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…
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“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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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“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…
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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…
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Have you ever looked at your church calendar and wondered why your church is still doing a particular event? Sometimes in the life of a church, an event that God has used in the past becomes ineffective. In other cases, someone suggests an idea for an event because other churches are doing it or because…
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Chances are you didn’t become a pastor so that you could think about church insurance all the time – and that’s good; don’t change that about yourself. However, just because it’s not in the top 10 things you’d choose to do on a Friday night does not mean that you can completely ignore it. Even…
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