Entries by Tony Cooke

Dealing With Change By Pastor Bob Yandian

God does not change—man does. Not only is change a part of everyone’s life, it is a necessary part. God never allowed any believer in the Bible to remain in one place for long. He kept each one moving for a great spiritual reason. After Elijah declared there would be no rain, God told him to move from the presence of King Ahab to the brook Cherith where he would be fed by ravens. When the brook dried up, he was told by God to go to Zerephath to be fed by a widow. … read more

An Excerpt from Daily Meditations George Brown

He will not modify His purposes to suit our unbelief. What madness to suppose that He will imitate us, and seeing that we make light of His faithfulness, make light of it Himself. Let God be true and every man a liar. God once declared His purpose of bringing a deluge upon the earth. Men would not believe the terrific word. The whole human race combined to rear up a wall of unbelief under the protection of which they thought themselves safe. … read more

The Cradle of Hope: Helping Women through Crisis Pregnancy by Peggy Knudsen

One of the outreaches for FCOC is a pregnancy resource Center. They were finding teenage pregnancy on the rise in their community with little or no help for the young mothers to make a sound decision for herself and the life of her unborn. Peggy has always had a passion for teenage pregnant moms, the unborn, and has a drive to make “Iowa the safest Place for the Unborn.” … read more

Recovering from Crushing Disappointment by Ray Almaguer

One of the ways the enemy tries to stop a church is through crushing disappointment. A few years ago our church experienced one. Our church is in Southern California. Our goal was to move into a new building. We launched a three year stewardship campaign, signed a lease on a vacant building with plans to buy it in the future, and spent over a year obtaining a zoning variance and conditional use permit from our city. We paid for an environmental impact study, and paid for two traffic impact studies. Engineers had to be paid to determine if we had the proper drainage off of the parking lot. … read more

Are We There Yet? Musings from a Corporate Marketer by Don Burns

You’ve probably experienced it many times. You spend weeks or months praying, thinking, and strategizing about the next great idea. Then you communicate the plan to your staff, core volunteers, and congregation. Then all the work goes into bringing the idea into a reality. However, when it’s over the results are not what you expected. I can feel your pain. You ask yourself questions like, “Where are the laborers?” and “What were they thinking?” … read more

A Cosmic Concert by Rev. Tony Cooke

Do you recall reading the verse in the book of Job about a time “when the morning stars sang together” and wondered what that might mean?  It may be that science is now helping to provide some insight on that verse.  This was spoken when God was confronting, challenging, and revealing Himself to Job (38:4-7). …read more

Consistency by David Beebe

Recent church history gives us an abundance of examples of men and women of God, anointed for ministry, who may or may not have been the greatest paradigm of Christian living. Some of the most anointed ministers lost their ministries, reputation, family, and influence because of a lack of personal, or ministerial, ethics. While many who stumbled were able to recover themselves and finish their course with joy, others simply ship-wrecked their purpose and calling. … read more

Connecting with your Staff by Pastor Dean Hawk

Whether you are a senior pastor, youth pastor, or ministry leader it is essential for you to connect with those who serve with you. At Rock Family Church we are intentional about building and developing quality relationships on our leadership teams. I have found the closer knit we are as a staff the more productive we are. Acts 2:42 gives us some practical insight. … read more

My Consecration as a Christian by John G. Lake

I, this day, consecrate my entire life to glorify my Heavenly Father by my obedience to the principles of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. All my effort from now on will be directed in an effort to demonstrate the righteousness of God in whatsoever I may be engaged. All the things earthly that I possess shall not be considered my own, but belonging to my Heavenly Father, and shall be held in trust by me to be used and directed by the wisdom of the Spirit of God, as the law of love of men as Christ loved them may dictate. … read more

Watch Out for “Christian Con Men” by James E. Guinn, CPA

Over the past few years, ministers and church members have become the targets of misguided and even unscrupulous investment promoters. Never have so many ministers and church members been involved in bad investments: savings accounts wiped out, children’s college funds dissipated, and retirement funds wasted. Ministers have even sold their homes to invest the equity in questionable investments. … read more

Computer Use Guidelines Your Staff Must Know by Attorney Dan Beirute

The Internet can be both a useful tool and a destructive force for a church. On one hand, the Internet allows churches to market inexpensively to potential churchgoers and to quickly and efficiently relay news and information to members and supporters. On the other hand, the Internet can bring lewd and inappropriate content into the church with a push of a button; allow for the immediate circulation of rumors and outright lies about the organization and its leadership … read more

Church Benevolence Policy by Richard D. Locke

One of the frequent questions we are asked from pastors and church administrators is how the church should record a love gift to an individual. It is not unusual for a church bookkeeper to call our office and relay a scenario similar to the following: “A guest speaker came to our church, and after the service, the pastor took him out and bought him a new suit. Can we record this as a benevolent gift?” … read more

