On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to the door of the local church in Wittenberg, Germany, 95 reforms he believed necessary to revitalize the universal church and restore Jesus to His rightful place as Savior and Lord in church doctrine and life. In effect, Luther grabbed the church by the throat & […]
Culture is imploding, collapsing in upon itself. Denying all absolutes and objective truth, culture is now without safeguards, consuming itself in a death spiral of spiritual and moral chaos. In his outstanding essay, “The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World,” David Wells writes: “The evangelical church has a sense that moral absolutes are evaporating […]
It is hard to have patience with people who say, “There is no death” or “Death doesn’t matter.” There is death. And whatever is, matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn’t matter. C.S. Lewis The simple wooden casket was set on […]
Some silver lining on this dark cloud called COVID-19. A long-standing prayer of mine may be in the process of being answered: the return of Psalm 23 pastors to the church of Jesus. Call them “undershepherds” of the Great Good Shepherd of John 10. TECHNIQUE-BASED PASTORS: Members of Journey Pastoral Coaching know that I am no […]
QUESTION 7: JOURNEY’S PASTORS OFFER THEIR THOUGHTS With the national conversation shifting to the question of ending the quarantine, pastors find their burden not lifted, but shifted as well. And deepened. As they shepherd their people in quarantine, they are asking how they will Psalm 23-shepherd through the transition back to normal. They are asking […]
QUESTION 6: Will pastors survive or thrive? I was talking with a medical doctor just today who has kindly agreed to do a webinar with the members of Journey Pastoral Coaching. The subject of the webinar is handling stress. Like most doctors involved in surgical procedures, she’s well qualified to talk about stress: medical school, four […]
QUESTION 5: Will pastoral ministry be primarily prophetic or merely visionary? Will the eternal or the temporal define pastoral ministry? Students of Scripture and world history are not surprised by challenges like COVID. We may not have foreseen this particular test, but neither are we surprised by it. The Bible tells us that we live […]
QUESTION 4: Will Ephesians 4.12-16 pastoral ministry make a comeback? Many pastors are very good at doing ministry alone, and so, they think doing ministry alone is best. They create, plan, strategize and implement their ideas well, so each one asks himself, “Why do Ephesians 4.12-16 when I can do it better?” We’ve all heard […]
QUESTION 3: Will this lead to more pastoral care among people who are suffering? In the business model church in the 20th-Century, shepherds morphed into CEOs, talking vision statements, 5-year plans, numbers, and programs. Pastors came to see their primary role as that of business leader and vision-caster. With the advent of the digital age, […]
QUESTION TWO: Will pastors become talking heads? Here’s how four U40 ministers phrased it: Will pastors be able to establish a balance between digital and analog? Will we define “ministry” as posting information on social media or will I make the effort to make personal touches and care for people one-on-one? Will pastors be Word and […]
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