The guests showed up, but they never returned. Has that ever happened in your church? You try to be friendly to first-time guests. But you never see them again. At times you wonder why they never returned.

The email stung me. The writer spoke of my negativity about local churches, about how much of my writings are about problems in local congregations.

The young pastor, at least by my perspective, impressed me. Though only 34 years old, he had a maturity and wisdom about him that went beyond his chronological age.

Every year another two million American adults become less receptive to the gospel, and less receptive to churches.

I love hearing from pastors and other church staff about their honeymoons and the reasons they ended. Here are the top seven reasons I compiled from those conversations.

So what are pastors posting on social media that is raising the ire of church members? It typically falls into one or more of these five categories:

There are a lot of us Baby Boomer pastors and Christian leaders around. And it's cliché, but we aren't getting any younger. It's a quiet question that many are asking, but they are asking it nonetheless: What age should I retire?

In 1974 Burger King made a bold move to take market share from McDonald's. At the time, McDonald's made burgers en masse. If you wanted a special order, you had to wait interminably while it was cooked separately.

Preacher eater churches? I had never heard the term until I became a pastor.

Here are the most frequent comments we heard from church staff. These are ten ways pastors can be great bosses.

In the course of three decades, I have seen some pastors thrive and some pastors fail. And I have seen two common reasons for pastors failing.

How did these few churches go from near death to vibrant life? Here are their stories.

Compromising. We don't like that word. But compromising is indeed a necessary trait for leaders, even leaders in the local church. Allow me then to offer five basic principles of compromising for those who serve the local church.

Allow me to share some of the best responses I have heard from churches that have gone through this tragic time.

I wish I knew the specific reason most churches offered an 11:00 AM service on Sunday for decades.

I argue that churches that set lead metric goals for evangelism will actually see greater evangelistic fruit. Here are five reasons why:

I have noted on numerous occasions the incredible pace of change impacting churches. Another change is increasingly become more evident: how and when churches make land purchases. Here are six major shifts

A bully-led personnel committee ran Frank out of the church. They never told the pastor why they wanted him to resign. Jan was a very active layperson in the student ministry. A cartel of jealous church members pushed her out of the church.

Should a staff person become the interim preacher until the new pastor arrives?

You receive a vote of 72 percent. Should you go to that church?

Annual evaluation is commonplace in work, in school, and in life. A new year presents the opportunity for us to take a moment to evaluate where we are at the beginning of the year, where we want to be at the end of the year, and how we can get from A to B during the year.

What comes to your mind when you hear the word "Baptist"? That is the question I asked in the Twitterverse. And many responded ... quickly and frequently.

Words can kill churches because they often have deadly actions behind them. As we begin this new year, please allow me to share six statements that I have heard from church members whose churches have died.

Greeter ministries, like any other ministries, can get in a rut. And since we are about to greet a new year, let's have an honest conversation about how to begin a new year with some improvements in your greeter ministry.

For those who read my blog regularly, you know I do a "trends post" every year early in January. This next statement sounds totally immodest, but I'm pretty good at predictive trends.