Throughout the 30+ years I served in pastoral ministry I have witnessed too many church pastors in America lose their positions of church leadership because of financial or sexual indiscretions coming to the light of day. This long list of ministry tragedies might have been avoided had there been accountability relationships in place.
Accountability can […]
In my early years as a pastor (from the 60s through the 80s) I remember people saying that liberals focused on social justice mostly to the exclusion of evangelism, and evangelicals focused on evangelism mostly to the exclusion of social justice. In fact, many of the theological differences during those years were crystallized in the dichotomy between social justice […]
It’s not too early to begin thinking about what you’re going to do to capitalize on the pagan holiday known as Christmas. Yes, you heard me correctly – Christmas is a pagan holiday. But contrary to what you might think, its status as a pagan holiday makes it an even more valuable evangelism tool than you […]
I was with my grandson … 13 years-old … yesterday and he asked grandma and I, “Do you have cable?” I admitted we did and he responded:
How can you stand cable and all those commercials? I hate commercials!
To be fair, so do I. In fact, my Kansas City apartment is completely unplugged from commercial […]
When I get called in as a consultant to work with stuck, plateaued, or declining churches I have a couple of things I look for right off the bat. In the vast majority of the cases I discover that their inability to grow, let alone sustain, their membership is caused by one of six […]
Over the years, I’ve come to understand that when we talk about making plans in the church, we may not be speaking the same language. What I call mission may or may not be what you call mission. And the same goes for vision, strategies, tactics, and goals. the definitions for these terms are […]
When it comes to professional pastoral ministries, the absolute must difficult job of all is effectively leading a church’s transformation. That’s a glamourless, thankless, painful, heart-wrenching, aggravating, and too often career-ending task. In fact, the only ones who intentionally consider engaging in this kind of ministry are either narcissistic, arrogant, savior-complexed martyrs or else the God-called […]
When I went to seminary many moons ago, the study of leadership was one of three glaring omissions in seminary curriculum (the other two were conflict resolution and financial management). About the only leadership advice I got was this analogy: “Today’s pastor must be like a modern-day rancher who uses a helicopter to fly over […]
Two Axioms for Pulling the Trigger
Why is it so hard for pastors to pull the trigger and institute something new? Why do so many resist doing what they know needs done? Let me take a stab at responding to these questions. I think there are two prime reasons.
1. Distractions dilute desire.
Don’t kid yourself. Distractions […]
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