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Depending on your church background and life experience, you might see the Church as either a Fortress or a Force. For instance, if you come from a holiness-oriented religious background, you view the Church being on the left side. Or if you came from an abusive background or have a heavy-addiction history, the fortress-view feels safe and provides a sense of security. You don’t want any implied reminder of a culture that hurt you or created problems for you. But if you hav

Often in churches like the one I pastored years ago, we turned the mainstream view of “believe, then belong” upside down. That’s because doctrine was often seen as a gatekeeper for who could enter the community. Or not. As a result, churches were often seen as dogmatic, unwelcoming places instead of somewhere people might explore the faith. A friend once told me that his co-worker didn’t like Easter at their church because “all these casually religious people show up.” Y

When I was pastoring, periodically I would do a message series about relationships and the challenges of living life together—whether it be dysfunctional relationships in marriages, family dynamics, friendships, work environments, and so on (a favorite series was called “Baggage” ). It was part of shepherding: helping people build healthy families, friendships, and boundaries. The problem was: series like that can easily devolve into a list of helpful, prescriptive ideas that

Decades ago, becoming a learning organization was a common call-to-action in organizational development circles. That is, it was imperative to develop a culture of continual improvement individually and corporately by various disciplines, such as creating systems and structures for sharing and codifying best practices when there is a clear vision and common ownership. It was really about learning how we learn together. This becomes even more critical in our era of rapidly shi