Welcome! This site is designed to help you become better acquainted with Dr. Warren Bird.
See the tabs above, or see below for current and recent updates:
My most recent co-authored books are Becoming a Future-Ready Church: 8 Shifts to Encourage and Empower the Next Generation of Leaders, The Resilience Factor: A Step-by-Step Guide to Catalyze an Unbreakable Team, Better Together: Making Church Mergers Work (expanded and updated edition), Next: Pastoral Succession that Works (expanded and updated edition), and Liquid Church: Six Powerful Ways to Saturate Your City for Christ. The latter (pictured) comes in print, ebook and audio formats.
Twitter/Linkedin. Follow me at www.twitter.com/warrenbird. My Twitter feed tracks relevant research that I discover or release, the gist of blogs I post, and major media that quote me. Likewise my Linkedin feed highlights all my major releases.
Media Quotes. Mainstream media that have quoted me include Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, USA Today, Fox News, Boston Globe, Atlanta Journal, Chicago Tribune, Charlotte Observer, Seattle Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Times, Christian Science Monitor, and more, including articles developed from reports I’ve authored, such as in Nonprofit Times. Religious press quotes include Christianity Today on U.S. megachurches (here on financial trends, here on church planting, here on multiracial, and here on multisites) and on church budget trends; Christian Post on global megachurches, special needs ministry, small groups, ministry finances during the pandemic, and multisite; Christian Broadcasting Network on church growth; National Religious Broadcasters on leadership in the pandemic; Relevant magazine on church racial diversity; and Church Law and Tax on the pandemic’s financial impact. The international religious press has also cited me such as this English-language Korean newspaper on megachurches.
Global Megachurches. I’m likely the leading international researcher of the world’s largest-attendance churches, keeping an active, sortable list at exponential.org/world as well as links to several dozen articles that profile specific global megachurches.
Podcasts. Carey Nieuwhof says this podcast, his most listened-to for that year, drew 75,000 downloads: How to Break Growth Barriers with Carl George and Warren Bird. (I might also be Carey’s most featured guest, additionally appearing in his podcasts about church mergers, Canadian church research, and high-performing teams.) This Christianity Today Quick to Listen podcast drew a sizable audience with its title, “Should You Pass Your Church to Your Son (or Daughter)? The Pros and Cons of Pastorates Staying in the Family.” The president of ECFA interviews Barna’s David Kinnaman and me here (episode #7). Also, I did almost 50 podcasts on “New Faces of Church Planting” research, and this one from Rich Birch and Unseminary is a great sample.
Webinars. Here’s one with Dave Ferguson and me on the five essential practices of a Hero Maker (content starts at 13-minute mark). Here’s one on church metrics with a key leader at Life.Church (America’s largest-attendance church). For more, just google: Warren Bird webinar.
Please watch the brief video welcome below:
Click the “Play” arrow to watch a brief video introduction from Warren Bird himself.
Warren Bird in Chicago interviewing Wilfredo “Choco” de Jesus just after his church became the largest-attendance congregation in the Assemblies of God denomination.
Warren Bird in Zurich, Switzerland, interviewing Leo Bigger, senior pastor of ICF.ch (International Christian Fellowship), for an article in OutreachMagazine.com.
Warren Bird in Brisbane, Australia, interviewing Hope Centre’s Wayne Alcorn for the global megachurch list currently housed at exponential.org/world
Warren Bird in La Paz, Bolivia, with translators, interviewing Pastor Silvia Camacho, of Ekklesia, the nation’s largest-attendance church.