From The Plano Star: “Where you start is not nearly as important as where you finish.” Those were the words of one of Plano’s most famous residents, Zig Ziglar, the world-renowned motivational speaker who died Wednesday at the age of 86 after a short bout with pneumonia. Ziglar was living proof that his advice about starting and finishing was true. While he died in Texas, Ziglar had a difficult childhood growing up in Alabama, where he was born in 1926. He suffered the loss of his father when he was only 5 years old and was forced to get his first job selling peanuts at the age of 6....

“What flourishing churches have in common is that they are led by people who possess and deploy the spiritual gift of leadership.  Whenever and wherever I have found a high-impact, Acts 2, prevailing church, I have also discovered a little band of brothers and sisters who were humbly and prayerfully providing the vision, the strategy, and the inspiration that enabled an entire congregation to bear fruit abundantly.  Please understand, it’s not that I believe the gift of leadership is more important than other gifts.  It’s simply that people with the gift of leadership are uniquely...

Why do people love to give time, money, energy, and love to parachurch organizations when they don’t give time, energy and love to their home church?  Craig Groeschel suggests that it could be because the parachurch organization has a bigger vision than your church! Craig says: Almost daily, I hear great church members excited about their ‘outside the church ministry’. Instead of whining about why they don’t give, serve, or care about the ministry of the local church, I’ve made two commitments: I’m going to cast such a compelling vision for the power of the local...

Yesterday, I featured a post about why people attend church. Today, I give you this post about why non-christians are NOT attending church: Of course, this is NOT a real study… but a graphic compiled by Chris Rosebrough… one of my discernment friends. He also lists scripture references for each point. I’d like to hear what YOU think about this. How does this correlate with how you see the work of the church in evangelism? How does this relate to how your church relates to the non-Christian. I was challenged on Twitter that I would ignore this study.  OK… I took the bait....

Christine Hoover is a pastor’s wife.  Recently, she was asked if she liked being a pastor’s wife.  Here’s how she answered: I want you to know that, in some ways, being a pastor’s wife is no different than being a doctor’s wife or a teacher’s wife. There are sacrifices that must be made and challenges that accompany every job. Just like you, I love my kids, I like spending time with my husband, I feel lonely and overwhelmed sometimes, I need encouragement, I doubt myself, I try my best, I want to enjoy God and know His pleasure, I struggle, I desire relationships with other...

The founding church of the Sovereign Grace ministries movement, Covenant Life Church, headed by Joshua Harris, has evidently asked it’s congregation to sever ties with the movement. Some of you may have been following the Sovereign Grace story over the past couple of years.  It’s an interested case study. I’ll admit, I have read some of the stuff… from both sides, and it really turns my stomach. Both sides have dug in and Covenant Life’s departure may be just the most recent casualty. I have no insider information, don’t know anyone inside the movement, and they are...

The Times of London has release text from a leaked memo from within the Church of England. (Learning here:  Nothing you write on paper or [especially] in an email is confidential) The Secretary General of the General Synod said the public and political fallout from the recent vote to not allow women bishops is “severe”: “Parliament is impatient… Unless the Church of England can show very quickly that it’s capable of sorting itself out, we shall be into a major constitutional crisis in Church-State relations, the outcome of which cannot be predicted with confidence.” More on the...

Here’s a TV story about a church in North Carolina. Big feud between past members and current members. According to the news story… a settlement has been reached. The current leadership will remain in power, and the pastor stays.  The pastor was accused of child abuse at his last ministry, but says those claims are false. My question… what good can come out of this? Seriously? This “Bible preaching, KJV” church is not positioned to reach anyone after a very public fight, and a pastor shrouded in controversy. When should a pastor or a church just call it a day? I think...

Leadership is a big topic in the church these days. Heck… I work for “Leadership” Network. But some say our leadership culture has gone too far.  Lance Ford has written a new book called “UnLeaders”.  He’s a quote from Lance: The leadership culture in the Church has fed a lot of egos and crowded out the character of Jesus in the name of leadership. You can read this quote in full context of an interview here… As with anything, when we concentrate just on one thing, we will get derailed. I think leadership in the church is vitally important.  Without great...

Lovett H. Weems, Jr. writes: It turns out that five seconds or less is all we need to realize we may have said something we will regret. Unfortunately, when we speak those words, we do not have an “undo send” button. We live with the consequences, sometimes forever. Peter Bregman cites a neuroscientist to explain what is going on in our brains when we react in ways we later regret. When something unsettling happens to us, the emotional response center of the brain immediately evokes emotion. That is not bad, except that emotion is not the source of our best decisions. There is something of a battle...