Articles for Pastors

Bodies matter. I often wonder if Christians would truly concur with this statement. I know we believe spiritual lives matter but what about embodied lives, flesh-and-blood lives?

For the first three months of the Covid-19 outbreak, our church family of about 1,500 only experienced a handful of coronavirus cases. As far as we know, none of those cases were spread at one of our events. Two weeks ago, that all changed with a Covid-19 spike.

Pride, selfishness, bitterness, and a host of sins, like parasites, sicken once healthy ambitions toward destructiveness. In guarding our hearts, we must also guard our pastoral ambitions.

Gentleness, then, may be considered a powerful apologetic. Not that we wish to be gentle in order to get attention, but as we follow Scripture’s call to gentleness, we can be calmed by the knowledge that this will surprise others.

As we all know, there end up being loose ends – five minutes here, 10 minutes there, 20 minutes over there that are left over. The question is – what can we do with those short periods of time? Waste them or make them accomplish more?

If we can move from merely hosting digital versions of live church services into a new era of digital discipleship, faith leaders can successfully grow their congregations and foster lasting spiritual change.

Some younger evangelicals see a patriotic church service as a compromise with worldly power. Their approach is to take the flag out of the sanctuary, never sing a patriotic song, and never mention a patriotic holiday.

"Faith may not be the same as rationality, but this does not mean that faith in God is irrational."