Articles for Pastors

Being in God’s will doesn’t guarantee a tension-free job, a conflict-free marriage or a trouble-free life.

If you asked a few hundred church members from multiple churches what they want in a pastor, what do you think they’d say? You don’t have to wonder. Thom Rainer asked that question a while ago and published the top ten responses on his blog.

For over a year, I have been unable to shake this thought. I am called to His eternal glory in Christ. What could this mean in our daily lives?

"And after dozens, perhaps a few hundred, of these conversations, I see patterns."

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.