Thom S. Rainer

Latest

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  Sep 4, 2022

  5 (seemingly) well-intending sentences that are hurting the Church

  It is biblically true on the surface, but it usually means that fewer people are gathering in the building. It is also a convenient excuse for someone who does not gather with other believers regularly.

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  May 21, 2022

  10 reasons pastors are glad they quit vocational ministry

  Many of these pastors especially flinched at late night or early morning calls. Those were typically someone calling the pastors to notify them of a tragedy involving church members.

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  Apr 27, 2022

  Disunity in the church and among Christians destroys evangelism

  Jesus is praying for our unity right now. He is praying for our churches to be unified today. He looked over time and space and saw us in our churches at this very moment. And he simply prayed that we would be one, that we would be unified.

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  Mar 24, 2022

  5 reasons digital church attendance numbers are getting confusing

  Perhaps it is because we are still relatively early in the introduction of digital worship in most churches. Perhaps we will see some common practices that will bring clarity to both the counting and purpose of digital attendance. For now, here are five reasons digital attendance is confusing.

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  Mar 17, 2022

  25 unbelievable things search committees said to pastoral candidates

  We got dozens of the expected responses like, “Does your wife play piano?” But we got many more that shocked us. By this point, you would think that I couldn’t be shocked how some churches treat a pastor or staff member.

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  Feb 13, 2022

  5 reasons your current church attendance is the new normal

  I am hopeful that you will take your current attendance as your base, or new normal, and seek God’s power to grow the church from there. I see this new normal as an opportunity rather than a defeat.

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  Dec 26, 2021

  4 success stories from churches that made a commitment to know their communities better

  They found ways to reach and mentor many of these young mothers. Eventually, the moms started coming to the church. And, of course, their kids came as well. The church is now thriving with kids and young adults.

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  Dec 7, 2021

  15 lessons I’ve learned from 40 years in ministry

  For sure, I’ve made many mistakes. I hope I’ve learned from these mistakes more than I have repeated them. In the discussion at Church Answers, I named eight of the lessons. For this article, I added a few more.

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  Nov 21, 2021

  7 changes pastors plan to make in 2022

  We compiled seven critical changes pastors are planning from our ongoing conversations with pastors at Church Answers. The list is not comprehensive. It does represent, however, the most frequent changes pastors have told us they plan to make.

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  Nov 11, 2021

  Decline of streaming worship services: 5 observations

  One of the reasons millions of church members attend in-person services is because it represents a healthy habit they have developed.