Churches, Banks and Loans by Mark Helland

In the course of my work as a CPA, I perform financial statement audits and reviews for dozens of churches and ministries on an annual basis. Some of the churches that I work with are debt free, but most require some sort of outside financing for building programs, improvements and other equipment purchases. One thing that all of these churches with outside financing have in common is an ever-more difficult environment with their lenders. … read more

Church Security: The Costs of Security Negligence By Jeff Hawkins

Few things will motivate an organization to take action more than having a court order it to pay someone $1.6 million for lack of security and emergency plans. An interesting lawsuit was just settled in Maryland and it would be wise for all churches to view this very closely because, even though it wasn’t a church named in the lawsuit, it very well could have been. … read more

Strategic Church Planting by Pastor Douglas Crumbley

There has never been a time where the forces against the church are so strong or so well organized as now. We live in a world that is rapidly moving away from the knowledge of God. In America for example, the generation growing up now has less basic understanding of spiritual matters than any prior generation. With statistics showing that more people are being born again and discipled … read more

How One Church Impacted Its Community by Pastor John White

I had been praying about ways to get the people of our church activated in the growth and development of the church and to stir a fire in them for evangelism. When I presented this to my staff at a weekly staff meeting, we came up with the idea of a Pack The House Sunday we titled, “April 29 are you ready.” We committed finances to the campaign and bought a couple of billboards and several hundred small political-type signs you see in people’s yards and on the highways right-of-way. … read more

Christian TV’s All-Time Worst Fundraising Gimmicks by J. Lee Grady

Let’s stop the hypnotism, the guilt manipulation and the high-pressure gimmicks. It’s time to reclaim our lost credibility. Normally I’d rather go to the dentist for a root canal than watch a telethon. But while channel surfing a few nights ago I tuned into PBS and discovered that Aretha Franklin, the legendary Queen of Soul, was hosting a fundraiser for the network. Seated at a piano, she was offering a 5-CD collection of classic rhythm and blues hits in exchange for a donation to public television. … read more

A Couple Had Two Sons

Humor Section (cont) A couple had two sons, ages 8 and 10, who were very mischievous. These two were always getting into trouble and their parents knew that if any […]

What is Christian Counseling? by Dr. Dale Doty

The dictionary defines counseling as the active exchange of opinions or ideas, or the process of advising or giving guidance solicited from a knowledgeable person. The field of counseling today has a very mixed history. Counseling has been taking place for thousands of years. We know in ancient times from biblical history counseling was conducted by spiritual and religious leaders. … read more

Change Your Mind: Change Your Life! by John R. Carter

The human mind is a wonderful and fascinating gift from God. While the brain is the physical organ that houses and enables the mind to operate in the body, it is through a network called the central nervous system that the mind is able to make sense of the world. The central nervous system is an intricate network of communication that transmits, receives, and interprets billions of chemical and electrical signals, which are continuously flowing between the mind and the physical world around us. … read more

Charitable Contributions Alert! by Mark Helland

Over the past few years, we have seen a trend in the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) performing more audits and generally becoming much tougher in terms of its enforcement efforts—i.e. more audits, IRS notices, penalties, etc. Given the massive U.S. national debt, we fully expect this trend to continue into the future. One area where we have seen tougher enforcement, and expect to see ongoing tough standards, is in the area of documentation of charitable contributions.. … read more

A Call to Compassion—Watch it Connect You with Your Community by Jim Graff

A destitute woman. A sick and desperate mother. A prodigal son; these were the kind of people Jesus exercised continual compassion toward. After demonstrating his great compassion in every synagogue and village of Israel, Jesus did something else. He made it clear that he was calling His followers to live with this same compassion, bringing wholeness to every community in the world. … read more

Did You Just Call My Baby Ugly? by Joe Cala

One of the hardest things for any person to do is to open oneself to the opinions, criticism and feedback of others regarding their life, their products, their projects, ideas and their creations. As a pastor, minister, ministry CEO and church leader, many of the realities within the church are there because of you, your influence, your creativity, your sweat, your hard work, your time and sacrifice. You birthed these ideas, events and services into life. … read more

Your Born Identity by Marvin Yoder

Today, many Christians (and ministers) are experiencing identity issues for one reason or another. They don’t know who they are, they don’t know what to do, nor do they know where they belong. The past haunts them, the present is scary, and the future appears bleak and dismal. In 2002 Universal Pictures released a movie called The Bourne Identity, an American action thriller spy film starring Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, an amnesiac attempting to discover his true identity amidst a clandestine conspiracy within the Central Intelligence Agency. … read more