Free Church Newcomers and Membership Class Curriculum
We’re a purpose driven church, which means we believe in having a very intentional process for discipleship – for introducing people to each next step in their spiritual journey. For every church that wants to create this pipeline, I highly recommend...
5 Words of Wisdom and Caution for a Growing Church
Five years ago, Grace Hills Church was made up of about 35 of us. Last year, our final year meeting in a movie theater, we had an average worship attendance of about 240. And since moving into our current location in January of this year, that average has been 385...
PDC 16 Learning Lab: Planting Healthy, Purpose Driven Churches
I’m extremely excited about Purpose Driven Conference 2016 coming up June 28 – 30! It’s the first time in almost a decade that Pastor Rick Warren and Saddleback Church have offered this kind of comprehensive leadership and church health conference...
The Three Things We Do Together As a Church
Grace Hills is a simple, purpose driven church. That means that we try to do what we’re told to do by Jesus, and little else. There is plenty of debate today about what a local church ought to look like, with plenty of criticism directed at large churches, in...
Pointers for Pastors: What Is a Purpose Driven Church?
What exactly is a ‘purpose driven’ church? In this Pointer for Pastors, I’ll tackle that question and explain what it means to focus on God’s eternal purposes for the church, rather than pretty much anything else. Click play to listen...
God's Five Purposes for Your Marriage
Are you happily married? Happiness rises and falls, for all of us, married or not. And happiness isn’t the real goal of life anyway. Every day, I pray a prayer over my children that says, “God, help them to first be holy (set apart for You), and then to be...
Fast, Fluid, Flexible… and Flourishing
Movement is life. I recently watched the blockbuster hit, World War Z. I had been anticipating it for a long time, and it didn’t fail to impress me with it’s non-stop intensity starting two minutes in and not ending until the credits roll. There is a...
Spiritual Maturity Is a Pathway We Walk Together
God created you to be like His Son, Jesus Christ, and He has a pathway for you to walk on the way to spiritual maturity. Nearly two thousand years ago, Jesus formed a community of people who could walk this pathway together and He called it a church. Today, spotting...What to Do When Your Church Has Stopped Moving
Remember Newton’s first two laws of motion? Here’s a refresher… First law: Every object continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line, unless compelled to change that state by external forces acted upon it. Second law: The...Hi. I’m Brandon.
I’m the Lead Pastor of Grace Hills Church in Bentonville, Arkansas, which my wife, Angie, and I planted in 2012. I’ve been blogging here since 2004. I formerly served as a Pastor at Saddleback Church and was the Editor and Online Community Facilitator for Pastors.com and Rick Warren’s Ministry Toolbox. I wrote a book called Rewired, about how churches can use social media to spread the gospel.