Our church is looking to retire its mortgage debt as well as raising some funds for a new projection system. Has anyone recently been successful at this? What approach did you use to inspire your congregation to open their pocketbooks?

In our area right now, it is a big problem that when people get to their early twenties, many of them leave the church where they've spent their entire lives and go to another church. For us it seems that people are just going to another church because everyone else goes to that church. What really kills me is that around here, this "cool" church is actually a "non-denominational" Baptist church. In order to participate in ministry there, these folks must be re-baptized, since this church does not recognized infant baptism. To try to combat this problem, we are starting a Young Adult ministry...

I just recently went from a very urban area doing ministry to a more rural area. I'm looking for some good book ideas for doing rural ministry. Suggestions please?

Curious how people run their story hour programs while moms meet for coffee break. I have used the crc curriculum since I started four years ago but find it's getting a little old. Any possibilities of it being revamped soon? I love this minisitry and have sooo much fun with my kids.

Hi folks, Our church, together with a couple others in our area, are beginning to plan a "coming home" prayer service. The main impetus for this is that a young person in our congregation ran away from home over the summer, and her parents still can't find her. So, the service is first of all a time to come together to pray for this family, and to pray that this teenager would come home. But we also decided to expand the service to include prayer for people we love who need to "come home" in other ways, too: those who have strayed from the faith, those who are in estranged relationships, etc...

Over the last couple of months several people have asked me, "Do you know of some Christian Reformed Churches that would be considered 'Houses of Prayer' or 'Churches Dedicated to Prayer?'" I know a few, but since my knowledge of every individual congregation is limited, I am sure there are numerous churches with a vibrant commitment to prayer and prayer ministry I am not aware of. Do you consider your church a praying church? Are there other models of praying churches in your area, classis, region that could serve as encouragement to churches beginning to intentionally prioritize prayer...

One of the goals for our church in this coming year is to have a prayer retreat. I led one a couple of years ago, but I'd like to hear what other churches have done. If your church has had a prayer retreat what was the format? Was it one day or a weekend? Was it on your church campus or off site? What did you use for materials? Any other thoughts or suggestions? Thank you for sharing. Steve Nyenhuis

I was just wondering, what formats people use/like in preaching. I tend to do sermon series lasting roughly 3-5 Sundays each on a topic or section of the Bible. what about you? Do you do any of these? Or, do you like listening to sermon series or not?

A couple of the tasks in my job description are, "Develop and implement a process for identifying and developing members gifts, talents, and passions for ministry" and "Assist with finding gifted members to join in the ministries." My guess is that other Ministry Coordinators probably have similar tasks in their own job descriptions. I was able to get a great head start on some ideas for teaching about spiritual gifts from somone I connected with here on the network (Thanks, Denise!) but I was curious what other ideas might be out there for this aspect of ministry. What have you found...