Geoff Surratt
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Why real men (and women) run away
In almost every village and town in Italy you will find an ancient tower. Some are quite ornate like the bell tower next to the duomo in Florence, some are beautiful but flawed like the leaning tower of Pisa, most are plain like the one pictured above in San Gimignano. Many have bells or clocks,…
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58 Things I’ve Learned in 58 Years
Yesterday marked my 58th solar lap so I thought I’d update my sort of annual list of things I’ve learned so far. This time, however, I started from scratch so a lot of the list is new. Some is repeated because, honestly, I can’t remember what I wrote before. Without further ado (whatever that is)…
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Beth Moore: Please don’t go home
One night almost ninety years ago two ladies stepped onto an improvised stage in a wheat field in western Oklahoma and began to preach the Gospel. They had never heard of John MacArthur or Beth Moore; they simply knew that their lives had been changed by the Good News, and they wanted to share what…
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Critics: You can’t live with them, you can’t shoot them (Can you?)
You can spot them coming from across the lobby. Something happened at church and they are not pleased. It was too hot, too loud, too long, too shallow or too “not they way they did it at my last church.” And you know they are the tip of the iceberg. On Monday morning the signed…
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Stop counting attendance and start counting care
For the past 30 years the primary indicator of health in churches is weekend attendance. We know that “healthy things grow”, so obviously the faster our church grows the healthier it is. We celebrate the largest and fastest growing churches as the models we all want to emulate. When a new church plant explodes in…
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The end of multisite is near (sort of)
Its been almost 20 years since the idea of being one church in multiple locations hit my radar. Churches like Community Christian in Chicago, North Coast in San Diego and North Point in Atlanta were pioneering the idea of adding sites instead of seats, and we jumped on the bandwagon. In the ensuing years multisite…
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Why your church needs to be thinking 100 years down the road
Recently I heard the founder of Patagonia, Yvon Choulnard, describe a very difficult season in the early days of the company when growth outpaced revenue and they had to lay off some of the workers. This was incredibly difficult fo Choulnard because he tried to treat his employees like family. The turning point came when…
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Karaoke Worship, Cold Turkeys and Flop Sweat
The Sunday before Thanksgiving, 1993, I had the brilliant idea to have a turkey potluck at the small church we were pastoring outside of Houston. The church would provide the turkey and the congregation would bring the side dishes and desserts. We encouraged everyone to bring their friends, it would be a great outreach opportunity…
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Cheerleaders, kiddie pools and middle school accountants; how lead pastors can reach the next generation
Tomorrow morning at a ridiculously early hour I will head to The Orange Conference, a gathering of over 8000 NextGen leaders from all over the world. I have been attending or teaching at this conference for over a decade because I can’t think of a better way to invest than to sow into the people…
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A Day For Irrational Hope
The Saturday before Easter is traditionally a day of waiting, of mourning, of reflection; Holy Saturday. We picture the disciples huddled, hiding in Jerusalem, afraid and disillusioned. They had put their hope in the Galilean carpenter turned Rabbi; they had literally staked their lives on it, and now he’s dead and they are devastated. Holy…