Jeff's Musings

Rural and House Church Planters in NE Ohio – you are invited to be part of church planter training that targets what you are doing. No smoke and mirrors kind of stuff, but practical training on how to do church in your context. Best news is it is free and you will receive free books […]...

This is the one that was made before you even showed up. This is the one that sets the agenda, determines the goal and establishes the frame. The decision before the decision is the box. When you think outside the box, what you’re actually doing is questioning the decision before the decision....

Over the past several months I have had the opportunity to collaborate with John M. Bailey of NAMB on creating a church planting center (CPC) here in northeast Ohio.  What exactly is a CPC? Church Planting Centers are an environment where multiple diciples are intentionally selected, developed, and...

Today the Bridge Church leadership team  and I shared that I would be transitioning out of the role as Lead Pastor of Bridge Church in the coming weeks. This transition will take place as I follow and pursue an open door the Lord has put before me. In 1998 God began to move in my […]...

I was recently chided by a friend (Patrick) for not having any recent posts. Look for many coming up beginning Monday, June 28th....

Too often, it seems, this attitude is missing from teams, organizations or the community. It’s missing because people are quick to opt out of the ‘we’ part. “What do you mean, we?” they ask. It’s so easy to not be part of we, so easy to make it someone else’...

I have on several occassions made the comment that I believe that America is no longer a Christian nation. I based that comment and belief on the documented research of The Barna Group and The MIssional Research Center. Basically, we are a nation with a population of 300 million plus people and it i...

My spouse is the former Julie Ann Smeenge and we were married on May 25, 1981. For those of you suffering from math deficiency, that is almost twenty-nine years. We were just kids when we said the two words that we really didn’t understand then and sometimes still can’t comprehend today. I was n...

…are we stuck in High School? I had two brushes with higher education this week. The first was at a speech I gave in New York. There were several Harvard Business School students there, invited because of their interest in marketing and exceptional promise (that’s what I was told… ...

Have you noticed that common sense is not so common. It is actually a challenge to find people who have good old common sense. A lot of smart people are not too wise. They may be educated but they don’t have wisdom. They may have all kinds of degrees but they’re a wash out with relationships...