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5 Types of Church Visitors

By Church, Church Planting

One thing pastors love is church visitors. Really, what we like even more is church visitors who become regular church attenders, but that process starts with visitors. It’s always a mystery why some visit and never come back. The reasons may be the subject of another post, but one thing I’ve learned, much of the chance for return depends on what type of visitor the visitor happens to be.

I have discovered there are basically 5 types of visitors to a church:

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Let’s Write a Story Together…Two

By Culture, Funny, Innovation

Let’s write a story together!

We did this last year and it was a lot of fun. You can read our finished story HERE. Several asked if we could repeat it. I’ve picked up a few readers since then, so this is new for some of you.

Here is how this works: (Please read carefully)

  • I will write an opening set up sentence.
  • You add the next line.
  • You can only add one line until someone else adds a line.
  • Please don’t try to write one long sentence that really is a paragraph. The fun is getting the different inputs and imagination to work together.
  • You can add as many lines as you want, but only one at a time, and only with someone else having a line between yours.
  • Please try to keep the story flowing. Your sentence can be light-hearted, funny, or even tragic, but please DO NOT add a sentence that stops the story or takes it in a bizarre direction in an effort to disrupt the story serious that commenters are writing or take it in an awkward direction. (There’s always one like this and I reserve the right to delete the comment if it appears that’s what is happening with the comment.)
  • I will not be able to use crude or vulgar comments. (I realize that will limit some of you from participating, but…)
  • Please add your sentence here on the post as a comment, not on Facebook and Twitter. This is the only way it will be added to the final story.

The goal here is to be creative and see where our imagination and the story takes us, yet write a credible, interesting story. After comments seem to be slowing, I’ll post the entire story in a separate post. If you leave your full name, I’ll give you credit in the excerpts. If you have a blog link when you add your comment, I’ll link to you also.

Have fun!

Here is the first sentence:

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Scripture Memorization, Week 20

By Encouragement, God, Prayer

Jehoshaphat was a great king, because he followed the ways of God. In an incredible example of humility, Jehoshaphat was willing to admit, in front of the people he was leading, that he didn’t have all the answers.

When facing a powerful rival nation, Jehoshaphat prayed a prayer. This week’s memory verse comes from that prayer.

Here is this week’s memory verse:

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Defining a Radical Faith

By Church, Church Planting, Faith, Leadership

I see a growing interest in encouragement to sacrifice everything for the sake of the Gospel. I love that kind of passion. We see so many examples of it in Scripture and many are listed in the chronicles of faith in Hebrews Chapter 11. There have been a few times in my life where I’ve sensed a specific call to do something so drastic, so seemingly bizarre, so faith-stretching, that even thinking about those decisions today seems scary.

I wonder, however, if that expectation is unrealistic when applied to all of us at all times. Is it okay, should God allow it, to live a “normal” faith at times…to not feel like everything is on the line…but rather feel like you’re in a safe place…depending on a regular paycheck, in a steady job, with a healthy church…for example? Would that be considered okay and still be considered radical in your faith?

Just asking…

Recently I was reading John 7:1,

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