In session 3 of the 2018 Practical Church Conference, Paul Smith shares springboards off his story from the last episode to give some extremely practical tips for leading change in your church. View the episode page for the video version of this episode. https://practical.church/034

In session 2 of the 2018 Practical Church Conference, Paul Smith shares his story and the story of Rivertown Community Church – and gives some practical tips for leading change in your church, starting with yourself. View the episode page for the video version of this episode. https://practical.church/033

In session 1 of the 2018 Practical Church Conference, Chris Goeppner gives some practical tips for leading change in your church.

Wess Stafford understood the cruel effects of poverty from a very young, as he helped bury many of the friends he grew up with in a small town of Africa. On this episode, Wess shares his story and why he believes it is crucial we prioritize children in our ministry.

Co-author of the book God & Money, John Cortines was earning six figures as a petroleum engineer for a major oil company in Louisiana. As a lifelong Christian, John tithed regularly. But he didn’t give much thought to the intersection of faith and money until 2014 when, in the rather unlikely setting of Harvard Business School, he began a searching exploration of these spiritual questions. John believes that God calls Christians to a far more radical task than building wealth. He calls them to give abundantly, and to lay aside their tendencies to become spenders or savers.

Learn More at generousgiving.org

Online Giving, Child Check-Ins, Membership Databases, Service Planning… does organizing all these thing have you feeling overwhelmed? Are things getting complicated using multiple platforms to manage each part of your church. Chris and Matt have a conversation about how Riverbank Church has simplified all their process into a single platform!

No Reserves. No Retreats. No Regrets. This is the driving vision behind Life Church Michigan in their pursuit to reach those who are far from Christ. But in order to truly understand that passion, you need to hear the story that lead Jonathan Herron to plant the church in 2013. In this episode, we have a conversation about how to keep your passion for the ministry that God has your leading.

Dylan Nicholas is the operations pastor at Riverbank Church, and has a passion for creating excellent experiences in the Church. In this episode, we have a conversation about how to take even the strangest meeting spaces and use them in an excellent way!

Andreas, together with his wife Lina, are the Lead Pastors of Hillsong Church Stockholm. He has spent over 15 years within church leadership and firmly believes in the call of the local church, for it to be a place where people can find hope and answers in life. In this episode, we have a conversation about preparing to creating moments in worship where people can uniquely encounter God.

Feel like you’re struggling to fulfill the Matthew 28 command of Jesus to make disciples? In this special episode of the Practical Church Podcast, Chris and Jeremiah have a conversation in front of a live audience at GO Conference 2018 about how we can practically approach “making disciples” in this day and age.

Author of the book “Impact One”, Zenzo Matoga is a church planter and missionary from his home of Malawi, Africa. Zenzo has a burning passion for reaching those around us who don’t know Jesus, and on this episode he shares some practical tips of how to do so.

Easter is a great opportunity to reach more people than you would any other day of the year! What are you doing to make the most of it? Chris & Jeremiah give some practical tips on preparing and executing your Easter services.

Ministry can’t be done alone. Chris has a conversation with one of his longest time friends about building and maintaining crucial friendships.

There are 2 times each year that serve as the greatest opportunities to invite people to church. Christmas is one of those times. We talk about how to make the most out of this opportunity with your Christmas experience!

There is nothing worse than experiencing a health failure, especially in the early stages of a church start. But that’s exactly what Dave Carroll faced shortly after planting Elevation Church in Billings, Montana.

An eye opening short term trip to Mexico lead Mark Pelingra and his family on mission to help save children from poverty in the best way that he could. That searching lead him to Compassion International, an amazing incredible organization releasing children from poverty in Jesus name. Mark explains why relationships are the key to church community participation in missions.

We often separate physical fitness and spiritual fitness as 2 different things, but perhaps taking care of our body is more spiritual than we realize. Deryck Frye, lead pastor of Connect Community Church, shares his very personal story and reason for staying fit, and gives some practical tips of how to make it a more intentional and necessary discipline in your life.

It’s often said that ministry is not a job, it’s a calling. Matt Burge shares how he made the transition from a high level corporate job into the full time call of executive pastor at Riverbank Church!

Authenticity is a buzzword around the Church… but what does it really mean to truly be yourself? We have a conversation about the importance of true authenticity in leadership.

Taking time away from ministry is an important piece to avoiding burnout. Pastor Chris talks about his recent “sabbatical” and the effects it’s had on both him and the church.

Many older and traditional churches are suffering from being tied to tightly the past and disconnected from the now. Rivertown Community Church is an incredible example of a church transitioning into the 21st century.

Among many other things, Bob Russell is a lead pastor and an accomplished author. His most recent book “After 50 Years of Ministry: 7 Things I Would Do the Same and 7 Things I Would Do Differently” was released in summer of 2016. Bob has a real honest conversation with us about some things he’s learned, and what he would do differently.

In this episode, we listen to a piece of the second session of the 2017 Practical.Church conference where Pastor Chris teaches how to maximize the opportunity of your weekend experience and preach the clear, simple gospel each and every week.

In this episode, we listen to a piece of the first session of the 2017 Practical.Church conference – where Pastor Chris teaches about creating a “Come & See” culture of inviting.

Mentoring is pretty much a core mandate of Jesus. In this episode, we have a conversation about how to better engage in life changing, effective mentoring.

You Meet WHERE? We have a conversation with pastor Tim Owens about being resourceful, flexible and down right scrappy when it comes to creating a worshipful environment.

What exactly is the Practical.Church Conference? We explain it here. Register now at https://practical.church/conference – We hope to see you there!

Each week people will attend or participate in some sort of activity at your church. Do you make the most of it? We discuss the urgency of not just talking about the Gospel, but actually engaging in a rescue mission, preaching the Gospel, AND giving a clear response!

We live in a fast paced world and the church can be no exception. How can we engage our community in practical ways?

Multisite church is not going away, and it has proved to be a great opportunity to reach people far from God. We have a conversation with Joshua Gagnon discussing the current trends, and look at the practical future of growing a life giving church. You can find the show notes for this episode at practical.church/005

Matt Chewning of Netcast Church in Beverly, MA talks about making the most of an odd or old space for your ministry meeting space. Practical tips for making the old, crusty, weird and almost impossible possible!

Message Prep – It’s doesn’t have to be complicated! No matter what your teaching or preaching role, its important to have a practical, sustainable calendar plan and study structure. Pastor Chris Goeppner gives us his practical tips and tactics to being a true message prep assassin.

A former Student Pastor at Newspring Church; Sandy Gibbes has taken his degree in Architectural Design and used it to help over 100 churches through the process of facility design and construction. Sandy tells us the mistakes he sees many churches making when it comes to planning to build, and gives us the best practical tips to consider when building or repurposing your church space.

Welcome to the Practical Church podcast! This episode is an introduction to the podcast and why it exists. Pastor Chris Goeppner tells the story of Riverbank Church and explains the importance of being practical with resources and opportunities.