Geoff Surratt
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Back to the Past: The Quick End of Innovation in the Church
About a year ago many of us were saying, “Church has changed forever, it will never be the same.” We adopted the word phyigital (which sounds like a restless physician’s ponytail to me) and we declared that we were now online churches with physical locations. About two weeks later everyone quit watching our online streams.…
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How can we heal as a church?
(This article originally appeared as a Facebook post) Following the 2020 election and the subsequent attack on the U.S. Capitol last week it is clear that the church in America is more divided than it’s been since the Civil War. Christians seem to be on every side of every issue, pointing fingers and calling names.…
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“Hey Pastor, you’re doing it wrong”, Everybody
What a crazy time to be a pastor. The only thing you can be absolutely sure of is no matter what you do, or don’t do, church people will tell you did the wrong thing. If you ask the church to abide by your state’s health orders you are bowing down to Caesar, if you…
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Disciple making gone horribly wrong
After a long day of ministry Jesus is exhausted. He desperately needs to get away from the crowds and rest, so he gets into a boat and tells his disciples to head to the other side of the lake. After a few minutes, the boat gently rocking as they cross the sea at sunset, Jesus…
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Pastors: Survivor, Reviver or Improvisor; which are you?
If you are a church leader the number one question right now is, “When and how do we resume in-person meetings?” While some churches never stopped meeting and several high-profile churches have already resumed, for most churches the pressure to get back to large gatherings is building. As we enter this new phase of the…
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Please don’t cut off your ear
I saw this post from a pastor this past weekend: “I’m wrestling through my significance as a pastor. I didn’t realize how much I relied on attendance numbers to tell me if I was winning in my job, or to give me a sense of significance. Now that I can’t accurately count numbers, I’m finding…
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What to do NOW as we enter Coronavirus Phase 2
Phase 1 of your church’s response to the coronavirus restrictions was insane!. In Phase 1 you had to figure out in the span of a few days how to do everything you do as a church without gathering outside of homes. It felt like you were inventing the airplane while you flew it. But you…
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What if everything we knew about church changed? What then?
Sundays feel weird. Normally Sundays are energizing, challenging and exhausting. On Sundays we get to do the things we are wired to do; preach, lead worship, teach kids, and connect with people we love. Now a typical Sunday consists of watching a pre-recorded service and making small talk in an online chat room. When we…
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Effective Online Church
How can we be effective when we can’t meet in a building? We are all in completely uncharted territory, the problems we faced as church leaders two weeks ago seem relatively simple now. One of the biggest challenges we are all facing is how to be the church when we can’t physically gather? In this…
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In praise of older leaders in plaid shirts
I recently heard a conference speaker lament the fact that the lead team at a majority of the churches she works with are older men in plaid shirts. She is not wrong. When I look at church websites I am always amazed at how little diversity there is at the top. Its almost always white…