Keep Moving Forward

What a long Sabbatical that was. Here's what has happened and a little bit of what you can expect. 

Here's Don and Natalie after seeing Sound of Freedom as they discuss why every church needs to watch this film. 

Hear what's in store for the upcoming season. We will focus on the Pastor Shortage.  We will have a panel discussing this issue already here. We will hear from pastors in the deep south, mid-west, from NAMB, and even state leaders.

A recent survey shows that nearly 130,000 people left Massachusetts in 2022. This will impact churches and is starting to in smaller churches. While this will help some nearby states, we consider why and why pastors, denominations, and networks should be concerned. 

Last week's promised episode is lost, so Don and his church got a preview of Jesus Revolution, and he gives his thoughts on the film. 

We break into our regularly scheduled episode to discuss the topic of the moment. 

Don and Natalie talk about why vetting is essential when having people called to ministry in our churches. 

How is the current financial crisis hurting churches? We look at this in a "lost" Practical Revitalization Podcast episode. 

Natalie is back and catching us up on things in ministry from the pastor's wife's point of view

New name and some other new things. We discuss why the name change and how that fits into church revitalization. Music by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/coma-media-24399569/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=11230">Coma-Media</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium...

Small church pastors in revitalization often look at what they perceive as healthier larger churches as being much better. However, the old saying goes that the grass isn't always greener. Today we look at the Grass is Greener Syndrome. 

In a Mashup episode, Don gives a warning about something that recently reared its ugly head in his life, as well as a preview for a future episode. 

It's been several months, but we are back. Don gives a very raw look at things and issues a plea for people to come to the Northeast and New England to help plant, replant, and revitalize churches here. Over the last several months, we have seen and heard of churches closing their doors, and we see pockets of areas with large populations and no churches being sent to start. 

Don gives a heart-to-heart about his mindset and what's in store for the podcast.

In the last few months, popular pastors have submitted to their elders in church discipline. Don discusses how these two instances show how this works, how we should react, and what we can and should do. 

Don gets back from a New Hampshire vacation to give some things going on for the future of the podcast

Don gives an update as to why no new podcasts recently and also asks you to pray for him and his wife with future decisions. 

From Legacy Church archives. 

In any church we often hear people quote a theologian or scholar on a particular subject of the Bible. This is an acceptable help often in getting the point across. However, when we see people quote these men more often than the Bible or on equal footing, we have to question if the person really knows their Bible. Do they idolize the theologian/scholar too much? Do they even know how to study thei...

A brief talk about what many are seeing in the lives of the church as many churches close

looking at the recent SBC report and why both sides need to find balance and understand that there is good and bad from both sides of the argument in the debate. 

Natalie takes the lead talking about her recent time away and what she was studying and how we must be practicing this in our revitalizations. 

As observed by Aldag and Fuller (1993), the groupthink phenomenon seems to rest on a set of unstated and generally restrictive assumptions: The purpose of group problem solving is mainly to improve decision qualityGroup problem solving is considered a rational process. Benefits of group problem solving:variety of perspectivesmore information about possible alternativesbetter decision reliabilityda...

Taken from the Wiki Irving Janis identified three antecedent conditions to groupthink:: High group cohesiveness: Cohesiveness is the main factor that leads to groupthink. Groups that lack cohesiveness can of course make bad decisions, but they do not experience groupthink. In a cohesive group, members avoid speaking out against decisions, avoid arguing with others and work towards maintaining frie...

Type I: Overestimations of the group — its power and morality Illusions of invulnerability create excessive optimism and encourage risk-taking. Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causes members to ignore the consequences of their actions. Type II: Closed-mindedness Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group's assumptions. Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as...