Articles
Three Steps to Less Financial Stress with Your Spouse
It’s printed right there on our money: “In God We Trust.” But do we? How much better might our relationship with our spouse be if we read and paid attention to that phrase every time we touched money? How many fewer arguments might we have? How much less stressed...
Five Ways to Pray When Your Child Goes Astray
How do you trust God and not worry when you see your child start spiraling downward? How can you know when to say something and when to let your child work it out? How can you trust that God ultimately has "good" in mind when it all looks so bad? While writing my...
Top-Five Social Media Tips for Pastors
Many churches are using social media to enhance their ministries. From pastor blog posts and podcasts to Facebook shares and Retweets, social media continues to be a powerful tool for pastors. A January 2017 report from the Pew Research Center revealed that around...
Why Is It So Hard to Pray With My Spouse?
Admit it. You’d like to be one of those couples that prays together daily, conducts family devotions regularly, and models to others what a spiritual home should look like. But if you’re like us – and most couples we’ve talked to – you’re not quite there. But...
7 Reasons to Trust God in Times of Stress
When life gets messy, it's natural for us to get stressed. Or angry. Or bitter. Especially when life takes a turn we didn't expect – a broken engagement, the loss of a spouse, the diagnosis of cancer, the death of a dream. Sometimes it’s even the day-to-day...
4 Questionable Practices in Small Groups
In leading small groups and tracking trends over the last 25 years, I’ve done all kinds of things to recruit leaders and get people connected into groups. Some of those things, I had to apologize for. Others, I simply avoided from the start. While this post is not...
Are Your Loaves-and-Fish Leaders Playing Hide-and-Seek?
Your ministry could use more “loaves-and fish leaders”—leaders who believe in the potential of five loaves and two fish before God multiplies in miraculous ways. But here’s the catch, they’re probably playing hide-and-seek in your church. Pastors and ministry leaders...
Standing in the Fire: Muslims Thriving for Jesus in the Midst of Adversity
Pastors, did you know that more Muslims have come to faith in Christ in the last decade than in the last 1,400 years of the religion of Islam? As a pastor, are you prepared to lead the way in training and equipping your congregation to reach out in love with the...
What is Crossruption?
Disruption in technology and the marketplace has become an expected and anticipated part of our existence. This occurs when an outlier—something deemed unimportant—quickly becomes the central theme of its paradigm. Today, we believe disruption will improve our lives....
Fostering a Culture of Evangelism in Your Church
I can tell you there are many times when I have stepped up to the pulpit and my spiritual fuel gauge is close to empty. It has been a busy week, I am depleted, I am tired—for whatever reason, I am not exactly full of vim and vigor. Can you relate? Yes, I have started...
Practice the Discipline of Celebration
One Sunday at church, my husband preached about the celebration as an important part of a Christian’s life. He said it was a discipline that, when practiced, can help develop us into mature Christians. At that point, he grabbed the microphone from the pulpit and said,...
Families Need Your Forgiveness
Late to church again, Jared and Ashley found a parking spot and rushed inside with their toddler and second grader. After stopping at the restroom, checking into Sunday school, and waiting for the ushers to allow latecomers to be seated, dad and mom plopped down in...
Three Key Elements To Telling An Effective Story
We all have stories. Stories that open up old wounds exposing the raw pain that lies underneath. Stories that make us feel unworthy, unloved and unwanted. Our temptation is to keep it buried, so we can avoid the hurt and emptiness. No matter what our story, the...
Church-Wide Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner Party
One of the most difficult segments of people to reach are new visitors to a church. At our church, we do the best we can to make new visitors feel welcome by implementing the “First Five” after church. This is where regular attendees spend the first five minutes after...
Three Ways Couples Can Successfully Lead Together in Ministry
After fifteen years of being in the ministry together, we have led almost every type of group imaginable. We have watched as members in suit and tie and those dressed in coveralls both sat side by side in the church pew. Because our ministry has led us to four...
How to Fan the Flame of God in Your Church
At my son’s school the other day, I spotted some artwork that lined his classroom walls. Each child created a flower and wrote five descriptive words about another classmate on each petal. One girl said my son was “handsome, smart, friendly, trustworthy, special.”...
Mental Illness as a Preacher, Teacher, Pastor, and Leader
Rev. Pamela Yerby-Hammack, visionary and founder of Wind of Change Ministries, shares her story of brokenness and mental illness. Diagnosed with depression and anxiety, she shares how God used both prayer and medication to bring her out of a place of darkness and show...
Hearing God’s Voice
Hearing the voice of God is vital for our everyday lives. Jesus said in Matthew 4:4, “Man cannot live off of bread alone, but every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” For believers, it should be normal for us to hear from God and experience His presence. This...
Resurrection Day In The Muslim World
I was a pastor for 20 years before God called me to launch into missions in the volatile Muslim world. It was three months before September 11, 2001, and if I’d known what was coming, I might’ve asked God to send me to South America instead. You can imagine the...
Where’s The Deep End Of Discipleship?
“I’m just not being fed.” Every pastoral leader cringes when they hear this from concerned church attenders. What am I doing wrong? What can our ministry do to help? While it’s tempting to double sermon prep time, launch a series of apologetics classes, and recruit...
