Here is the second in a series of blog posts on why Churches of Christ are shrinking. The first post,"A Left-Brained Fellowship in a Right-Brained World," has gone viral. While not everyone agrees with everything in the post, from the new members that joined the network, it would appear that a high percentage of these new…

Why are Churches of Christ Shrinking? - Part 1: A Left-Brained Fellowship in a Right-Brained World

For followers of this blog, you know that most all of my posts deal with larger kingdom and cultural issues. The Missional Outreach Network has readers from all different denominational backgrounds, and I want to bring people together…

Wow. What a week. Lance Armstrong is set to confess to Oprah and the world after 15 years of harsh denials that he used performance enhancing drugs. Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o's story of a girlfriend who died of cancer is discovered to be a hoax--whether he was in on it or not is yet to be seen. Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Roger Clemens all…

Hello! I am continuing to blog through "Effective Staffing for Vital Churches," by Bill Easum and Bill Tenny-Brittian, which is a staffing guide for missional churches. Many churches want to grow. However, they fail to realize the transitions that must take for churches in order for this to happen. While having a…

 Historically, there has been a philosophical divide in governance. That divide can be summarized by two concepts: 1) Those who value "liberty" vs 2) Those who value "security".  Ever since the Enlightenment these two ideals have been in "competition" with one another.  That has especially been true in the political area.  This is not surprising as there seems to be a natural tendency of man to seek to be "free" as well as his desire to be "secure."   I would postulate these same desires…

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I am working on adding some additional ministry tools to my Spiritual gifts website. In case you have not seen this site, it is www.YourSpiritualGifts.com. This site lets people discover their top 5 Spiritual gifts. They can…

Recently Mark Woodward of Let's Start Talking posed the following question on his blog ( http://www.wadehodges.com/2005/04/19/an-emerging-church-of-christ-part-4/ ): "Is the proliferation of new church plants simply covering up the fact that the religious marketplace is much less “profitable”? To use the language of business: are we closing old stores and opening new stores, but that strategy in and of…

Consider this statement by ACU professor Richard Beck: "So why has mobile social computing affected church attendance? Well, if church has always been kind of lame and irritating why did people go in the first place? Easy, social relationships. Church has always been about social affiliation. You met your friends, discussed your week, talked football, shared information about good schools, talked local politics, got the scoop, and made social plans ("Let's get together for dinner this…

The present political divide in our country has brought to mind a much more serious divide, the church divide.  The political divide I am referring to is not the divide between political parties per se.  Rather it is the world-view held by opposing groups in our nation.  One group adheres to a world-view of personal responsibility,  independence, and self reliance.  In this group dependence upon others for sustenance is shameful.  The other group world view can best be summarized as…

Here is a short excellent post from SermonCentral about why some churches never grow. Every…