Tag: church

Best Business Practices for Churches and Small Religious Organizations

man in white t shirt and white pants standing beside white van
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A single-day seminar on how church and other small religious organizations can improve their strategies, operations, and fundraising.

By Mark D. Harris

Welcome! The team at the MD Harris Institute is glad that you have chosen to attend. We are thankful that President Khmyz and his team at the Kyiv Theological Seminary arranged this seminar to help Christian leaders throughout the region improve their business and fundraising practices. The information here will improve how these leaders acquire, use, and increase the resources that God provides.

The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church of Jesus Christ (Matthew 16:17-19). No nation, no matter how powerful, populous, or prosperous, can stand against the work of the preacher from Galilee. No religion, no matter how large or how violent, can quiet the still, small voice of the Almighty. Followers of Christ have the Spirit of the Living God dwelling within, have been set free from sin, and have a guarantee of eternity with the Creator. Of all men, Christians should be the most joyful in their lives and most effective in their labor.

Some Christians engage the world with optimism and faith, believing God to accomplish His will, though often believers do not see this victory. Christians perceive legions of enemies, a dearth of friends, a paucity of resources, persecution, and personal weakness (Marsden, 2020). There are more points of discouragement as well. Believers feel pressure from the government, the media, business, and academia (Barnes et al., 2020). Christ-followers look at needs within and without and faint before the task of making disciples. Simultaneously, forgetting that the Father owns the world and everything in it (Psalms 24:1) and believing the lies of a world that hates God, some Christians struggle to survive.

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Jerusalem’s Hidden Gems

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Tourists, pilgrims, scholars, and activists can encounter little-known places outside and inside the Old City of Jerusalem. By looking at these hidden gems in Jerusalem, the minds, bodies, and souls of faithful Christ-followers will receive a blessing.[1]

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

The murmurs of tourists and the low rumble of shopkeepers fill the Old City of Jerusalem. From the Via Dolorosa to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Wailing Wall, Christians and Jews come here to find God, or to find Him again. Muslims visit the Islamic Quarter, the Dome of the Rock, and the al-Aqsa Mosque. Many tourists jet in for a week, visit the Old City of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, jet out, and never set foot elsewhere in Israel, the West Bank, or other areas mentioned in scripture. Others stay much longer to soak their bodies and souls in the Land of the Bible.

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Praying for the USA – National Day of Prayer, 2 May 2024

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On America’s National Day of Prayer, Christians’ thoughts and prayers turn to our nation. We see a mighty and beautiful nation with a heroic history, high ideals, and trouble living up to those ideals. Few other peoples have matched our hopes for goodness, and no peoples with such hopes have ever perfectly met them. Christians lament our national sins and our personal sins, and by the grace of God, strive to improve. In this time of self-doubt, weakness, confusion, and division, how do we pray for the USA?

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Acting in Church and Community

Acting in church
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Basic information on auditioning, rehearsing, and performing for church-affiliated actors, actresses, directors, and the whole gamut of those who love and practice the theater. Acting in Church provides an important place to start.

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

Churches around the world use drama in their ministries, and for good reason. The arts, including drama, music, and dance, communicate eternal truths to the human soul in a way that philosophy, mathematics, and other disciplines could not. Our church, Memorial Baptist Church in Beckley WV, has an ongoing children’s ministry involving music and drama, and will be expanding into adult drama next year. In the interest of having useful instructions for older children, parents, and adults, I have edited information gleaned from the websites below on auditioning, rehearsing, and performing. I hope that this information is useful to other churches as well.

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Business Models for the First and the 21st Centuries

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Businesses and other organizations can be understood in three different types. Facilitated Networking, Value Added, and Solution Shop business models, and combinations thereof, have existed since before Rome ruled. Modern entrepreneurs will benefit as they think of their endeavors in these ways.  

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

Several women at a baby shower share stories about giving birth, providing tips to an expectant mother on how to make delivery easier and less painful. One older woman provides a beautiful baby dress, while another shares the address of a bargain store.

A farmer plants acres of grain. He and his family labor over their fields for months, watering and weeding while the crop comes in. In due time, they harvest an abundance. They keep some grain for their own consumption and sell the rest.

Two colonels pore over a map on a battlefield, discussing how to defeat the enemy dug in on a ridgeline nearby. They are not sure of their opponent’s strength and disposition, but they are losing the initiative and need to act soon.

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In Praise of Hymns

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Choruses in church are great, but let’s not lose our powerful legacy of hymns in Christian ministry.

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

Last night I led a Hymn Sing and Soup Supper in the Fellowship Hall at our church. Between bowls of vegetable soup, chicken soup, tortilla soup, bean soup, and a host of others, we sang To God Be the Glory, I’ll Fly Away, Victory in Jesus, and more favorites. Elderly women in the back, members of the choir when we had one, harmonized to tunes they had known as children, while teenagers in the middle sat in silence. We had no slides with words on a screen as we do in our sanctuary, but used white hymnals with gold embossing, small letters, and cryptic little symbols called notes along with the lyrics on each line. The piano was a little out of tune, but we all carried on, singing at the top of our lungs. There was no sound of strumming, drumming, or picking. Having grown up in church singing hymns, I appreciated the change.

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