Do you remember the Indiana Jones movie “Raiders of the Lost Ark?” Harrison Ford always just makes it through whatever challenge is looming. And then it’s on to the next challenge. Three years ago we launched our Vision Campaign to build a new church. In the time since, the whole campaign has felt like an […]
Category: Vision
Vision is a picture of a preferred future. This Easter season we’ve been looking at Vision and how it forms our perspective. Our perspective impacts the way we see the world. Our ability to be a good parent, a good boss, a good son or daughter, will only be as good as our perspective. If […]
We have a saying here at Nativity: “You’re always in a season.” Just as in nature, we always find ourselves in corresponding seasons of growth and fertility, seasons of maturation and harvest, seasons of decline and death. Knowing what “season” you and your church are in can be a great help for reflecting on the […]
Early spring is always a season when most churches begin to actively consider staffing issues, especially recruiting new staff. No matter how strong your team is, regardless of how cohesive your ministry, staffing is going to be an annual project because people come and people go. If you want to build and maintain a great […]
Churches that are focused on something other than growing disciples eventually stop growing. That’s where a lot of churches are today. But if a church is healthy, there’s no real reason why it should stop growing both wider and deeper. That’s the vision we believe God has for his Church. Here are 5 of the […]
This weekend at Nativity we’re delivering our annual Stewardship Sunday message. We put a lot of time and energy into crafting the right message that our congregation needs to hear. Jesus talked about money all the time, and if we are going to talk about Jesus, sooner or later we have to realize that money […]
This week’s blog is an update on our building project and campaign here at Nativity. Most of what has been going on is difficult to appreciate, because you can’t see it. In fact, quite a lot of work has been done on site work, especially as regards meeting requirements for storm water management and sediment […]
It’s been a while since I’ve shared a post about what’s new here at Nativity, but not for a lack of topics. So much is new and exciting around here, it’s hard to know where to start. Here’s the run down, in no particular order. #1. New Invitations and Initiatives This fall we’re looking to […]
Blessed John Henry Newman once wrote, “In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.” Down below, where churches have ministries to run, people to manage, and buildings to operate, one of the most difficult, yet transformative, parts of life […]
You can’t build a healthy church without a healthy staff culture. And it starts in the office. Unfortunately, this is one of the most overlooked aspects of parish life, and, as a result, a lot of church staffs pick up toxic habits that can lead the church down very unhealthy paths. Here are nine signs […]
