I just got back from another trip visiting our publisher, Ave Maria Press, at Notre Dame. I’m always inspired and grateful after spending time with them. (By the way, allow me to make a plug for their amazing parish resources, check them out @ avemariapress.com) There was a lot on our agenda. We started exploratory […]
Category: Communication
If you’ve been keeping up with my Twitter, you might have noticed that our staff at Nativity are filming a TV show. We have partnered up with our amazing friends at CatholicTV to put together 13 episodes of what we are calling The Rebuilt Show. It will air in the Fall and Spring, and you […]
Many will hate to hear it, but one sign of a healthy church is growth in weekend attendance. If people are actively leaving, or not a single new family has joined your parish in some time, then chances are, there are things you could be doing to better attract and serve people through your Sunday […]
I’m posting this week from California at Saddleback Church’s Global PEACE Conference. I’m here with Brian Crook, our Director of Missions at Nativity. It’s been an inspiring and thought-provoking experience. Pastor Rick Warren had the vision of bringing together pastors from countries around the world to share ideas and learn from one another how to […]
This past week, our “Message Team” met for an all day off-site to finalize our plans for our message series for the upcoming year. The message team consists of 7 people on staff who meet each week to help develop and evaluate my weekend messages. A few times a year we take extra time to […]
Our latest message series at Nativity for the Easter season, called “Groundbreaking,” has got me thinking a lot about what the Early Church did and looked like. This message, by the way, is all about how Jesus’ resurrection changed the face of history, and how deeply that resonated with the Apostles and the first Christ […]
This past week, our team of staff who plan our message series’ (what we call the “Message Oval”) set aside a day to draw up a rough sketch of the topics and themes of what I will be preaching about in the upcoming year. Yes, I did say year. We make it a point to […]
Did you know that medical textbooks need constant updating? It’s not because the human body changes- it’s because constantly new methods and information about the body become available that compel doctors to evaluate and revise their practice of medicine. Perhaps there’s an important lesson here for the Church and our practice of ministry. Jesus Christ […]
Pope Francis has declared an “Extraordinary” Jubilee Year of Mercy, which will run through November 20, 2016. What is that? It is actually a perfect opportunity to make church matter by following God’s call to extend mercy to the lost and broken. Here are four areas we’ve been trying in our parish, and we hope […]
There’s one difference between God and the Church: God doesn’t need to change. But, the most effective and successful churches are constantly changing. The message and the mission never change- that’s a God thing- but the methods and techniques we use to communicate that mission/message are in constant need of re-shaping to reach the ever-changing […]
