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More than anything, “preach with power.” Preach a powerful word, preach it as powerfully as you can without sounding shrill or melodramatic, and preach to the power of darkness and to the power of God’s light and love. Kissing off the moment might keep you safe. But it wounds the body of Christ.

As a child in church, I walked by a large bulletin board hung in a well-traveled hallway. I ignored it. So did everyone else.

The healthy church sees its role as transformational: helping God to transform the lives of God’s beloved. And then helping them to transform their families, neighborhoods and workplaces, and daring to dream of transforming entire communities. The unhealthy church, by contrast, places ultimate value on sameness, consistency, not challenging people, and not making waves in the community.

That is why measurements matter. Not to fill boxes on a spreadsheet or official church report, but to avoid hurting people, to know when a program needs refreshing, to see growth as it is happening so that you can support it, or to see early signs of decline so that you can take action. Without metrics, leaders are flying blind.

When I first developed my best practices guide to Church Wellness, I called this section “Young Adult Ministry.” Now I title it “Younger Adult Ministry.”

It is unrealistic to think that a congregation whose average age is over 60 will be able to appeal effectively to people in their 20s and 30s. Not only are the generations too far apart, but the church expectations of the 60+ set are shaped by congregation, facility, ordained leadership, denomination and Sunday worship, whereas so-called Millennials pursue a hunger for God that takes different forms.

The healthy church has a fundamental orientation: outward.

Leaders don’t ask, “What do our members want?” Instead, they ask, “What does the world around us need?”

Leaders understand that a missional mindset is the heart of all church development. New constituents, for example, are rarely attracted by better and better worship. They want to know what a congregation stands for and what it is doing in the world for others.

  [We continue a look at the basics of church wellness. This week: Stewardship Development.] Stewardship Development is perhaps the most complicated and overlooked ministry of the church. Two reasons for this: it’s easier and safer to …

The path to spiritual development isn’t all that complicated. It’s the motivation to walk that path which tends to stymie people.

Most church communications speak to the wrong audience.

They speak to insiders. Newsletters, whether online or printed, function as bulletin boards announcing events to members. Blogs help the pastor sell programs and convey inside-the-walls news to members. Lay councils use communications to pass along financial news and fund-raising appeals to members.

To move forward, congregations need to address these challenges and recruit, train and support leaders who can function effectively in a context marked by volatility, unpredictability, complexity and ambiguity. This will mean working in partnership with the clergy, and not in opposition to them, and accepting their need for training and accountability.

Like any organization, churches tend to depend on effective leadership. Without effective leaders, churches are unable to make necessary decisions, to deal with changing situations, to hire effective staff, to allocate resources, to deal with conflict, and to prevent bullies from hurting constituents.

  [In “Forward to the Basics,” we are taking a fresh look at best practices in the critical areas of church life. This week: Membership Development.] Any church can grow. Any church can have a lively community. …

Forget going “back to the basics.” Time never goes backward. Instead, let’s go “forward to the basics.”

Specifically, let’s spend the next few weeks grounding ourselves in the basic “best practices” that, if implemented, will help your congregation to become healthy, to grow in mission, ministry and membership, and to do God’s desired work of transforming lives.

A stronger progressive voice is emerging. It is starting to push back against the determined and thus far successful efforts of right-wing Christians to claim the “Christian franchise.” Our nation needs a full array of voices speaking what they perceive to be God’s truth.

I want to declare a “Christmas truce” in the growing chorus of worry about churches, complaining about churches, wishing that churches could get with modernity, and all the lamenting and fussing and blaming and bickering.

Statistics often create as much fog and distortion as clarity and accuracy. But sometimes salient stats leap off the page.

We should train people to be good stewards. Train them in the Biblical tithe, for example. Train them to give without expecting to control spending. Train them to give to God, in gratitude for God’s blessings, not to the budget.

The sound track of faith always matters, but never more so than during the period between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. This month expresses through music much of what we hold to be true.

It’s that time of year. Caution and survival-thinking square off with boldness and progress-thinking.

The time, of course, is money time. Stewardship campaigns are in full swing. At the very time when Bible readings, sermons and liturgies compel us to anticipate God’s new things and God’s dramatic entry into human history, we tally up the pledges and double-down on old things and “realistic assessments” of what is possible.

There is, however, one more custodial duty that church leaders must take seriously – more seriously, in my opinion, than many do. That is custodianship of the congregation’s narrative. By narrative I mean the story by which the congregation is known, the values intrinsic to that story, and ways this story either attracts or repels other people.

