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Violence in Las Vegas + Natural Disasters: How to Respond
Las Vegas remains in a state of shock. Puerto Rico lies devastated by multiple hurricanes. Monsoon flooding has decimated parts of India, Bangladesh, and Nepal. Families in Houston and parts of Florida continue to reel from hurricane-related damage. Multiple...
Avoiding Burnout When You Feel Like Giving Up
Now that fall is upon us and holiday craziness is looming, are you struggling with motivation? Is it taking all you’ve got to just face what’s on your to-do list? I remember waking up one morning and thinking “I don’t feel like getting out of bed. I don’t feel like...
Counseling the Couple Who Has Had It
Chances are, you have many women or couples in your congregation or ministry who are frustrated and ready to give up on their marriage. They are tired of trying. Their minds are nearly made up. They have truly “had it.” But before they walk away from what they once...
What It Takes to Be Fully Engaged
Every pastor who wants fully engaged board members, staff and church members need to ask three probing questions. Do I understand the Greatest Commandment and take it seriously? Do I understand that I can love God wholeheartedly only if I have received, embraced, and...
Why God Doesn’t Want You to Stress
What stresses you out? Work? Finances? Your kids? A project you are working on that doesn’t appear to be coming together? An over-packed schedule that has you striving for the impossible? Maybe it’s even your ministry or service to God that has you stressed out!...
Winning During Football Season
I’d be curious to know if there are any men in West Coast churches on Sundays during football season. Seriously, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought to myself how thankful I was that I live on the East Coast where NFL games begin at 1:00 on Sunday, versus...
How Women Encounter the Love of Christ
Do women experience their relationship with God differently than men do? If so, in what ways? And what does that mean for our churches? For our ministries and our sermons? And for the way that pastors lead? Of course, “the role of women in ministry” has received much...
Three Ways We Can Respond in Love to the Charlottesville Rally
My stomach churned on Sunday as I heard the news that white supremacists gathered in Charlottesville Virginia on Saturday to attend a “Unite the Right” rally. Viewing the photos of bodies battered, bloodied and bruised from the chaos saddened me to my core. I asked...
7 Reasons to Thank God for Unanswered Prayer
Do you know what it’s like to continually wait on God for an answer to your prayer? Maybe someone you minister to is struggling with the fact that they’ve been praying and God hasn’t been answering. I'm a firm believer that God knows exactly what He's doing when He...
Make Counseling Easier With These 5 Resources
One of the most difficult aspects of a pastor’s job is the role of counselor. No two situations are the same, so there is no one-size-fits-all way to go into a counseling situation. Many times an issue can’t be resolved by just talking with a minister; a person may...
Three Ways to Recharge Your Spiritual Battery
Do you know what it’s like to feel spiritually dry? Do you ever wonder if you’re going through the motions? Maybe you feel as if you’ve stopped moving, spiritually, altogether. We all have times when we need to be refreshed, refueled, and re-energized in our...
Trends and Struggles Pastors Face According to Barna
A new study, “The State of Pastors,” conducted by the Barna Group in partnership with Pepperdine University, explores the relational health of pastors – looking closely at relationships with their spouse, children, friends and peers. Study findings revealed that...
Q & A with Joel Smallbone of For King & Country
Joel Smallbone of the Grammy and Dove Award-winning For King & Country recently had a conversation with Pastor Resources to share about one of the group’s latest projects the Priceless DVD/Blue-ray release from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment. The DVD...
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...
