Josh Hunt's blog

Two words can transform the ho-hum atmosphere of a sleepy classroom: I disagree . I have seen it happen many times. The conversation is rocking along. The teacher is talking. People are nodding. Someone discreetly looks at their watch. It is not bad; it is just not the kind of thing anyone is going to talk about once they leave. Then, suddenly someone says the magic two words: "I disagree." "Respectfully, I disagree, teacher, I think. . ." Heads turn. People set down the bulletin that they had been looking through, skimming over announcements to see if they could find anything interesting. Attention is galvanized. What are they going to say? Disagree with what? I hadn't noticed anything I disagreed with. Is a fight going to break out? How do I feel about this? Effective teachers not only allow members to say, "I disagree." They encourage it. They elicit disagreement. They design the discussion in su...

If you lop off the head of a spider, it dies. It is a very centralized organization. If you cut off the leg of a starfish, it will grow a new leg, and the leg will grow a new starfish. It is a very decentralized organization. Question: what kind of organization is the church? What kind of organization should it be? Starfish style organizations are multiplying . . . AA is a starfish organization. No president. No leader. Or, more precisely, everyone is a leader. No one owns AA. No one has any idea how many members they have. Suffice it to say, a lot! Wikipedia Arguably the largest depository of information on the planet and it is all user created. You can edit the content yourself. Users decide what is included and what is not. Very decentralized. Napster --the old Napster before the feds got a hold of it--very decentralized. And, in various incarnations, the idea continues to thrive because of its decentralization. OpenOffice ....

How powerful one word can be. I was writing a lesson recently on Psalm 51. My attention was drawn to one word at the beginning of verse 13: Then. The question it raised in my mind was, "When?" When is "then"? It is obvious from the context that David did not consider it appropriate to teach transgressors Gods ways until then–until something else happened. He could not teach transgressors God’s ways now; he could only do it then. When is "then"? Verse 12: "Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me." When is "then"? When the joy of his salvation is restored. When he found the grace to be obedient to the command of God to rejoice in the Lord always. David recognized that it would be premature and ineffective to teach transgressors God’s ways if he had not found the grace to find joy in God. Only people who are happy in God effectively witness for ...

I work full-time encouraging churches to grow in a world where there is a huge industry encouraging churches to grow and, generally speaking, the Church is not growing I could never have made a living in the first century. There was no church growth industry in the first century. There were no Sunday School growth conferences and no church growth consultants. And the church was growing and growing rapidly. This is not to disparage the industry of encouraging churches to grow. It is my opinion that the church would be doing even worse if it were not for those who serve in encouraging churches to grow. But, it is my conviction that the great need of the hour is not better methods or means or Sunday Schools or visitation programs or Seeker Services. The problem does not fundamentally lie in methods and means. The problem is the way we perceive God and the message of the gospel. It is a cleverly disguised lie that I could say in any Sunday School class in America and get everyone there nod...

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...