By Jeff Matas It was a beautiful Sunday morning in southern Indiana as I pulled into the church parking lot. After a two-hour drive from Fishers, I arrived at one of the most picturesque settings in the entire state. Rolling hills, rivers, lush pastures, forests, and a beautiful country church where I was to speak

By Doug Talley Ministry is challenging.  If you are a pastor or lay leader, you know that.  Church planting is challenging on steroids.  Starting a church from scratch, gathering people, developing leaders, developing finances, developing and casting a vision, launching.  All of those pieces are critical aspects of planting a church and can be overwhelming.  Imagine launching a church and

By Doug Talley Now that COVID infection rates have dropped significantly in the U.S. and summer is in full stride, many are so desperate for a return to normalcy that they want to ignore the impact of what happened over the last 17 months.  We’d like to shake it off as a bad dream or maybe

By Doug Talley  People are coming back to church.  Tony Morgan, in the A12021 Unstuck Report, says that in-person attendance is down 28% but online service views are up 123%.  Giving is up almost 2%. Even though there is encouraging news about vaccinations and areas of the country reopening as people try to establish some semblance of

By Jeff Matas Seventeen years ago, I sat at my kitchen table writing out a plan for that night’s church board meeting. It was a beautiful July day in the Pacific Northwest. It was one of those days in the Puget Sound that people cherish, bright blue skies and as locals would say, “the mountain

By Doug Talley One area COVID has rocked our world as pastors is in the area of self-confidence.  When the lockdown struck, no one knew what to do.  Things were changing so quickly that in a matter of hours we were making decisions and then retracting them after they had already been announced.  And as we did, we