Is your congregation a good place to be? Not just to walk in and attend worship and then walk out. Is it a good place to hang out? Is it a place where people like to gather and experience community? Is it a place where people build deep relationships? Not only a physical place but […]
In 2008, things began to change for pastor Ronald “Dee” Vaughan. Ministry had become burdensome, and that was a change for a man who loved local church ministry. He also began to feel a disconnection between the person he was felt forced to “create” for the church and the man he was on the inside. […]
Welcome to the Columbia Metro Connection, a podcast where you can go to get valuable, relevant, and quality resources for you and your congregation. SUBSCRIBE: iTunes| RSS | Stitcher | TuneIn Radio | Google Play The Columbia Metro Connection is sponsored and supported by the Columbia Metro Baptist Association and the almost 100 partner churches that support the ministry of the CMBA. […]
Congregations seeking to transform know why they do everything they do. They know what contribution every program, ministry, and activity make to the spiritual strategic journey of the congregation. How they speed transformation. They know how everything aligns with the vision of the congregation. Nothing is wasted. They have moved beyond business as usual—beyond doing […]
Andre Rogers serves as Columbia Metro Baptist Association’s Congregational Multiplication Ministry Mobilizer. He assists with church planting and sometimes with helping struggling congregations redevelop vitality and vibrancy. He also teaches homiletics and systematic theology at his alma mater, Columbia International University (CIU), and he is the pastor of Concord Fellowship Baptist Church, which he planted […]
The book The Discipline of Market Leaders (Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema, Perseus Books, 1995) suggests there are three foci for the marketing efforts of organizations. Best Price, Best Product, and Best Solution. A Best Solutions effort focuses on the needs of the people being served rather than how to provide cheap products, the best—perhaps […]
When congregations feel stressed about their future, desire to transform, but want it to happen without great effort on their part, they often move away from their dependence on God. They rely on their own wisdom and abilities which typically are very limited. They forget that only as they look beyond themselves to places only […]
Congregations needing to transform are not necessarily declining in the number of people participating in the congregation. Many are simply plateaued. This means their average weekly attendance does not go up or down more than 10 percent over a three to five-year period. When a congregation has been plateaued for seven years or more, it […]
Congregations must move beyond the obvious trap of expecting the pastor to bring vision and to personally empower their transformation. The work of transformation is everyone’s responsibility. Yes, there needs to be a leadership community composed of at least 21 percent of the average number of active attending adults in the congregation present on a […]
Very few congregations transform by focusing on developing successful ministry projects. Some will see short-term significance by focusing on mission action. Generally, it will take full surrender to ongoing missional engagement for congregations to transform. Ministry projects are often short-term projects congregations want to do to a target group of people. Mission action involves mid-term […]