Josh Hunt's blog

There is a concept in real estate investment called "Other People's Money." I'd like to make an application in this article of that principle to how ANY church can provide training events for your church using other people's money. Here is how it works in real estate. Seller has a fixer-upper that he has listed for $100,000. He is hoping to get $90K and secretly is afraid he might have to settle for $80K. You offer full price: 100K, with the following conditions: The seller offers 100% owner financing. (This assumes the property is paid for.) The seller agrees to subordinate this loan to a bank to put a $20k first lien on the property to be used for repairs. The buyer agrees to a one year balloon payment when the property will be paid in full. (Of course, in the real world, it takes the lawyers 100 pages of legalese to communicate this agreement.) The buyer buys the property, takes the $20K from the bank,...

If you study writing, you will learn about two good (and opposite) ways of writing. The same ways can be applied to teaching. Article style: don't bury the lead. Good articles are written like an inverted pyramid, so that the most important things are first. If you only read the first two paragraphs, you get the gist. If you want more detail, keep reading. It is a good way to teach. Novel style. A good novel has a twist; it has a surprise ending. You keep this surprise buried. This too is a good way to teach. Test: which style is this article? Clearly the first. If you don't read any more, you get that there are two good and opposite ways to teach. Good communicators lean in one direction or the other, they don't try to do both. It you want more information, keep reading. What is the big idea? My life was forever marked by listening to the fine preaching of my friend Sam Shaw. He was my pastor for five years and is one of ...

It occurred to me several years ago that we know how to grow a church. If you don't know how, I could recommend a dozen or so books. Read them, and you will know how to grow a church. It is a well-documented, well-researched body of knowledge. We know how to grow a church. What we need to know more about is how to grow a group of churches--how to grow an Association, how to grow a State Convention, and how to grow a denomination. The sad reality is that many growing churches are growing while all the other churches in their area are declining, so that the area is not becoming any more Christian. I have a vague memory that I read a George Barna statistic that said there is not one single county in the United States where the percentage of the population that is church-going Christians is increasing. Not one. That is a problem. We know how to grow a church. What we desperately need to figure out is how to reach a people. Most growing ch...

I was profoundly aware of two things I didn't get while I was in seminary. (Of course, it is the things you don't know you don't know that will get you, but that is another topic.) One of them was eschatology. I was determined in my early years after graduating to close the gap doing some serious self-study into the topic. I had one serious limitation: I didn't have a particular bias going in. I can honestly say I was able to look at all the views in an even-handed way. I listened carefully to the arguments made by all sides with an open mind. It you really want to come to a conviction about eschatology, I suggest you do the opposite: decide early what you believe and only read people who agree with you. ;-) Here is an overview of the major views of the end times. Amillennialism This was the belief held by most of my seminary professors. (I graduated Southwestern in 1983.) Here is a description from http://en.wikipedia.org ...

I normally try to fill these articles with helpful information about how to teach and grow a class. This week, I'd like to invite you to consider that subscribing all your teachers to the Lesson Vault is the best $200 you will spend toward that goal. When you consider the amount of money your church spends on literature and other resources for you Sunday School, I know of no better place you could spend $200 than on the Lesson Vault. The Lesson Vault is your access to hundreds of online lessons. Three new lessons are added per week that correspond with three of Lifeway's outlines. I call theses lessons Good Questions and they have groups talking. If I were a Minister of Ed today, I would do what I did when I was on staff: I had these lessons printed every week and delivered to my teachers. The Sunday School tripled in ten years. Here are six benefits of getting an annual, church-wide subscription to The Lesson Vault. The Lesson Vault...

What a time to be alive! There is such great content out there. Such great resources, great curriculum, great Bible Studies, videos, books, web sites. Speaking of which, check out my new site at www.sundayschool.ning.com Last week I provided an overview of a great new resource called Regroup. If you missed that article, see www.joshunt.com/mail220.htm Townsend, Cloud and Donahue taught five marks of great groups: Care Safety Authenticity Grow Help As important as these are, I don't think they are the complete picture. Below are five more marks of great groups: This list assumes these groups are what could be called Basic Christian Communities. That is, they are microcosms of the church. They are basic Sunday School classes or home groups. There is nothing wrong with a group targeted toward some particular purpose like evangelism. But, all of us need to be in a Basic Christian Community--a micro-church. I...

What a time to be alive! I am constantly amazed at the number and quality of resources for churches. From training resources, to outreach resources, to music resources, to books to curriculum. Whatever our reasons for not taking our world for God, lack of quality resources is not one of them. I just ran across a great new resource that I thought you might like to know about. It is called Re-Group and is produced by Townsend and Cloud (authors of the best-selling book, Boundaries, as well as many others) and Bill Donahue (the small group guru for Willowcreek, and author of many books). This is a great resource for any group. If I were a Minister of Education today, I would ask every one of my groups about going through this training. Re-Group is made up of two DVDs. DVD #1 features four sessions that train your group on how to do group. This is not small group leader training; this is small group group training. This piece trains the group...