much difference the physical ambiance of a building can make in preaching. I preached two services at the same church over the weekend. The first service was on a Saturday night. There was a little more than 100 people rattling around i...

After the Seahawks/Packers playoff game on Saturday, someone on the radio mentioned that there is a huge advantage to playing on one’s home field. No doubt that’s usually true in sports. It is also true in preaching.

I have the opportunity to pr...

There’s a lot of talk out there about some high profile “emerging” churches. We’re hearing about “progressional dialogue” preaching, worship stations, and other innovations. The implication seems to be that these things will cha...

It has been my pleasure to participate in the publication of a small book written by our faculty at Northwest Baptist Seminary. The book, Being Church: Exploration in Christian Community was recently published in honor of the former Regional Director of t...

I promised a report on this past weekend’s conference on ‘being church’ hosted by Northwest Baptist Seminary at Trinity Western University. The keynote speakers were Eddie Gibbs from Fuller Seminary and Craig van Gelder from Luther Seminary. Othe...

Today I’m engaged in a seminar entitled, “The Church Between Gospel and Culture: Contemporary Ways of Being Church” featuring Eddie Gibbs, Craig Van Gelder, and several other presenters including yours truly. This conference, hosted by our own se...

Further to my post from this past Monday, I have come to really value the second service in churches that have more than one. No matter how hard I try to bring my very best for the first service and no matter how well assimilated the sermon really is, the second t...

I recently spoke at a young church that was meeting in an elementary school gymnasium. The worship was heart-felt and the people were committed, but I’ve got to say that the whole thing felt different than it does in a church building built for the purpose o...

Yesterday was an important day for us at Parkland Fellowship. This was the first Sunday after the leaving of our Senior Pastor. I, like many, wondered what the day might feel like, how many would attend, and whether I would be able to preach in such a way that peo...

Yesterday was the final Sunday at our church for my friend and pastor David Horita. The day became even more memorable than it would have been due to a surprise snowstorm which cut our electric power about 10 minutes into the service. We ended up bringing out the ...

Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, was one of the original conversation partners that led to the development of the so-called “Emerging Church.” I recently discovered this piece he wrote for the Criswell Theological Review: “A ...

As a preacher, I’ve had my share of dealing with difficult people in the church. Preachers, if they really love Jesus, are supposed to show everlasting patience with the most uncharitable and insistent of people. People who live to criticize the preacher, st...

According to Thom Rainer in Surprising Insights from the Unchurched the highest level of education among pastors who are successfully reaching the unchurched is either doctorate (40%) or masters (47%). This bodes well for those of us trying to serve the c...