Karl Vaters interviews Matt Lucas about starting your congregation on the road to spiritual maturity through increasing their Bible reading. Specifically, how reading the Bible at least four times a week is so powerful, it's been called "The Power of Four."

Matt is the CEO of Our Daily Bread (known for their quarterly devotionals) and The Center for Bible Engagement.

Karl and Matt talk about:

• What is The Power of Four?
• Why does reading the Bible 4+ times a week make such a difference in spiritual maturity?
• The importance of reading and hearing the Bible in church
• Helpful ways to gauge spiritual maturity
• How to use Power of Four to help a congregation become more mature

Links:

• Bible Engagement: A Key to Spiritual Growth
• Center for Bible Engagement
• A Non Anxious Presence by Mark Sayers
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A Congregational Survey to Help Track Your Congregation’s Spiritual Maturity, with Matt Lucas

How do you know if your congregation is maturing? Tracking church attendance is not enough.

Matt Lucas and the team at Our Daily Bread are creating a powerful new tool to help pastors and their congregations.

In this Bonus Material, Karl Vaters talks with Matt as he shows us this new tool, explaining what it will do, how easy it will be, and how you’ll be able to use it to lead your congregation well.

Retirement isn’t what it used to be. In the U.S. military, retirement is mandatory at 62 years of age, but U.S. Army Garrison Chaplain (MAJ) Lisa A. Northway is an exception to that. Lisa, who’s currently stationed in Fort Sill, OK, has been called the “Grandma Moses” of the Army Chaplaincy. She recently received permission to extend her chaplaincy for a few more years.

In this podcast, Karl Vaters talks with Lisa about how to have vibrant ministry past retirement age, including

• The value of long-term experience in today’s ministry environment
• How to pace yourself for the long-term
• How not to block the way for younger ministers
• How to mentor younger ministers

Links from this Episode:

• Elizabeth Fulgaro's Eagles Nest
• Book: The Fantasy Fallacy by Shannon Ethridge
• Book: Unwanted by Jay Stringer
• Book: The Awakened Brain by Dr. Lisa Miller

Bonus Content

Navigating the Challenges of Being a Woman In Ministry, with Lisa Northway

What roles does the Bible allow women to serve in the church? This is a hot-button topic, for sure. In this conversation, Karl Vaters talks with U.S. Army Garrison Chaplain Lisa Northway about the challenges she faces as a woman in ministry, and how to address those issues among the troops she serves.

Small churches aren’t a problem to fix, they’re a unique part of the body of Christ that has gifts we need to embrace.

Karl Vaters talks with Allen T. Stanton about the importance of embracing what’s right about small churches, not in spite of being small, but because they’re small, in a conversation based on the content of Allen's book, The Gift of Small: Embracing Your Church’s Vocation.

Some of the subjects they cover include:

• A new take on the “all growth is good growth” assumption, based on the fact that we live in a culture that is so economically driven
• Why small churches should be more nimble, but often are not
• The differences between a hierarchical leadership model and the Solar System Model
• The importance of the “Parking Lot meeting”
• The differences between regular and episodic volunteers

Links:

• The Gift of Small: Embracing Your Church’s Vocation
• Reclaiming Rural: Building Thriving Rural Congregations
• 211Counts.org
• University of the Ozarks

Four Practices to Help Your Small Church Stay Nimble, with Allen T. Stanton

Karl Vaters talks with Allen T. Stanton about the importance of:

• Acknowledging the places where small-membership churches are already good at change and where they already practice being adaptive and flexible.
• Remembering that not everything needs to change all the time.
• The looseness of small-church relational networks, rather than strict hierarchies and complicated bureaucracies.
• Understanding and appropriately managing the roles of individuals in the organization.