Why should you host a staff retreat? As we once heard Mark Batterson say, “Change of pace and change of place, can give you a change of perspective.” Retreats are an opportunity to lift your people up and give them an opportunity to rest, while inviting them to see the bigger picture, escape their endless to-do lists, and reconnect with each other. It’s a chance to gather together, as a team, and say, “Let’s remember what this is really about.”

It’s easy for your church to lose momentum in the summer, when schedules shift and people are on vacation. So today, we’ll cover some ideas to help you regain momentum during the warmer months. Along the way, you’ll discover some ideas that will help you be intentional about the content you’re preaching, as you think through how you want to build into your core families.

All these summer-perfect sermon series are on Ministry Pass and available for our members!

As a pastor or leader at a small church, it’s easy to feel like a lot of the church roles fall on you. Small church pastors often have to wear more hats than pastors at larger churches. Here are six steps as you build a preaching team at your church.

Since neither of us have ever planted a church we reached out to our church-planter friends and asked for tips. Here are 7 that kept coming up over and over.

If you aren’t careful, communication within your church’s team can spread all over. If you want to keep it organized and efficient, even while you’re working remotely, this is the episode for you!

It’s hard to effectively minister and connect with students while administrative and preparation work can literally be a full-time job. So, to make your load lighter, here are seven ways student pastors can use Ministry Pass.

Mother’s Day is one of your church’s most-visited Sundays of the year. After all, moms want their kids to go to church with them! Here are some helpful ideas to help you make the most of the day.

Bigger isn’t necessarily better, but oftentimes larger churches have systems and operating principles in place that allow them to lead and disciple more effectively. So let’s talk about that! What do the majority of bigger churches do that smaller churches struggle with?

When we put all our eggs in the Easter basket, we do a disservice to our community. Consider your ministry from a holistic perspective: overall, you don’t want people to come for just one day. You want them to come back, become part of your community, and be discipled. So today, we’re going to give you some ideas for how to get people to take that next step.

You want to tell the Easter story well. You want to help people fully grasp the excitement, meaning, and beauty of Jesus’ resurrection. To do that, you can’t be using the same old sermon illustrations. In this article, we’ll be covering 7 ideas that you can use this year to bring your Easter sermon to life:

Today, we’re revealing a project that’s been six years in the making. What is it, you might ask?  It’s called The Preacher’s Handbook, and it just might be your new favorite thing.

Whether a young married couple is sitting in your pews or watching your live stream, they’re trying to engage with your church and, more importantly, with the gospel. Here are our best tips for preaching to in-person and online audiences at the same time.

Maybe we’re just naturally optimistic, but things seem to be looking up. And while no one knows what the future will hold, it seems likely that this year will be bigger than last Easter. So here are some ideas to help get more people in the door, and make it a celebration.

It probably comes as no surprise that Easter is one of the highest weekends for church attendance. But many of the additional people who attend churches on Easter don’t come back the following week. Here are five ways to get Easter attendees to return to your church.

Today, we’re going to take you behind-the-scenes to see how we develop sermon series for the Ministry Pass website.  We hope it’s helpful for you as you use our materials- but honestly, you could use this process to create your own series!

In today’s episode, we’re highlighting 11 of our very favorite options to point you in the right direction! As we do, we’ll explain the main thought & design process behind each to help you pick the best fit.

In this post, you’ll learn why you should preach an Easter series, the history of Easter, sermon ideas from Ministry Pass and other churches, tips on preparing and promoting your Easter series, and much more.

One of our favorite responses we’ve ever heard to this question comes from a comment on Facebook from Pastor Tracy: “A preacher was complaining about needing so much time to prepare sermons. A friend told him to stop trying so hard and just listen to the Holy Spirit speak. So the pastor decided one week that he would try that. And sure enough, when he got up to preach that Sunday, the Holy Spirit spoke to him and said, ‘Son, you’re not prepared.’”

With libraries of sermon series, including sermons for specific seasons, sermons for youth groups, sermons for the New Year, and more, Ministry Pass helps pastors with countless hours of Sunday morning preparation. But did you know that Ministry Pass is helpful to pastors even outside of Sunday mornings? In addition to Sunday morning services, here are seven ways pastors are using Ministry Pass to grow their churches, reach more people, and help their congregation members grow stronger in their faith.

We live in a world that changes quickly and without warning. That’s why it’s so important to reach people where they are, to be present in the middle of their everyday lives.

We believe having an effective social media strategy is a game-changer for your church. Today, we’ll be discussing 9 tips for connecting more effectively with your people online.

Best Practices for Leading Online Small Groups Read More https://youtu.be/NR0K9vgO07g Leading a small group online can be really hard and different than in person.  So whether you’re a pastor trying to equip your small group leaders, or a small group leader yourself, here are some best practices to keep your groups healthy when everything is…

Preaching through the Bible in a year is something many pastors would love to do, but the preparation can often be very time-consuming. We don’t think it has to be. In fact, it’s easier than you might think.

If you want to achieve something significant- like lifting a lot of weight- it takes time and planning. The same is true with rest. If you want to be well-rested, it’s not going to happen on its own. You need to plan for it. Here’s how to do that.

The Best Moments of Hello Church! 2020 Read More Welcome to the last episode of Hello Church for this year!  But instead of ending this season finale on a cliffhanger, we’re going to go out on a high note & share some of our favorite moments from the year.  We’ll be back in 2021.  Until…

We’ve got six great New Years’ sermon series ideas for you — plus a sermon series we created with Mark Batterson that you can download for free! Mark is coming out with a new book called Win the Day: 7 Daily Habits to Help You Stress Less and Accomplish More. The free sermon series will release on December 29 (the same day as the book launch).

The 7 Best Christmas Sermon Illustrations to Grab Their Attention Read More https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwdevMavhl8&feature=youtu.be Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, but it can be difficult to come up with fresh sermon illustrations every single year.  This season, instead of dressing up as Santa for the 5th year in a row, or telling that…

End 2020 Strong with These Sermon Series Ideas Read More It may feel like you’re limping from 2020 to 2021, but you don’t have to!  Our goal with this episode is to help you gain momentum during this season, so you’ll be ready to soar when the new year arrives.   As part of that, we’re…

The Christmas Marketing Blueprint You Need NOW Read More https://youtu.be/RP2TMILFxU4 In today’s episode, we’re going to be walking through our Christmas Marketing Blueprint.  The beauty of this plan is that it can apply to any event you want to do- Easter, Christmas, etc.  It’s just a framework for marketing that’s really easy to follow.   Ultimately,…

How to Regain Momentum in Your Preaching with Sermon Calendars Read More Do you feel like you’re stuck?  Are you in survival mode?  If you’re ready to stop feeling like you can’t make forward progress with your preaching and discipleship at your church, this episode is for you! If you feel like 2020 has lasted…

How to Increase Generosity at Your Church Read More A lot of times, when we think about generosity, we’re thinking about how we can get more people to give to our church.  Let’s think bigger than that: how do you get your people to become more generous, in general?   The best time to start developing…

Building Trust with Your Congregation Read More Welcome to the 30th episode of the Hello Church Podcast!  Today, we’re going to be discussing a big question:  How do you get first-time guests to show up, stay engaged, and keep showing up? The quick answer?  It all boils down to one thing- building trust. Building trust…