Advance Bryan Moak

We all know the Bible talks about money A LOT! There are more than 2300 verses that deal with topic of money. 16 of Jesus’ 38 parables talk about money or possessions. Why then, do we struggle so mightily to talk to our churches about the issues of money and generosity?

In 1990, the average age of a pastor was 41. Today, that average age is 55. Although there are several reasons you could identify for the cause of this, it is my belief that one of the main reasons for this shift is that we have lost our intentionality in leadership development. Too often, we forget that one of the big responsibilities we have as pastors given to us from Ephesians 4 is to equip the saints for the work of service.

Today we are going to talk about a subject that on the one hand most churches generally agree is extremely important, and yet on the other hand, struggle mightily with creating effective strategies more than almost any other subject, and that is the issue of small groups. It’s not a matter of IF your church has small groups, its more a question of what those small groups look like.

One of the topics I get asked about a lot in my role in church strengthening revolves around today’s topic: “Developing a Discipleship Pathway”. Every pastor knows that it is crucial to create a way for people to grow in their faith, but struggle with a strategy that works.

Today, as we continue to think through different marks of a healthy church over these episodes, we want to discuss the issue of evangelism, and specifically Need Oriented Evangelism. We are defining need oriented evangelism as evangelism that isn’t “pushy” or “manipulative” in the way they share the gospel, rather their secret is to share the gospel in a way that meets the questions and needs of those who don’t yet know Christ.

For most of us as pastors as leaders, we see through the lense of our local church and experience. We don’t often have the time to Zoom out “so to speak” at the big C church. I thought it would be beneficial for our listeners to hear from two guys who are still in the pastoral trenches with those local lenses, but now have an ability to share with us their perspectives from a different lense as they have begun their new roles with our movement. What have they been seeing and learning as they have begun their new adventure?