January 31, 2012 12:00 AM
Newsflash…Young adults are leaving the church. Ok, it’s not really news to anyone familiar with church attendance trends. For generations we have seen young people raised within the church depart during their later teens and twenties. But most returned once...
January 25, 2012 12:00 AM
This video was produced by This Is Our City, a project of Christianity Today exploring how Christians are working for the flourishing of their cities. Here McKinley talks about the activism of Portland's culture and how the church can't just...
January 23, 2012 12:00 AM
Read Part 1 and Part 2. This past semester my students and I have been educating each other. I’ve been introducing them—at warp speed—to the major world religions. They’ve been candidly expressing their perspectives on faith, religious practice, and what...
October 17, 2011 12:00 AM
Read parts one, two, and three of "Recipe for Church365". Ingredient Four: Decentralized Service Over the last few years my travels have been taking me more regularly to Portland, Oregon. Portland is weird, and that’s how they like it. But...
October 6, 2011 3:48 PM
I realize I’m surrounded by young Christian leaders, but I have a confession to make: as a general rule, I haven't always fully trusted leaders under 29. I know many who are brilliant, creative, fun, and spiritually deep, but I...
June 13, 2011 12:00 AM
Many churches focus on providing a compelling worship experience. The desire is to attract people to an excellent production where they can sing, learn, and leave feeling renewed. For decades we've called this approach "seeker-sensitive." But does that sensitivity have...
September 13, 2010 12:00 AM
In late April 2010, more than 50 pastors crowded into a hotel conference room in Hampton Roads, Virginia. The event organizers, a small group of pastors from Chicagoland, were expecting 25 colleagues to turn out for the meeting. But when...
January 21, 2010 12:00 AM
Shortly after the earthquake, Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill Church in Seattle) and James MacDonald (Harvest Bible Chapel near Chicago) were on a flight to Haiti. Driscoll has been updating his Twitter and Facebook accounts with both hopeful and horrific messages....
October 7, 2009 2:16 PM
Everyone is for "justice," but as soon as anyone tries to make things more just, trouble follows. I came to this lab to hear from a panel of innovative activists who are working for justice....
July 2, 2009 12:00 AM
by Troy Jackson Recently I needed to repair my car and chose a mechanic across the street from Kenwood Towne Center near Cincinnati. Typically, when a mall is too proud to call itself a mall, the shops are upscale, and...
December 8, 2008 12:00 AM
Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, has offered his two cents on the missional v. attractional conversation. You can find his comments on David Fitch's blog. I've also included a few videos in which Keller...
December 5, 2008 4:00 PM
Everyone's debating what exactly being "missional" means. There are a number of really interesting articles floating around the web on the subject, and Alan Hirsch includes his definition in the latest issue of Leadership. Here's Michael Frost (co-author of The...
April 10, 2008 5:09 PM
We've got our second podcast from the conference. Mark Miller is an author and pastor at Life Church in Wheaton, Illinois. He's speaking at a breakout sesssion at SHIFT on the topic of "Engaging Students in Global Justice." In...
April 10, 2008 5:04 PM
Kara Powell spoke during the final session at Shift this afternoon. Powell is the director of the Center for Youth and Family Ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary. She began by bursting a pretty big bubble. Many churches have gotten...
November 1, 2007 12:00 AM
"I guarantee there isn't a homeless person in Portland who couldn't tell you the gospel verbatim. They've had to listen to it three times a day to get a sandwich. They've heard about Christ, but they haven't seen Christ. Who...
August 28, 2007 12:00 AM
I've heard that the church is like a family. We've all been told the church is like a business. Now Leadership contributor, Chad Hall, explains that a missional church is like an ice cream truck. He may be on to...
May 29, 2007 12:00 AM
We caught up with Dan Kimball, pastor of Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, California, and author of They Like Jesus but Not the Church (Zondervan, 2007), at a conference where he was talking to other leaders about consumerism and...
February 23, 2007 12:00 AM
David Fitch's church, Life on the Vine, is a missional community that has abandoned the leadership model that most churches employ. Life on the Vine has no senior pastor, and they don't want one. In the first part of his...
October 9, 2006 12:00 AM
"Christian leaders have to admit this is the system we have put together. We can't build churches that advertise 'tons of ministries to meet your needs,' then be surprised when people expect us to continually meet their needs." -Kent Carlson,...
September 18, 2006 12:00 AM
What makes a good pastor? In seminary I was told a good pastor knows Greek and Hebrew. Church elders told me a good pastor keeps the budget in the black and people in the pews. In part two of his...
September 12, 2006 12:00 AM
Pastors have an image problem. Despite the growing number of celebrity pastors on television, radio, and bookstore shelves, the wider culture's respect for clergy has been declining for generations. Jim Martin, pastor of Crestview Church of Christ in Waco, Texas,...
April 17, 2006 12:00 AM
A surge of new books have hit store shelves about the challenges facing followers of Christ who live in the suburbs. Many voices are beginning to say that the lifestyle of the affluent suburbanite, while heralded for 50 years as...
