Church is better small . . . right?  That's what we're talking about this week. Thanks for the folks joining in the conversation through the comments! I hope I'm not stepping on a landmine here.  But the worship "activity" that seem to be stressed as the most important in the...

This week we're talking about why small churches are better than big churches. Small churches don't have security guards in flack jackets at kids check in. We do.  Seriously . . . you should see the vests our security guards are sporting for 2010.  They look like the latest in...

Most of my working years have been in churches that consider themselves large . . . at least large in the context that they serve. Not large in a “we're buying a sports stadium” sort of way but large enough to be rare amongst our closest neighbor churches. I am...

Tension: 1) The act or process of stretching something tight. 2) The interplay of conflicting elements. Some bad news for church leadership wonks out there: church is not cool. Really. We try to play it all cool because we know that "sells" in our culture.  We're concerned about stage presence...

Tension: 1) The act or process of stretching something tight. 2) The interplay of conflicting elements. Tech: Video screens, websites, email, social media, kids check in systems, lighting, sound reinforcement, podcasts, web streams, efficient systems, evites, invites, devices . . . everywhere we look the modern church is permeated with...

So we've been talking this week about who your team looks at when they think about who they want to be like.  Which organizations are you benchmarking your church agianst?  Rather than comparing against "Acrossthetown Baptist Church" or the latest McChurch trend why not find more creative organizations to point...

Yesterday we started a conversation about benchmarking.  The organizations you are learning from and focusing on set the pace for your team.  What if we stopped looking at what the church down the street (or across the country for that matter) and attempted to find other "benchmarks" for our leadership...

When you and your team think about who they are attempting to become like who are they measuring themselves against? Which organizations is your team learning from?  Who are they attempting to emulate? If you are in leadership in a local church you have a benchmarking issue.  We have chosen...

Hey!  The first words of a blog should probably grab your attention - right?  Wow - the pressure.  How am I doing so far?  Let me introduce myself.  My name is Rich Birch and I work in the wild world of church stuff.  This post is suppose to give you...