Feb 16, 2024 | Church Matters, Personal Development
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...
Feb 9, 2024 | Inspiration, Pastor's Life
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...
Feb 6, 2024 | Inspiration, Pastor's Life
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...
Feb 2, 2024 | Personal Development, Spiritual Growth
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...
Jan 23, 2024 | Church Matters, Devotion, Inspiration, Pastor's Life, Personal Development
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...
Jan 23, 2024 | Church Matters, Leadership, Pastor's Life
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...
Jan 22, 2024 | Church Matters, Inspiration, Leadership, Missions
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”...
Jan 19, 2024 | Church Matters, Pastor's Life, Personal Development
“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...
Jan 16, 2024 | Church Matters, Leadership, Leadership
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...
