Last week, Baptist Press released the article by Carol Pipes: “ACP: More Churches Reported; Baptisms Decline.” Media sources across the country quickly ran stories on the information found in the article. The Southern Baptist Convention added 294 churches in 2015. However, our membership declined by more than 200,000 people, with […]

Decline in Southern Baptist Numbers


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June 8 is Roland Allen Day. You probably did not know that. Allen was one of the leading missional thinkers of the 20th century. And his influence continues well into the 21st. In fact, if any of the following applies to you, then you have felt that influence: you are […]

Roland Allen Day


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The reporter made this horrific statement on the news today: “The church was completely destroyed by fire. . . .” What!? That’s terrible. Knowing the median worship attendance in the US is 75, I had a mental image of at least 75 people being burned simultaneously. Check Twitter. What? Nothing […]

Church Destroyed, Everyone Lives?



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The concept of church multiplication movements is often discussed in missiological circles. Kingdom citizens desire to see “the word of the Lord. . . speed ahead and be honored” (2 Thes 3:1) and for new churches to be taught the “whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27). Nathan Shank is my […]

Nathan Shank on Church Multiplication and Health


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Evangelicals often talk about church planting. However, given the way most people speak about church planting and apply such methods to the field, I wonder if a great deal of evangelicals either prefer to avoid biblical guidelines when it comes to this ministry or simply do not know of the […]

Where Do Churches Come From?


  This episode of Strike the Match kicks off season 2. In this podcast, I share insights from eighteen years of training pastors in both the academy and the church. The pastor is the most important and influential person in a local church when it comes to leading that congregation […]

6 Guidelines for Training Pastors Toward an Apostolic Imagination