Articles
No Lost Causes
“Then Jesus told them this parable, ‘Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the one lost sheep until he finds it?” Luke 15:3-4, niv In a family full of lost sheep, my uncle Jack...
Knowing Whose You Are: Clinging to God in Influencer Culture
I’m with some fellow graduate students who are seeking God for next steps. Out of all we have learned, God, how then should we live? We crazy Christians have the audacity to think we can actually hear from God. And how easily I forget that this is an actual miracle:...
Healing a Wounded and Critical Spirit
As I have spent more time gardening in the past year than ever, I’ve learned some valuable lessons about weeds that look like flowers to the untrained eye and how they smother the good things I’ve planted. Fortunately, I have a gardener friend who helped me rescue our...
Like Canada, Our Country Could Move Towards Tyranny Enforced by Nazi-Like Police
Repeatedly arrested Pastor Artur Pawlowsky was arrested yet again, this time for simply peacefully protesting. No other protestors were arrested — only Artur and his brother. At a similar direction and pace, our country is moving towards tyranny enforced by Nazi-like...
Is This How Christians are Supposed to Act?
Have you ever bought a box of strawberries and opened it up to find one rotten strawberry? Of course you have. We all have. When that happens, we don’t throw away the entire box of strawberries. We assume that there was one bad fruit in the bunch and go on eating the...
The Real Rescuer
Watching my son play soccer ranks as one of my favorite weekend activities. Now that he is a teenager, the games require much more skill and strategy than in years prior. His team wins when they play wisely and employ skills possessed through many hours of practice....
Boundaries
When I look back at my time in full-time ministry, I see how much I struggled making clear boundaries. I want you to learn from the mistakes I made and help you to have a long-term healthy run in ministry leadership. Without boundaries, the chance of a quick burnout...
I Have Zero Time: Strategies for Engaging the Bible When You Don’t Even get to go to the Bathroom by Yourself
Let’s talk about the miraculous invention of 3 × 5 cards. Beth Moore muses that God created them on the eighth day. And Anne Lamott carries one in her back pocket at all times to capture the fleeting thoughts that she wants to write into a book, just in case she...
Rising from the Pew
Does your church have chairs or pews? The old pews I grew up sitting on really wore on the tailbone and backbone; today’s chairs are so much more comfortable. But then again, comfortable is not what we’re supposed to feel at church. Church is where we sit for a bit,...
The Church and Today’s Single Mom
Is your largest mission field in your neighborhood? Single moms and their families are one of the most unchurched population segments. One in four homes is single-mom led 50 percent of American children will live in a single parent home before age 18 85 percent of...
Preach LIFE
How many sermons have you heard or preached on Protecting and Promoting LIFE? I believe the pulpit is the best place from which to teach and have a conversation with the body of Christ about how to support at-risk moms with a crisis pregnancy. But, it seems even the...
“Today’s Cancel Culture is Anti-science and Anti-Christian”
As a physicist and follower of Jesus, I never thought I’d live to see the day when truth itself—the heart and soul of science and Christianity—would be under attack. But it is, and we must react in a powerful, positive way. For “whoever knows the right thing to do and...
Set Up Your Nonprofit in 6 Easy Steps
Starting a nonprofit organization may sound like a daunting task, but if you make sure to fulfill several key activities, you will be running your own 501(c)(3) in no time. Pastor Resources shares what you need to do in order to set up your business and help those in...
Pandemic Giving Insights: How to Keep Givers When the Unexpected Happens
It was a season no one ever anticipated. As COVID-19 suspended in-person worship in churches nationwide, church leaders wondered how ministry expenses could possibly be met when there was no way to pass the plate. Giving initially tanked. And pastors began hearing...
Three Ways to Engage Your Small Group in Prayer
Do you wish your small group would spend more time praying? Here are three ways to incorporate more time for communicating with God during your gatherings. Praying together can transform your small group time because God loves to meet with us and make us more like...
Birthing your Sermon
Rock Stars My wife was a birthing rock star. As she progressed through the pains of labor all the way to that last exhausting push – after each of our four kids, she emerged glowing and proud – a smile on her face that seemed to welcome the challenge of delivery as...
Three Pastors and a Lesbian
It’s not a setup for a bad joke. This story really happened. My friends and I were taking an Uber to a local pizza place after attending a missions conference in Houston, Texas. All three of us were church planters, which means we split the fourteen-dollar charge for...
You Want It All? Surrendering Every Part of Me
If you’re like many believers, you feel confident you’re past the magic-lamp phase of prayer. You understand surrender. You understand God’s will. And yet, no matter how good we are at surrender, we each hold on to something in our lives. That one thing we keep...
From a Life Without Limbs to a Life Without Limits
Nick Vujicic came into the world with no arms and no legs, but only a six-inch appendage with two toes on the left side of his torso, and no medical explanation. The whole church wondered why God would allow the pastor’s son to be born with such a birth defect. But...
Five Action Steps the Church Can Take to Care for the Lonely
“Mark, I don’t even know where to begin,” Matt stated as we talked over coffee. “The needs of my church are so great that I often feel paralyzed. I don’t know what the first step should even be.” It can seem overwhelming for a church to care for the vast needs of the...
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