The Articles Library, Section 8
EXCELLENCE IN CHURCHES, SCHOOLS, AND TEACHING
J.P. Moreland
Related article from Moreland: How We Lost the Christian Mind and Why We Must Recover It
The church – not the university, the public schools, or the media – has the primary responsibility to teach truth, train the mind, and properly orient our thinking. But you would never know that by examining the structure, practices or goals of our local churches. In this chapter from his path-breaking book, Love Your God with All of Your Mind, philosopher and theologian J.P. Moreland calls local churches back to this vital function of developing the Christian mind and offers several practical suggestions for how any church can do that.
Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger
Based on an in-depth study of four hundred American churches, the authors now share their breakthrough conclusion: “simple” churches — focused, well-aligned churches with complete clarity of purpose — are more vibrant, more effective churches. Here’s chapter 1 from their award-winning book, Simple Church.
George Babbes and Michael Zigarelli
Why should a ministry care about marketing? Because people do things for their reasons, not yours. And because we live in a world of unlimited choices. To help you win the battle for people’s hearts and minds, this chapter from The Minister’s MBA offers a primer on ethical, effective marketing.
Jonathon Falwell
Pastor Falwell understands well the challenges inherent in leadership, challenges that discourage other pastors and even drive them away from their churches. In this chapter from his book, Innovate Church, he offers four insightful, “non-negotiable commitments” every pastor–and, for that matter, every Christian leader–should make to navigate the storms of conflict and strengthen his or her leadership.
George Barna
Based on interviews with a representative national sample of 627 Protestant pastors, this Barna study discovered that pastors believe the vast majority of their congregants deem their faith in God to be the highest priority in their life. But when the researchers asked the congregants to identify their top priority, a very different picture emerged.
Michael Zigarelli
As good as worship is at many churches, there are many things churches can do to make Sunday morning services more effective. Here are a dozen suggestions from a management professor and organizational consultant who’s spent a lot of time in a lot of churches.
Michael Zigarelli
See the video version: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
There’s been a lot written on how to lead a small group and how not to lead one. Here’s a compilation of some of the best ideas out there–twenty tips that will assist you in leading your group to a life-changing experience.
Michael Zigarelli
For most people, great teaching doesn’t just happen. Whether we’re in the classroom, in the pulpit, on stage, on the radio, or anywhere else, to teach people with excellence — and in a way that can change hearts and minds — requires more than some good ideas and lots of preparation. It requires that we engage in the kind of lifestyle and professional habits from which outstanding teaching naturally flows.
Robert Harris
Christian educator Robert Harris presents a terrific, back-to-basics collection of teaching practices, generously seasoned with some insights you may have never considered.
Howard Hendricks
The effective teacher always teaches from the overflow of a full life. If you stop growing today, you’ll stop teaching tomorrow. Neither personality nor methodology can substitute for this principle.We can’t impart what we don’t possess. If we don’t know it–truly know it–we can’t give it.
Related Article: A Leader is a Reader
Mark Sanborn
According to Sanborn, a professional speaker, an essential way to improve our speaking ability is to anticipate and eliminate those behaviors that undermine our message and our credibility. Here are seven of those behaviors.
The Professor’s Task in the Christian University
David Gushee
Whether you’re in Christian higher education or secondary education, this is a must-read piece from one of today’s leading thinkers. Gushee, a Christian ethicist and regular contributor to Christianity Today, lays out an incisive framework for how to re-conceptualize and restructure the work of Christian educators.
The Challenge for Christian Higher Education
Michael Duduit
Today’s Christian colleges and universities must provide an intellectual bulwark against the secularizing cultural trends that have swept through American higher education. According to Duduit, if any institution is going to train America’s next generation of leaders that “truth” has meaning, it will be our Christian universities. How can we insure that our church-supported colleges and universities stand firm in these essential tasks? Here are five ways.
A Blueprint for the Christian University
Michael Zigarelli
As secular forces gain ground throughout the culture, what should Christian universities be doing in response? How can they reclaim their role as agents of redemption and transformation in society? This article offers substantive advice for how Christian schools can train-up students to think christianly and engage the culture as influential ambassadors of the faith.
The Integration of Faith and Learning
Robert Harris
Harris, a long-time Christian educator, says that if students do not learn to integrate faith and learning during their undergraduate years, then it may not occur. In graduate school and professional life, students may adopt the current paradigms of the field without realizing that those paradigms include a set of metaphysical assumptions, often naturalistic and humanistic, that conflict with Christian truth.
Why Ethics Training Doesn’t Work
Michael Zigarelli
Contemporary ethics training is unlikely to actually change behavior. But if we’re serious about change–about training people to be morally good and to consistently do the right thing–there is a time-honored way to do it.
Teach the Whole Truth
Michael Zigarelli
Pastors and Christian educators can suffer from two opposite but related errors in their teaching. Pastors usually impart Biblical knowledge while ignoring scientific revelation; Christian teachers usually impart scientific knowledge while ignoring Biblical revelation. We would all benefit if these leaders broadened their epistemology–their understanding of what counts as “knowledge”–and taught more often from the whole truth of theology plus science.
Why Discipleship Fails
Michael Zigarelli
Why is it that even when we know what’s right, we often do what’s wrong? A lot of reasons, perhaps, but the most basic is this: We never really intended to do what’s right, at least not consistently. That’s a personal failure, for sure, but it’s also a failure of how we disciple people.
A Curriculum for Developing Christian Leaders
Michael Zigarelli
Are you called to train up people to become Christian leaders? There are a lot of models for how to do that. This road-tested approach, built on the ideas of Dallas Willard, can encourage not just inspiration, but genuine transformation of the person into a more faithful, more effective leader.