Sacred & Small | E37 | Making the Most out of Your Church's Annual Meeting
The end of the church year is a great opportunity for some spiritual storytelling, critical reflection, and realigning your church's liturgy and mission with what God is doing.
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It’s the end of the church year for the Missouri District Church of the Nazarene, the district where both Jasons pastor. That means it’s annual report season! In this episode, Jason Buckwalter shares his reflections on what has happened this year at Fulton Heartland and how he prepares for the required annual meeting of his congregation. Jason Hill does the same, sharing how he has tried to focus his meetings on the spiritual side of the report - focusing on membership and baptism in addition to board elections and other polity issues.
The annual meeting is necessary. It’s important. Your people want to know what’s going on, how the church is doing, and what God is doing among you. Take the opportunity to share what God has done — practically and spiritually.
18 Mar 2026
Sacred & Small | E36 | Annual Review as an Opportunity for Reflection & Realignment
The end of the church year is a great opportunity for some spiritual storytelling, critical reflection, and realigning your church's liturgy and mission with what God is doing.
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In this episode, our co-hosts are here to talk about their own churches as the Missouri District Church of the Nazarene nears it’s end of the year. The end of the church year can be a tedious season of reports, counting, and meeting polity obligations. It can also be a season where we take a very intentional step back to consider what God has done amongst and in our people. We call this critical reflection. Regardless of when your annual report comes, it’s a great time to do some prayerful reflection — with God and with others — to better tell the story of God’s work in your church. Sharing that with your people can help your church better engage with what God is doing and wanting to do. Who know annual reports could be a catalyst to spark new and impactful ministry?
This is the first of a two-part cycle on the end of the church year and this episode focuses on what has happened this season in Cape Naz. The second part will focus on Jason Buckwalter and Heartland Nazarene and provide practical tips to make your end of year meetings more fruitful.
4 Mar 2026TRANSCRIPT
Sacred & Small | E35 | Dr. Desmond Barrett on Church Revitalization
Dr. Desmond Barrett, a church revitalization expert, and the Jasons discuss church revitalization - what it means and how it works spiritually and practically in the church.
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In this episode of the Sacred & Small podcast, Dr. Desmond Barrett, author of Rising From the Ashes Into Church Renewal, and pastor of Hilltop Church of the Nazarene, joins the Jasons to talk church revitalization.
In the second of two episodes, Desmond details both the spiritual and practical sides of church revitalization. Churches can’t do everything, but Christ does command his church to make disciples of all the nations. That means that a vital church — or a revitalizing church — must focus itself on evangelism. The same command, though, tells us to teach others to obey all that Christ has commanded us. Discipleship and spiritual formation, then, must also be a critical component of the revitalized church.
There are practical concerns as well — raising funds, smells and sights in the church, understanding a church’s language and culture. This far-reaching episode will discuss all of this and more.
If this subject interests you and you would like to learn more about church revitalization, pick up Dr. Barrett’s latest book - Rising From the Ashes Into Church Renewal. (https://www.amazon.com/Rising-Ashes-into-Church-Renewal/dp/B0F41M2212) It’s available through Amazon and other booksellers.
Inside a recent episode
Sacred & Small | E37 | Making the Most out of Your Church's Annual Meeting
Published 25 Mar 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] Do you want to talk about some of these practical things? I think this has been a great discussion. I think it'll be even more valuable than talking about the ins and outs of a salary review at the end of the year. But also, you know, this is a great time to make this. You know, we've got five minutes left. We can make this a little bit practical. Yeah. for people that are at the end of the year. Which part of this do you want to talk about in 10 minutes or less? What's the best way to communicate the report that we have? What does that look like to report it in a way that doesn't give over much focus to the numbers or um but that connects like do you do it as a part of a worship service um do you do it afterwards uh in a special meeting or like uh for us like i especially because it's lent and i feel like uh the end of our church year is almost always around lent or easter Um, and like, I have a hard time taking worship service time, uh, to do anything business related. […]
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