Earlier this week, the Pew Research Center issued its 2014 study of the religious landscape. Headlines blared: “Americans reject religion.” Hand-wringing ensued.

The report itself was far more nuanced than that. It said Americans are turning away from religious practices grounded in family heritage or group affiliation. But overall, especially as they pursue faith as individuals, people are more spiritually active than ever. They pray, read Scripture, participate in small faith communities, and look for ways to serve.

What “smells,” as it were, is a steep drop in those who describe themselves as “religiously affiliated,” to 77% in 2014 from 83% in 2007. Also down is belief in God with “absolute certainty.”

The labels “Nones” and “Dones” miss the point. People who aren’t in churches on Sunday aren’t saying No to God, No to Faith, or even No to Church.

Any human enterprise can succeed or fail. Silicon Valley startups, marriages, mall stores, schools, and churches — there are no guarantees, no reliable formulas, no ideal preparation.

The recipe for failure tends to be predictable. Conditions change, but for reasons ranging from sloth to distraction to inadequate resources, leaders don’t change with them. Early success teaches the wrong lessons. Leaders dread failure more than they want to learn from it. Worthy ideas implode from lack of support, while bad ideas develop loyal followings.

“Two-Lane Theology” answers the question: If I took a slow drive across the US and looked for God along the way, what would I see? Don’t pretend to be John Steinbeck “searching for America.” Just be myself, meandering some days, stopping here and there, going random. All in a fresh search for God.

If not Sunday worship, then what?

As Sunday morning loses its hold on churchgoers and potential churchgoers, what comes next? How do faith communities nurture relationships? How do people draw closer to God? How can we engage the world outside our doors if opening the doors on Sunday isn’t enough?

How can I consider myself a member of this congregation if I don’t participate in the main thing they do?

It’s a good question, and many Christians are asking it. As Diana Butler Bass points out in an insightful interview with Deseret News, more and more believers are pursuing their relationships with God “away from church.”

Want some advice on how to grow your church? Hire a communications director. Yes, you heard that right. A communications director. Not an additional pastor, not an education director or another musician. But a professional communicator to …

“Innovation in ministry” is a recurring theme, one that I first began hearing forty years ago when I entered seminary. Even then, just 10 years into the precipitous and ongoing decline in mainline churches, it was clear …

… as many church leaders know too well, innovation can become threatening. Powerful constituencies push back, and things that manifestly need to be rethought take on a non-negotiable, do-not-mess aura.

I want to make a basic point about Spiritual Development. But first I need to file two disclaimers: Spiritual Development isn’t an exact science and there is no one single path …

If church leaders want people to “buy” their “goods and services’ — come to worship, take a class, engage with the community, grow in faith, serve God — they can’t just open the door on Sunday or send out a weekly newsletter stuffed with announcements. They need to do solid marketing. They need to do the basics as outlined above: catch people’s attention, explain offerings, present opportunities to engage, lead people to various forms of participation, form relationships, provide customer service.

You’ve heard it many times: “Experience is the best teacher.” And its corollary, “Failure is a better teacher than success.” Makes sense, but what does it actually mean for church leaders? Here are six keys to learning from experience.

The S curve — shows what happens as a new idea takes hold, or a compelling vision, or fresh leadership, or a new mission thrust. If the idea or vision has legs, it will start slowly, then gather momentum as people buy into it and become excited by it. This new vision captures many imaginations. It puts into action the deepest values of the organization — in this case, a congregation.

People connect with you on a spectrum, ranging from minimal awareness to deep engagement. Connecting with a church is a complicated process that requires multiple pathways, rather than a simple but misleading distinction between member and non-member (or “unchurched”).

It is time for congregations to develop protocols for responding to hate initiatives on their doorsteps. As the intolerant lose any self-discipline in lashing out at others, we can expect a fresh round of cross-burnings, gay-bashing graffiti, and online vitriol.

The “face” of a congregation needs to be its key leader, not its handsome edifice. Prospects will ask whether they can trust the leader and find his or her message inspiring. They won’t ask what the congregation did fifty years ago or why the liturgical space is the way it is.

Social media will put the pastor out front. Instead of trying to reach people through a traditional church newsletter describing institutional activities, the pastor will be posting, blogging and writing essays — on many subjects, but in the consistent voice of the author and focused on the reader’s needs and interests, not on the church as institution.