How are you training your board members? Don’t just leave your board members alone to try and figure it out themselves; start intentionally training them NOW. Remember, the success and effectiveness of this leadership team will benefit your church for years to come.

October is Pastor Appreciation Month. How can I show appreciation to my pastor? Here are five ways to appreciate your pastor during the month of October.

Is the church a club for Christians, or is it a force for Kingdom expansion? When Jesus said, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not stand against it” (Matthew 16:18), was He thinking of a Sunday AM service with 40 minutes of singing and 40 minutes of preaching? Was he thinking of an audience listening to one person talk at them?

Would you consider your church relentlessly outbound? Most Canadian churches are not relentlessly outbound. Most church budgets are focused on staff salaries and building costs. Most pastors and staff spend the majority of their time with Christians. We’ve turned into “Christian Training Centres” or “Clubs for Christians” rather than a Missional Movement; a force of Christ-followers on a mission to reach a lost world.

How does vitalization benefit the ministry of a local church? The experience of vitalization in local churches is unique to each church, but the outcomes add fruitfulness to faithfulness in all; two congregations located on two sides of the country, two vitalization experiences, and two similar outcomes after following very different pathways. The pastors share their journeys leading established, traditional congregations into the outbound mission.

What steps can a pastor take to lead a congregation into missional efforts? Cornerstone Community Church is a testimony that small churches in small communities with small budgets can have ‘big vision’ and big expectations in a big God with incredible results.

How can a pastor in a rural community with a small congregation make a meaningful difference? You believe a church community is a good thing, but many people in your small town think churches are a waste of real estate and a tax burden. Tony Warriner shows how to see opportunities to make your church a light for the community and a champion of the gospel.

What you give your time to shows what you value. Worship and preaching occupy most of the time most of Sundays that Christians gather. What if an occasional Sunday throughout the year was used to lift the value of sharing the gospel in your community? All it takes is a little inspiration to create momentum.

How can a pastor lead change in a traditional church? Evangel Church was one of the most traditional churches in its District. Inward focused. Isolated from the local community. Twenty years later it is one of the most outbound, community-engaged churches in the District.

I hope to see a movement of churches in Canada across denominations go from plateaued and declining to thriving by reaching lost people in their locale. I pray for an enormous increase in Salvations across Canada with reports of life transformation by the Gospel. I long for churches that make disciples who make disciples who make disciples.

How can we equip volunteers for success? Sometimes we’re afraid to offer training to our volunteers. We tell ourselves people are smart and don’t need anyone to boss them around anyway.

Church Administration. Many leaders struggle because they see paper-pushing and data entry as non-ministry-related tasks. What if we could shift that mindset? What if we could see admin as a vital part of the ministry and the mechanism that allows churches to serve people better?

After four years away, over 500 delegates were excited to join in person. There was also much thought and care given to those attending virtually. All in all, the sense of the event was positive and filled with anticipation.

What will our next 75 years look like? While it is impossible to predict what society will look like in the future, we can be sure that we will strive to accomplish our four core values regardless.

It's exciting to think about the untapped potential in the lives of our young people. We are given this opportunity to develop these lives and watch God do incredible things in and through them!

As the world begins to open back up, travel restrictions loosen, and mandates relax, the tendency is to want to get back to the way things were. For the church, this wouldn’t be the best idea.

Over 500 attendees joined us in Banff or online for a time of refreshing, renewal and restoring. Every session was inspiring, challenging, and a reminder that none of us do this alone, we are Together. Check out how to playback the sessions.

We are called to spiritual maturity (Hebrews 5:14, Hebrews 6:1-2). There is an expectation that Christ-followers will start out as spiritual infants and mature over time. But a key element of maturity is not our age. There are many believers who are older in years but act very spiritually immaturely. This is because we have erroneously defined maturity as “tenure”. When really, spiritual maturity is about reproduction.