Month: May 2016

Shaping the culture means putting in the big rocks first. Big rocks? Yeah, you remember the illustration. How do you get all these rocks and pebbles and sand and water in the jar at one time? You put in the

Shaping culture requires checking the homework. When you were a child you no doubt had school homework. Homework. The word itself can raise your blood pressure. Who wants homework? No one! But why do teachers assign homework anyway? The lesson

Assimilation? Assimilation to what? Assimilation by whom? New members to the church or the other way around? At a time when many churches get very few visitors and even fewer new members it is a wonderful thing to celebrate if

Shaping culture can be undermined by the unintended consequences of our behavior. Think about the aspiration to make disciples. Sometimes we hear ourselves express it this way: “We need more leaders.” Or in frustration we say, “no one wants to

My father had a lot of sayings that he repeated to my sister and me. One he repeatedly said was, “anything worth doing is worth doing well.” I got the “Gress culture” through his stories and sayings. What stories and sayings