Notable Voices and the Week in Review: June 1, 2019

3 Reasons Your Church’s Mission Doesn’t Have To Be Different To Be Effective — Karl Vaters

There are two equal, but opposite mistakes we make when it comes to discovering a church’s mission. First extreme: find out what the cool churches are doing and copy that. Second extreme: find something no other church is doing and pursue that.

Evangelicals More Likely to Be Found in Fastest-Growing U.S. Cities Than Largest Ones — Facts & Trends

Finding an evangelical in one of America’s largest cities might be rare, but they’re more plentiful in the nation’s fastest-growing cities.

5 Things Every Pastor Needs to Know About the Church Budget — Jamie Dunlop

So often as pastors, we largely dismiss the budget as something quite unrelated to our work. But your budget is probably the best record of what your church really values. More than your website, more than your glossy brochures, more than what you say you value. And that means that moving toward a healthier church will necessarily involve moving toward a healthier church budget.

6 Reasons Pastor Search Teams Don’t Always Work—and What to Do about It — Chuck Lawless

Both churches that called me as their pastor followed the same process: they elected a search team who listened to my sermons, checked some references, interviewed me, and then presented me to the church as their next pastor. In my case, the process worked—but that’s not always the case. Below are some of the issues in searching for a pastor, followed…