Comorbidities. Preexisting conditions. These words rank up there with unprecedented in a competition for word of year in 2020. Prior to March of 2020, few of us ever used the word unprecedented, we didn’t speak of preexisting conditions, and we may not have even known what a comorbidity was. But, that was time before COVID. …
Healthy churches aren’t unicorns. Healthy churches exist, and you can be a part of one. Maybe you are part of a healthy church today. If so, then the steps listed in this post will help you to keep your church healthy. If your church isn’t healthy, you can be part of making it healthier. Try …
Routines can be very good things. My morning routine helps me to make sure I don’t leave home without the essentials. I get up, brush my teeth, fix coffee, take a shower, put on deodorant, brush my hair, get dressed, and then go downstairs. I am careful to not do things out of order, because …
As we continue to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, churches all over the U. S. are beginning to return to worship inside their facilities. As they do, each church is forced to wrestle with the realties that being indoors creates a degree of risk for the church body. We are doing that here at Malvern Hill, …
Do you need the church? Many people like to make the argument that they don’t need the church to love Jesus. All of the excuses are out there. Some of them may even appeal to you. After all, many people claim the church is just a “human invention” anyway and “full of hypocrites.” But, what …
People often tell me that they want to get more out of their church or that they want to feel more deeply connected to their church. Maybe you are one of those people. Maybe you have a church that you attend occasionally or you have decided that you want to attend a church, but you …
On any given Sunday morning, one-third of the attenders at Malvern Hill are 18 years old or younger. We are a medium sized church on the edge of a small city. Currently, we average around 300 in worship, and you can almost guarantee that if we have 300 in worship this Sunday, 100 of them will be 18 or under. There are unique challenges that come with being a church filled with young people–primarily that those who are 18 and under do not normally tithe– but there are of course incredible blessings. Young people bring life and joy and they are the present and the future of the church.
Discipleship is hard and it is time-consuming. The results of discipleship are often discovered over years, not weeks and months, but discipleship is not an option for followers of Jesus, it is an expectation. It is the Great Commission. We have to speak up for intentional discipleship and create pathways for disciples to grow. We have to make discipleship an expectation of attenders and a part of the core DNA of our churches. We have to speak out against the idols in our culture that keep us from discipling and being discipled and we have to stand on the solid truths of God’s Word, even when it isn’t popular.
Church revitalization is all the buzz in evangelical church life these days. Mark Clifton says a healthy or revitalized church is “one that has a reputation for making disciples who make disciples and whose community is noticeably better because of the existence of the church.”