Nate Edmondson

Married to Courtney, Dad to Esther and Anna, Pastor at Highlands Community Church

[Nate Edmondson @NateEdmondson]

@drantbradley Thanks for this! It connected some dots for me.

[Jeff Wiesner @JeffreyPWiesner]

Something I appreciate about my time on staff for a prominent megachurch was the care for excellence in aesthetics, branding, hospitality, communication, and more.

Now I pastor a smaller church that emphasizes the means of grace over programs. And I wonder if there's a tendency for like-sized and like-minded churches to overreact against mega-excellence by wearing mediocrity as a badge of honor:

"We just preach the Word."

But must the means of grace and care for excellence be mutually exclusive? May it never be!

It's not a mark of spiritual maturity for someone to look past an outdated, circa-1998 website, undrinkable coffee, and chilly non-hospitality and conclude, "But hey! They preach expositional sermons!"

We should want all kinds of people to come into our churches—not just those who are already pre-disposed to our confessional commitments—be blessed by what they experience and want to come back a second time.

It's okay to want LOTS of visitors in our churches and desire for our membership rolls to grow!

To that end, it's a good thing to make our "front door" attractive and hospitable.

It's good to have a clean, updated website.

It's good to have clear, well-designed signage to help visitors know their way around.

It's good to invest in fresh branding that graduates from clip-art logos.

It's good to brew the very best coffee you can.

It's good to create well-trained ministry teams tasked with serving visitors with excellence.

It's good to rehearse transitions in your order of service to avoid unnecessary awkwardness.

It's okay to expect our people to read, sing, or play instruments with excellence to the extent of their natural abilities.

To my skeptical, eye-rolling friend, that's not "church growth" philosophy, but wisdom and worship. True, nobody gets saved by these things. But it all communicates care or the lack thereof.

Is the God who arrayed lilies with beauty beyond Solomon's comprehension unworthy of comparatively trivial care for excellence on our parts?

All to say, I think small churches have a few things to learn from mega-churches.

I've long left behind a programmatic ministry philosophy for means of grace ministry. I'm as concerned about worldly pragmatism and fleshly consumerism as anyone.

And this isn't about having mega-budgets and mega-staffs. Excellence will be relative to the resources God has entrusted to each congregation.

But hear me out: What if some people never step foot in our churches the first time or return to our churches a second time NOT because they're shallow "consumers" but because we appear as careless stewards?

Amen! We should care about the Word and sacrament above all. But the Lord's appointed means of grace shouldn't discourage or dissuade us from caring about excellence in all things.

If anything, it should make us more excellent, all by his grace and all to his glory!

[Nate Edmondson @NateEdmondson]

@michael_bayne @ClayTravis Great (sad) read!

[Nate Edmondson @NateEdmondson]

@LamontEnglish89 Thank you! As a baptist, I tend to see significance in the fact that it seems to be one local church’s elders weighing in, but is a unique moment in redemptive history that also has broader authority because of the presence of the apostles. But I’ll give this more thought now

[Nate Edmondson @NateEdmondson]

@LamontEnglish89 Interesting. Would you explain the points that persuade you?

[Nate Edmondson @NateEdmondson]

@AndySmithMN You in Berlin? 😊

[Nate Edmondson @NateEdmondson]

@DrJTPennington Haha thank you

[Nate Edmondson @NateEdmondson]

@CharlesClark34 @apsuhead @tahperd Field day and Can ball- nobody does them better than Barksdale!

[Nate Edmondson @NateEdmondson]

@AndySmithMN Go Vols

[Nate Edmondson @NateEdmondson]

@shanpederson https://t.co/yVQMTVFTSh

[Nathan W. Bingham @NWBingham]

Looking for a Bible reading plan for 2023? My annual compilation is now available at @Ligonier.

“Disciples of Christ abide in His Word.” —@RCSproul https://t.co/5mm3AEwRNQ

[Nate Edmondson @NateEdmondson]

@drinkspindrift Spindrift!!

[Nate Edmondson @NateEdmondson]

@pj_schreiner @quinnmosier I love that Moses is known for the Exodus, and Elijah for his unique “exodus”.. events everyone would love to discuss with them… but they are interested in discussing Jesus’s exodus.

[Nate Edmondson @NateEdmondson]

@Russell___Smith @BearWKGN @Davey_Hudson Mark Stoops taking a long hard look in the mirror

[Nate Edmondson @NateEdmondson]

@deaninserra That’s awesome. Overall I think this is the ideal. One dynamic worth mentioning — it does become much more challenging and painful to let someone go if/when you determine they are no longer the right fit.

[Nate Edmondson @NateEdmondson]

@BradyWRDW Haha you made me triple check because you’re normally my most trusted news outlet

[Nate Edmondson @NateEdmondson]

@BradyWRDW @coachjoshheupel 2nd. Haha sorry dude

[Nate Edmondson @NateEdmondson]

@BradyWRDW @coachjoshheupel “Kept him in the game” midway through the 2nd quarter…?

[Nate Edmondson @NateEdmondson]

@Austin__Burlage Thanks for this!

[SpurgeonBooks @SpurgeonBooks]

"You stand before God as if you were Christ,
because Christ stood before God as if he were you."

— Charles Spurgeon