Thom S. Rainer

Op-ed Contributor

Latest

May 28, 2013
Twelve Ways Pastors Went from Burnout to Vision
There are few vocations that can engender burnout like the pastorate. The demands on a pastor's time, emotions, and energy can be overwhelming. When I was a pastor, I often felt at least the symptoms of burnout.
May 25, 2013
Seven (Plus One) Deadly Sins of a Church Website
Most church leaders don't grasp the value of a website to get guests to their churches to hear the gospel. Most church websites are terrible
May 24, 2013
Seven (Hopefully) Helpful Hints after Seven Months of Visiting Churches
So what have I found these past seven months? I could give you a fairly extensive consultation report about the churches, but I prefer to distill my words into just a few helpful hints. Each of these issues clearly needed addressing in most of the churches I visited.
May 17, 2013
Eight Signs of Fearful Leadership
Over the past few years, I've heard the phrase "courageous leadership" used to describe the trait of those leaders who are making a difference today. Unfortunately, we also know many who are in leadership positions where that courage is not apparent. Indeed, they demonstrate leadership that is fearful.
May 13, 2013
Five Ways to Avoid Lying about Church Attendance
I have used these lines many times in speaking venues. I ask the audience if they know how Baptists count weekly worship attendance. The knowing smiles break forth on most faces. I then began counting each person in the conference by saying 2, 4, 6, 8 . . . As the audience waits for the punch line, I say that every believer is indwelled by the Holy Spirit, so each person counts as two.
May 8, 2013
Five Reasons Your Pastor Will Not Ask for a Raise
My recent blogpost on pastors' salaries drew a lot of attention. There are indeed some heated emotions on both sides of the issue. Much of the concern expressed about the pay of ministers seems to focus on those cases of real indulgence and abuse. But it's those cases that get the most attention and, sadly, hurt the vast majority of ministers who are faithful stewards of God's money.
May 4, 2013
Four Ways to Improve the Worship Leader–Pastor Relationship
Worship leader: your pastor is the single most important professional relationship you have. You may be the primary facilitator of music and media, but he's ultimately in charge—and he's usually the one taking the fallout when things go awry. You absolutely want a healthy, dynamic relationship with your pastor.
Apr 27, 2013
Can a Dying Church Find Life? Six Radical Steps to 'Yes'
I must say from a pure statistical perspective, most churches with the symptoms I noted will die within a matter of a few years. Though I don't have hard data, I would be comfortable suggesting that the percentage exceeds 99 percent. In the midst of the gloomy news of terminal churches, I took a look at a few churches that had all the signs of impending death and then turned around to life.
Apr 20, 2013
Four Simple Reasons Most Churches Aren't Breakout Churches
Almost a decade ago, I led a major study on churches that had reversed negative trends and become positive breakout churches. I established the criterion that the breakout had to take place without changing pastors. I knew from previous research that most breakout churches had new pastors. I wanted to see if it was likely for a church to turnaround without getting a new pastor.
Apr 16, 2013
Eight Most Frequent Preaching Distractions
Preachers are also too familiar with distractions. While it's the way of life of someone who gets in front of people to speak, it is no less annoying. I asked a number of pastors to share with me the most frequent distractions they experience while preaching. Here are there responses in order of frequency. I also took a representative quote from one of the respondents for each item.