Three Conditions
A covenant meeting, a stuck building, and Saints season tickets.
You Can't Spell Dysfunction Without the Letters C-H-U-R-C-H
If you have ever sat in a church business meeting and wondered how things got this bad, you are not alone. If you have ever watched a congregation turn on itself, seen good people hurt by an institution they loved, or given years of your life to a church that left you questioning whether any of it was worth it, this book was written for you.
This is that story. All of it. The dysfunction and the grace.
Buy the book
You Can't Spell Dysfunction Without the Letters C-H-U-R-C-H
$14.99 · ISBN 979-8-1853-2348-9
Available on AmazonInside
In this candid and sometimes uncomfortably funny memoir, ordained United Methodist pastor and stewardship consultant Kurt Appel pulls back the curtain on over thirty years of pastoral ministry and capital campaign consulting across the American church, from a parking lot conversation with gang leaders in Los Angeles to a congregation paralyzed by a stuck door.
The Stuck Door
A jammed bus barn becomes the perfect metaphor for a congregation frozen between two futures.
Walking Out
Some covenant meetings end with a handshake. This one ended with a chair pushed back.
Would You Take a Black Church?
A pressure-test question in a credentialing interview, and the parking lot in Los Angeles that answered it.
Advance Praise
What early readers are saying.
”Kurt Appel showed up in Los Angeles prepared, present, and genuinely invested in what we were trying to do for our community. This book is exactly what the church needs, an honest account of what ministry actually looks like from someone who has lived it without flinching. Read it. Then read it again.
”Kurt Appel brings something rare to pastoral ministry: the instincts of a businessman and the heart of a shepherd. Every pastor should read it, and second-career pastors will find it indispensable. Ministry is just not that hard, and Kurt shows you why.
”Dr. Appel challenges us to deal practically, realistically, and theologically with dysfunction in the life of the body of Christ. He addresses issues which are not unique to the American Methodist context but which also have wider application across international and denominational boundaries. There is much wisdom in these pages, distilled from years spent both in church consultancy and in pastoral ministry, and I warmly commend it to you.
Stewardship Consulting
Ownership precedes commitment.
For more than twenty years, Kurt has worked alongside congregations across denominations to run capital campaigns, diagnose what's actually driving the church, and build the kind of ownership that makes generosity possible. He tells congregations what they need to hear, not always what they want to.
Capital Campaigns
Full-cycle campaign consulting: from financial diagnostics and leadership training to major-gift strategy and the honest conversations that have to happen before anyone asks for a dollar.
Intentional Interim Ministry
Credentialed transitional leadership for congregations in crisis or transition: stabilize, assess, prepare the ground, and hand off a healthier church to the next pastor.
Congregational Diagnostics
An outside, unsparing look at what's really driving your church, whether mission, vision, debt, tradition, or personalities, and what it will take to move from stuck to moving.
“If the leaders of a congregation do not know what is happening in their own church, how can they possibly expect the people in the pews to be committed to something they cannot even see?”
- Ordained Elder, United Methodist Church
- B.S., Mechanical Engineering, Louisiana Tech University
- M.Div., Perkins School of Theology, SMU
- D.Min., New Church Development, Columbia Theological Seminary
- Transitional Intentional Interim Ministry Specialist
- 20+ years as a stewardship consultant nationwide
About Kurt
Pastor. Consultant. Fixer.
Kurt Appel has served congregations across Mississippi and Louisiana for over thirty years, from two-point charges recovering from bankruptcy to a church stabilizing after a pastoral crisis. Along the way he has led capital campaigns for congregations of every size and tradition, chaired a New Church Development Commission, and become one of the more sought-after intentional interim pastors in his conference, the person a district superintendent calls when the situation is delicate and the timeline is short.
He holds a doctorate in new church development from Columbia Theological Seminary and completed a ten-week pulpit exchange with the World Methodist Council in Sheffield, England. His guiding text has always been the parable of the prodigal son: the father doesn't wait on the porch. He runs to meet his son where he is.
Kurt and his wife Claudia live in Louisiana. They have three grown children, all married and active in their own faith communities, a fact Kurt calls one of his proudest accomplishments.
Get in Touch
Speaking, consulting, or just to say hello.
For stewardship consulting inquiries, speaking engagements, or questions about the book, reach out directly.
kurtappelauthor@gmail.com