Articles
Embracing Insufficiency: Leading with Weakness
A Call to Insufficiency How often have you thought, I’m the wrong guy for this? Right. And wrong. At the same time. Deep pastoral wellness begins with reckoning—a reality check of sorts. Without complaining, we need an objective view of ministry realities. Gospel...
Ignoring God’s Limits: Embracing Rest
Fourteen years ago, I suffered heat stroke in sight of the finish line of a community race I’d been training to win. It was 80 degrees, with high humidity, and I’d trained for months in unusually cool-for-summer 70-degree mornings. I had my time goals for each mile —...
Listening to God’s Voice: Rediscovering Your Identity
So often we try to find the plan for our lives based on those around us. We listen to what others say about us or the way the world defines us. We try to measure up to other people’s standards. We even look at people we think are successful in this world and then...
Living Out Faith Beyond Boundaries
“I'm on a mission to end missions.” This was the wild proclamation I found myself scribbling down during what some might call a “burnout” or crisis of faith. After devoting more than half my life to Christian humanitarian work around the globe, I was exhausted and...
Liturgy in Worship: Rediscovering Depth
EACH WEEK, HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of Christians all over the world go to church. There are some constants. In almost every church, Christians are praying, reading the Bible, hearing sermons, singing songs, and sometimes receiving the Lord’s Supper. There are also...
A Liturgy of Intercession for One in Ministry
O God Who Faithfully Ministers to All, you have called us not only to know you and love you, but also to become like you, pouring out our lives for the sake of others. You call all persons to this noble task, and some you particularly set apart as ministers in your...
Strengthen Your Faith: Science Confirms the Bible
Today, Christians are faced with challenges from unbelievers which causes many to doubt their faith. Can the Bible be trusted? Are the sections of Scripture written as history meant to be viewed with suspicion until verified by modern science? Jesus talks about the...
God’s Valuation of Women
God’s original design of women was good, but Genesis 3 tells us that the fall mars all of creation. In God’s kindness, He still uses both men and women to accomplish His good purposes. Throughout Scripture, including the Old Testament, we see the importance and value...
Navigating Envy in Relationships
To know that envy disrupts the peace, contentment, and joy that God would otherwise grant to our internal life is bad enough, but even worse is the fact that if envy is not detected, dug up, and thrown out it will inevitably inflict some serious relational damage on...
Enduring Hope: A Pastor’s Guide – Christian Hope
God is not a hustler. And the hope he calls us to cannot be built on naive expectations that people will start seeing things the way we do. Our longing cannot be built on the arrogant assumption that we are completely right in the positions we take. It cannot even be...
Conquering Anxiety: Embracing God’s Love
I’ve come to believe in a better equation to describe what anxiety does: anxiety equals care minus God. We use the word care for both anxiety and love. We speak of not having a care in the world: that’s about anxiety. We tell someone we care for them: that’s love. The...
Trusting the Bible: Navigating Doubts on God’s Word
Who told you that the Bible is God’s Word? Do you trust this person with your life? The person who asserted this claim probably has some credibility with you, if not some influence and perhaps even authority. This person is asking you to base your entire life on this...
Persistent Faith: Overcoming Resistance
Here’s God’s honest truth—you aren’t the only one who’s looked giving up straight in the face. It doesn’t always feel that way, does it? There’s one feeling that frequently overwhelms me when I’m in the thick of trial: a sense of being alone. I’m the only one who’s...
The Unraveling of Ministry as a Profession
Ministry Challenges There is a place for visionary leaders and wise guides in both very large and very small communities. But the bifurcation of congregational sizes creates a world in which a small number of ministers have great autonomy, financial security, and even...
Missional Redevelopment: Transforming Church Properties
Steeples were designed to point to God. The concept of architecture reflecting theology and meaning is a relic from antiquity. The architectural elements of a classic church building are part of a centuries-old word picture summed up in the word “church.” “Church”...
Faith in the Midst of Doubt: A Pastor’s Journey
“If you take my son, we’re done!” Drew screamed as he sobbed into the steering wheel of his car in the hospital parking lot. Drew had just come from the neonatal intensive care unit, where his son, Linden, lay in his mother’s arms. Linden had been born prematurely and...
Redefining Ministry Success: A Biblical Perspective
I was devastated when one of my seminary students, a pastor of fifty-plus years, said, “I feel like neither my life nor my ministry has made any difference.” This thoughtful, kind, and intelligent man believed his efforts had been all for naught. Yet he had served his...
Discover Your Unique Prayer Style
When I stepped down from the platform, a lady approached me. I knew what she was going to say. I had just finished an enthusiastic and biblical rationale for prayerwalking as an intercessory practice for our communities. I greeted her, and then she said it. “Janet, I...
Faith’s Tapestry: Memory’s Profound Role
Why can I remember the hospital transport person who graciously pushed my wife’s wheelchair as we left the hospital when my daughter was born, but for the life of me, I cannot remember his name? While his name might escape me, his gentleness and candor do not. I do...
Laboring with Purpose: A Pastor’s Insight into Faith at Work
WORK IS THE GREATEST OPPORTUNITY many of us have for fulfilling the calling of Christ and his command to love our neighbors as ourselves. Reflect on that statement. What if every Christ-follower really believed that? Building sewage systems, creating businesses,...
