by Jim Michel | Oct 27, 2020 | Ask the Advisors, COVID-19, Featured
Wow!!! I looked out my office window earlier this week and, to my surprise (and that of my local meteorologist), the ground was covered with snow. “How could this happen?” I asked no one in particular, to which my fourteen-year-old son began to explain moisture,...
by Nadine Compton | Oct 15, 2020 | COVID-19, Featured, Stories
First Christian Church (FCC) in Portland, Oregon moves seven tons of food through its building every week. Yes, you read that right… seven tons, every week. In an effort to address the city’s food insecurity issues, which have only become compounded with the COVID-19...
by DCEF | Oct 6, 2020 | Ask the Advisors, Featured
That’s an easy question. The answer is fear! In my more than 20 years of pastoral ministry, both in local congregations and at Disciples Church Extension Fund (DCEF), the greatest threat I’ve seen to successful ministry of any kind, including successful building and...
by Gilberto Collazo | Sep 28, 2020 | Ask the Advisors, COVID-19, Featured
This week, Ask the Advisors welcomes guest blogger Gilberto Collazo, Vice President of Disciples Church Extension Fund (DCEF) and Lead for Hope Partnership Services. Much of the conversation around post COVID-19 focuses on how to observe all of the social distancing...
by Rosario Ibarra | Sep 14, 2020 | Ask the Advisors, Featured
During late April and early May of this year, the Lake Institute on Faith & Giving conducted the survey “Faith and Giving in the Time of COVID-19.” Respondents included clergy and lay leaders, staff from the judicatory level, nonprofit executives and development...
by DCEF | Aug 31, 2020 | Ask the Advisors, COVID-19, Featured
Was this you during the first few weeks of starting your church’s online presence in mid-to-late March? Were you ecstatic that your online viewership far exceeded your average, in-person worship attendance? Stop! Now that most churches have settled into how they...
by Jim Michel | Aug 18, 2020 | Ask the Advisors, COVID-19, Featured
What next? I’m sure those words have been uttered in the halls of every church building in use at one time or another. It seems that for every project we take off the ‘workday’ list, we add two more. As our worship facilities get older, our project lists get longer...
by DCEF | Aug 4, 2020 | Ask the Advisors, COVID-19, Featured
Conversations about potential church mergers are always complicated. Often, they begin when a congregation, or two congregations, face the painful reality that they can no longer afford their buildings or their ministries at the level they’ve been accustomed to....
by DCEF | Jul 30, 2020 | COVID-19, Featured, News
The offices of Disciples Church Extension Fund (DCEF) and New Church Ministry will be closed on Thursday, August 6 and Friday, August 7 to provide a period of rest and reflection for our staff. We want to give our employees the opportunity to step away from their work...
by Rosario Ibarra | Jul 20, 2020 | Ask the Advisors, COVID-19, Featured
Dr. Seuss invites us to open our minds to new possibilities when he says, “Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try.” Since March, our way of ‘doing church’ has changed, and having talked with...
