19 Tuesday Aug 2014
Posted in 7SD, jeremy, jeremy mcgarity, pastor Jeremy, seven church
I do a lot of weddings. I am really thankful to be a part of someone’s BIG DAY! I love being around joy and weddings are always full of joy. Weddings are a BIG DEAL, and they are a BIG DEAL to God. I found this article by Marshal Segal to be a good one on why your wedding is still something worth wanting. The target audience is those who are single but anyone can get something out of the article.
http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/your-wedding-is-still-something-worth-wanting
31 Saturday May 2014
Posted in 7SD, Church, Church Leadership, God., jeremy, jeremy mcgarity, leadership, mcgarity, pastor Jeremy, patience, retreat, seven church, seven sd, sevensd church, Uncategorized
I’m currently attending the final residency phase of my Doctor of Ministry program and I’m working on my final Doctoral Project. I’ve been digging in to research on pastoral burnout and how it effects churches all across the nation. With 80-85% of churches declining or dying across America and with pastors leaving the ministry every day– there is a clear correlation between pastoral burnout and church decline . I’ve been shocked to read the latest research and find that last year over 1,700 pastors quit or were forced to leave the ministry every month…I’m gonna say that again…every month. That number is rising…
My project is focusing on the causes and correlations between burnout and decline in churches and the correlation between healthy pastors and healthy growing and multiplying churches. If we lose our leaders the research is showing we lose our churches. Since we trust Jesus’ words that his “yoke is easy and his burden light”
— what is causing such burnout among church leaders? So far, the research is that crushing expectations, no time off, always in “crisis mode”, wanting to please people and wanting to always be “On” and the pressure of putting together a good message for Sunday are all factors in burnout, moral failure and quitting amongst pastors in America. My goal is to help pastors and churches and find preventative methods and cures.
Here’s where you can help. If you know of a burned out pastor- either currently out of full time ministry or formerly burned out but back at it- please let me know by emailing me jeremy@7sd.org. I would like to interview pastors and leaders and draw some conclusions and provide some solutions.
Gracias and peace,
14 Tuesday Oct 2008
Posted in grow, seven church, small groups
We had our second small group session last night. Our small group is awesome. Here’s what we do. We record the first half hour of the Monday night football game and everyone meets at 6:00PM. We have food and watch the first half commercial free. We pause the game at half then do the Bible study. The Bible study is based off the message from the weekend service, discussion questions are printed on the notes each week. We pray for each other and then watch the second half commercial free.
We have a point system we’ve developed to add a little extra to the game. Prior to Monday night everybody emails their picks and we record the predictions like…1. who wins the coin toss, 2. 1st catch 3. 1st points 4. 1st Touchdown 5. score at end of each quarter 6. and score at the end of the game. 7. Who wins the game., etc. We are keeping a running tally and the winner will receive a MNF Bible Study trophy…and bragging rights for the rest of the year.
Small groups are vital in churches but I think especially in a new church. It really helps people get connected and put down roots and grow. God uses small groups to help each of us learn from others. And, when the group is doing the study based off the message from the weekend it helps everyone take the message deeper. Studies show that people forget 95% of what they hear within 72 hours…bummer for preachers when we take all week to prepare something people are only going to remember 5% of at best. So, this is another way to help people really “get” the message and take it to the next level.
30 Saturday Aug 2008
Posted in 7SD, Church, jeremy mcgarity, seven church, seven sd, wolf canyon
We had our walk through at Wolf Canyon and we are thrilled to report that it seems like a perfect facility for 7SD. We are having a Grand Opening Launch party for this new location on September 14. Tell your friends, neighbors, co-workers, fellow students, etc., come help us kick off and celebrate this new location.
06 Sunday Jul 2008
Posted in jeremy mcgarity, seven church, sevensd church
4th of July weekend for churches is hold your breath time and hope people show up…unfortunately…however we are very happy to report that we had a great start to July. 4th of July weekend was a win!! We finished up our mini-series called “Wasting Time with God.” Wesley Van Fleet did a great job of sharing his testimony and talking about how he puts God first by wasting time with Him.
What a great day. We were thrilled to see so many people at Seven SD. It is so strange in a new area of ministry to try to gauge the patterns, mainly because there are no patterns in a new church. So, when so many people showed up today, on a day that “normally” would be a low attendance day we couldn’t help but get a little giddy. We’re not fooling ourselves, there is much work to be done, we’ve far from “arrived.” There is so much I want to do and often I feel far behind where I want to be. But, it is encouraging to know we’re on the right track. I have been praying Matthew 9:37-38, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few, ask the Lord of the harvest to send the workers.” There are so many areas in our ministry where I can see God bringing someone to fill the void. We’re getting there, we’ve got a long ways to go, but today was one of those “wins”. New churches need wins, especially when there seems to be so many tough days.
I’m looking forward to next week as we start our brand new series “Tabloid Jesus”. We will continue to build on the momentum as summer heats up.
