How to Make Your Church Guest-friendly
from Pastors.com
 There are a lot of reasons a church might grow. Sometimes people come because of the preaching. Sometimes people come because of the music. Some people like the great programs for kids and youth. But there’s an often overlooked factor in church growth: Growing churches are friendly to guests. More
IRS Fines Boosters for Parent Credits
from the Lexington Herald-Leader
The IRS has fined the Bryan Station High School baseball booster group $61,000. It is the latest in a series of tax audits aimed at Fayette County, Ky., parents who raise money for extracurricular activities. The IRS is also seeking to strip the Bryan Station baseball boosters of the 501(c)(3) tax status given all non-profit groups. They would lose the charitable gaming license for bingo they say they need to fund the baseball program. This is the same process many churches use for fundraising for youth and missions activities. Churches should take notice of this significant action and rethink the strategy of accounting for fund raising events. More
Follow-Up: IRS Clarifies School Booster Club Fines (Lexington Herald-Leader)
Popcorn in the Pews
from Christianity Today
The distinction between secular and sacred space continues to blur as a small but growing number of churches meet in movie theaters and consider eschewing traditional church buildings altogether. "Movie-theater screens are postmodern stained glass. We're using moving pictures to tell the gospel to a post-literate culture," said Mark Batterson, lead pastor of National Community Church, which meets in Washington, D.C., theaters and hosts a conference for theater churches. "There are ways of doing church that no one has thought of yet. We have to live with the tension of being biblically true and culturally relevant." More
Cooking Pastor Nourishes Bodies as Well as Souls
from the Miami Herald
The cook arrives dressed for the occasion: black pants, black shirt and white clerical collar. He is here to provide physical sustenance for a few of his flock, but if they need spiritual guidance -- well, he'll serve that up with the stir-fry. More
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10 Stupid Things That Keep Churches from Growing
from The Christian Post
A well-seasoned, self-confessed “church addict” who has tasted both the joy and pain of being a church pastor recently completed a humorous yet painfully honest book on the ten most common mistakes pastors make that keep their churches from growing. Pastor Geoff Surratt, who had pastored a small, rural church with under 100 members and is now part of a megachurch with over 10,000 attendees on a given Sunday, shares his insight in his latest book Ten Stupid Things That Keep Churches From Growing. More
Priest Creates Stimulus Plan for His Parish
from The Tennesean via USA Today
When President-elect Barack Obama takes office, he might want to give the Rev. Joseph Breen of St. Edward Catholic Church in Nashville a call. Breen recently devised an economic stimulus package for his parish, giving out more than $100,000 to help 270 struggling families make ends meet. More
Maine Churches Cope with Recession
from the Morning Sentinel
Chris McEwan and her husband still have their jobs, but with the bad economic news and worries about the future, they've gotten rid of their credit-card debt, dropped their cable TV, are considering cheaper cell phones and don't spend money on extras. One thing the Winthrop couple is not cutting back on is contributing to their house of worship, the New Hope Baptist Church in Manchester, Maine. More
Congregants Log into Services with a User Name and Password
from Church Executive Magazine
When you’re a growing church consistently adding new members every year, goals are met, bills are paid, members are happy and life is good. Such was the case for Central Christian Church, an evangelical church located in Las Vegas, Nev. But this popular church didn’t get to 13,000 members by taking a passive approach to its mission: “To connect the unconnected to Christ and together grow to full devotion in him.” They wanted to do more to reach out to the community and extend their ministry to other areas.More
The 'Open Media' Revolution
from Ministry Today
The digital media revolution is far more than just meeting new friends on social networks, watching comedy clips on mobile phones or text messaging multiple people. The fundamental transformation that will impact everything in the future revolves around the word open, and will have massive implications for culture, politics, education, business and religion. It will cause a massive shift in the way we find, process and relate to information, and its impact will spill over into relationships, faith, family structures and more. And if church and ministry leaders don't understand and respond to this change, our impact will eventually disappear. More
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Outreach to the Hurting: Helping Your Church Heal
from Church Central
According to Lead Pastor Jim Burgen, Flatirons Community Church in Lafayette, Colo., identifies with people, whoever they are, with whatever problems they have, and offers an unconditionally loving and safe place. Really. That sort of connection at the 7,000-plus member church often begins in the recovery ministry that hosts a gathering each Friday evening, called Shift. "We have all the people other churches don’t want," Burgen said. More
Most U.S. Christians Define Own Theology
from Christian Science Monitor
American individualism has made its imprint on Christianity. A sizable majority of the country's faithful no longer hew closely to orthodox teachings, and look more to themselves than to churches or denominations to define their religious convictions, according to two recent surveys. More than half of all Christians also believe that some non-Christians can get into heaven. More
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