Blog – Page 3 – Motion Worship – Video Loops, Countdowns, & Moving Backgrounds for the Christian Church

3 Steps to Build a Small Group Ministry with Roots

Small groups are the lifeblood of church communities. While big Sunday services might draw people in and introduce them to Jesus, small groups take discipleship to the next level. It’s within groups that people find meaningful friendships, experience spiritual development, and learn to put their faith into action seven days a week. If your church doesn’t have small groups yet or is looking ...

8 Tips for Finding and Hiring Pastoral Staff

Adding new members to your team can feel like a daunting task. There’s no one clear path to finding candidates, especially when you’re looking for someone that can be both competent for the role and fit in with your staff’s culture and church’s mission. However, with a bit of planning, strategy, and a whole lot of prayer, even that tall order is totally achievable. Here are eight way tips ...

How to Plan a Sermon Series with Impact

Creating a sermon series can feel overwhelming. Maybe you’ve been inspired by a creative hook, but don’t know how to keep the momentum going for multiple weeks. Maybe you can get lost for hours exploring themes and big ideas, but are struggling to distill that information into a format that will actually translate with your congregation. Planning a sermon series is an organizational art, an...

Reasons Churches Become Insider-Focused

New churches don’t grow as a result of being insider-focused. The reason church plants often gain so much momentum in the early stages is due to an ambition to reach others for Christ. When a church first starts, everyone understands it’s time to kick everything into full throttle and focus on the community around you. But somewhere along the way, many churches start focusing inwardly on ta...

5 Ways Your Church Is Losing Money

Managing finances in any organization is difficult. Each department/staff member has different expenditures happening at different times, and it can feel like money is constantly going out the door. Churches are no different. While some churches and small church plants have a good grasp on their finances, the truth is that most of us struggle to keep control of all expenses. If you are trying t...

Lent 101: How Fasting Can Fill Us

It’s a new year. Thank goodness. And while we’re still in the heart of winter, the days are slowly but surely getting longer. In this season, the slow thaw of late winter into early spring, the liturgical calendar brings us Lent. Although often associated with the Catholic church or other liturgical denominations, these days, Lent is being observed by more and more church communities. If...

4 Reasons Your Congregation is Disengaged from the Sermon

People in your congregation don’t think you can see them, but you know as well as anyone that you see everything they’re doing… all the time. And when eyes begin to wander about the room, thumbs twiddle, and for a few shameless congregants, phones light up their faces, what do you do? Call them out publicly from the stage. Kidding. Please don’t do that… But it’s so tough as a ...

Building a Leadership Team in your Church Plant

When you’re planting a church, it’s important to equip capable, trustworthy leaders to help bring the vision to life. Finding these leaders, however, can feel overwhelming, especially when you’re juggling everything else that comes with planting. Here’s a four-part roadmap for finding, recruiting, and nurturing a successful team for your new church: Pray with people you trust Jus...

5 Reasons Your Church May Not Be Growing

Paying attention to your church attendance is important for many reasons, but obviously it can be incredibly frustrating at times. Unless your church just happens to be exploding in attendance right now, the majority of churches struggle to grow their attendance – especially as church plants. Growing a church is a slow process, and while the chances are high that your ministry will expand just f...

Hiring Church Staff: Tried and True Practices

Hiring the right church staff is incredibly important if you are actively working in ministry. It’s especially important in churches smaller than 500, as all staff are working closely with each other every day and weekend. Hiring a bad candidate doesn’t mean one department of the church suffers - it can drag down the efficiency, morale, and culture of all church staff. Unfortunately, many c...

When is My Church Ready for a New Building?

Many church leaders dream of the day when their ministry grows enough for them to be able to move to a new building. It’s an exciting prospect! Having the chance to search for a place that will be the ideal building and location for your ministry is huge. But knowing when the day has arrived can be tough. You may be financially ready for the move, but is that the only thing that matters? If y...

Getting Your Congregation Excited About Giving

Giving a sermon on tithing is difficult. Obviously, we all know it’s a Biblical teaching, and the church survives only as a result of people’s commitment to and generosity for her mission. But everyone tends to think of giving as a necessity. As a chore. Giving 10% of your income as a tithe to the church frequently feels like an obligation rather than a joy, and it seems that in the last sever...

Reducing the Impact of Church Staff Turnover

Working in ministry can be one of the most demanding jobs. Aside from a few very large churches with hundreds of employees, most church jobs require you to be flexible and versatile in a variety of areas. Any church staff member will tell you how grateful they are for their fellow coworkers, as they recognize just how much each person carries on his or her plate when working in ministry. That b...

How to Properly Handle Church Complaints

If you’ve worked in a pastoral role for any amount of time, you know full-well that there are people who just love to complain. And generally, most of the complaints received in a church always seem to come from the same few congregation members. Complaining is a habit in some people - there’s no doubt. And it can be hard to deal with when much of it is aimed directly at you. But complaints...

4 Factors That Affect Church Attendance

Pastors are almost always in tune with the state of their church attendance. But getting down to what it is that truly controls your church attendance is a tricky task. There are so many varying factors that will affect church attendance and nearly every church will have unique aspects that differentiate them from others. So, while this certainly isn’t a fool-proof, all-inclusive list, it is ...

Pastoral Care: Things to Consider

Pastoral care is a tough job, primarily because it doesn’t rely on one individual but the whole community system and leadership structure of a church. You’re all working there for the sake of impacting peoples’ lives and helping them through times of need and crisis. But that’s incredibly difficult when people feel let down. A pastor misses a hospital visit, doesn’t get the memo on tr...

Where to Find Inspiration for Unique Sermon Series

Anyone who works a repetitive job is prone to going through creative ruts at some point in their career. Obviously, no week is every the exact same as a pastor, but there’s no doubt that you deal with a lot of repetitive tasks on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis. The most obvious task that falls in that category is sermon prep. Sermon prep is the most repetitive task of a lead pastor at...

Most Common Pastoral Care Challenges

Most pastors consider their job a great privilege and blessing. Having the opportunity to lead a congregation and grow their understanding of God’s word is an incredible joy. However, being a pastor isn’t without its challenges, and pastoral care can be an incredibly difficult job at times. Most Common Pastoral Care Challenges As a pastor, every day comes with unique blessings and challe...

3 Tips to Be More Efficient with Sermon Prep

Being a pastor isn’t a typical day job. You’re pretty much on call 24/7, and it’s rare that you ever have the ability to devote 100% of your attention for an extended period of time to any one thing. That’s just the nature of the job. Being a pastor is a lot more than speaking on a Sunday. But… sermon preparation is incredibly important and it’s a weekly activity. While you probably...

Why is My Church’s Giving Decreasing?

Church giving is so important for your ministry to thrive. You know more than anyone how valuable congregational giving is for the growth of your church, and the investment in worship, youth, young adults, and other ministries. But giving isn’t always the easiest topic to deal with. Your church will almost certainly go through seasons where congregational giving is down. The question is - why is...