Blog

Missions Strategies: Part 1 ­­– Staying Aware

Missions Partnerships are one of the best vehicles a church can use to engage fully in missions. A healthy partnership will contain five elements, and the first element is Staying Aware. If we are to be good partners, we must be intentional about staying connected and maintaining a good relationship with our IW counterparts. Staying…
Read more

How’s Your Heart?

February is National Heart Month in the U.S.A.  Pretty smart designation with Valentines Day on February 14th!  I love statistics and found that Heart Disease was the number one leading cause of death in America in 2020 (the last year statistics are fully available) with 696,962 deaths.  Second was cancer at 602,350; third was Covid at 350,831; fourth…
Read more

March 20, 2022 – and the Celebration is…

We celebrate to remember. Have you ever thought about that? One of the big reasons we celebrate certain days is to remember something. Whether it’s the 4th of the July in the United States or Passover in ancient Israel, “red letter” days, as they used to be known, are a pause for remembering. And so…
Read more

What is the most important thing?

“Well, that all depends” is generally the answer. If you sell cars, I imagine the most important thing is to sell a lot of them at a big price to make a great commission for yourself and the dealership. If you have a daycare business, I imagine the most important thing is to provide a safe…
Read more

Building A Missions Team

One of the common questions that comes up in conversations with church leaders is, “How do we start a missions team?” These are good churches who want to be on mission, but for whatever reason – poor experiences in the past, people who have moved away, etc. – find themselves needing to build a missions…
Read more

An RMD Story of Healing

Recently, Mrs. Misty Vannett, wife of Rev. Vince Vannett, lead pastor at Saratoga (WY)  Alliance Church, sent the following story to the District Office.  We wanted to share this with you and received Misty’s permission to do so. I wanted to share with you my story of healing from IGNITE this year. I really feel like…
Read more

The “E” Word

If you have raised kids you remember the questions they had about the “__” word. You know, the “d” word, the “h” word, the “s” word, and on and on they go. In the church world we have one of those seemingly taboo words too, the “e” word… Evangelism. I think there are three things…
Read more

Merry Christmas!

Recently, a pastoral colleague and I were talking about many different topics.  It was one of those invigorating, wide-ranging great conversations that happen rarely.  As we visited a comment was made that stuck with me.  It went along the lines of, “these days, it seems that everything is big — nothing is small or inconsequential…
Read more

The Wonder of Kids

“Oh my word, it’s just so beautiful!” were the words that came out of my foster son’s mouth the morning after I had put up our Christmas tree. He woke up to a sparkling tree in our living room and it took his breath away. I found my 8-year-old standing in front of it just…
Read more

Partnering with Parents When it Seems No One is Listening

Anyone else feel like nobody is listening? You’re making announcements and still nobody knows what is going on? You’re using social media, a texting service, email campaigns, and you feel like it’s all falling on deaf ears? If you feel that way, you’re not alone! It’s extremely common to find yourself frustrated with communication. Over…
Read more