Church Strategy

Have you ever had a “Holy Hangover?” “What is it?” you ask? Well, it’s a numb euphoria mixed with exhaustion and shepherding stress. For years, as a senior pastor, I used to hate Easter. Part of it was because every year our church would experience record lows in attendance on Easter – partly because 70%…

As many of you know, Substance is always trying to test the boundaries of church.  Over the years I’ve always been testing a new hypothesis… like:  How large can we grow our church without having offices?  Turns out that our number was 1700!  Of course I’m not saying we’re “wise” to experiment as we do. …

We have some exciting news to share.  Substance is going to be launching a brand new campus coming up this August.  For some of you this doesn’t come as much of a shock.  After all we keep setting new attendance records at each of our locations.  But, as we announce this joyful expansion, I thought…

People at Substance are always asking me:  “Peter, where did you fly this last week?”  And I love to talk about it because:  Much of the coolest ministry that Substance does happens outside of the Twin Cities.  And even though this fruit isn’t as visible as the stuff that happens locally, it’s nonetheless powerful to…

Verve, the youth ministry of Substance, just had their kick-off.  And man: it was off the hook!  We had record attendance of young people.  Our very own Dj Cousins mixed the event.  And Pastor Nick threw down God’s word in a way that only he could. (I love that guy). And by the way… Nick…

“Oh no you didn’t.”  Oh yes we did!   Substance just finished it’s very first vision and financial update magazine. I realize that it might not be that exciting to you. But it’s just that most churches give such small reports (thus, nobody cares).  Or just as sad, many churches give out these complicated profit and loss…

  Whenever we get a shout out from a national or regional publication I love to give you guys a peek.  Well this month we got a cool little feature in Charisma magazine as being a “Trendsetting Church” (April 2010).   So hats off to all you wonderful leaders at Substance… after all, you guys are…

    People thought I was crazy for naming our church Substance.  (And I’ll admit, I am a bit crazy! )  But people will certainly say we’re crazy for doing a four-part series on Hell during the Easter season.  “Seriously,” one member asked, “are you really doing a hell series during the highest visitor time…

What a crazy few months it’s been at Substance!  Even though the staff and I are tired, it suffices to say that we’re also refreshed by all of the fruit we’re seeing.  Church: I’ve never seen so many radical conversions in my life.  Almost every week we’ve gotten a pretty radical God-story coming out of…

I’m in Switzerland right now, hanging out at a hotel in Zurich.  What a beautiful city this is.  In case you’re wondering why I’m here, I was lucky enough to be invited to help out with two different John Maxwell Equip conferences.  In addition, I got to preach at a delightful church and lecture on…