Gary McIntosh and Charles Arn recently released a delightful new book, What Every Pastor Should Know. I love the data and research in the book. One of my favorite sections dealt with retention of members. Two of the most critical findings were: Of all the members who drop out of church, 82 percent leave in the first year of their membership. Retention efforts are thus critical in the first twelve months after a member joins a church. The pattern of dropout is not random. Most leave close to their six-month tenure or close to their twelve-month tenure. So church members seem to Read the full article…

I am especially grateful to have the opportunity to hear from pastors’ wives since much of my focus is on pastors. Our recent, informal survey simply asked the open-ended question: “What do you wish you had been told before you became a minister’s wife?” Thank you to the pastors’ wives who were willing to give us such great feedback. And thanks to Chris Adams for doing the survey and to Amy Jordan for assembling the data. The responses are in order of frequency. A representative comment follows each response. I wish someone had told me just to be myself. “I Read the full article…

Many years ago I was serving as pastor of a church where I was an avid supporter of door-to-door outreach. But I struggled with leading people to be involved in the ministry. We kept decent records, so I got the old “outreach cards” for the previous year. My brief research shocked me. I estimated that we had invested nearly 1,500 hours of our members’ time in this ministry during the past year. The apparent result of our ministry had resulted in, at best, two Christian families joining our church. If you assume a workday of eight hours, our members had Read the full article…

I have informally counseled hundreds of ministers about financial matters. My background lends itself to such interaction. I have a business degree with a double major in finance and economics. I served as a corporate banker before answering the call to vocational ministry. In ministry I went to seminary and received two degrees. I served as pastor of four churches, and as dean of a seminary. My life has consistently been the intersection of business and ministry. Indeed, my current position as president of LifeWay is the perfect example of that intersection. The purpose of sharing my brief bio is Read the full article…

In an informal survey of pastors, I asked a simple question: What do you wish you had been told before you became a pastor? Some of the responses were obvious. For me, a few were surprises. I note them in order of frequency of response, not necessarily in order of importance. After each item, I offer a representative quote from a pastor. I wish someone had taught me basic leadership skills. “I was well grounded in theology and Bible exegesis, but seminary did not prepare me for the real world of real people. It would have been great to have Read the full article…

With apologies to Gary Chapman for playing on his well-known “Five Love Languages” theme, I asked 24 pastors how a church member might speak to each pastor in his own love language. And though 24 persons do not constitute a massive survey, I was amazed at the consistency of the responses. To fit the theme of five, I determined at the onset that I would only report the top five responses. To my surprise, there was an obvious break between the fifth and sixth most frequent responses. The five love languages thus were a natural fit. So how can you Read the full article…