7 Questions COVID-19 is Hand-Delivering to PASTORS
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 years of residency, and now a career in a practice that deals with anesthesia, intensive care medicine, critical emergency medicine,...
7 Questions COVID-19 is Hand-Delivering to PASTORS: Question #5
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 in a fallen world, one where epidemics shake nations and sickness strikes individuals. Whatever wonderful advances medical science makes in...
7 Questions COVID-19 is Hand-Delivering to PASTORS: Question #4
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 it said – and probably even said it – how many times? But like edging along a cliff in the...
7 Questions COVID-19 is Hand-Delivering to PASTORS: Question #3
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, CEO pastors are morphing into prime time talking heads and the language has changed to hits, viewers, and followers. Many...
7 Questions COVID-19 is Hand-Delivering to PASTORS: Question #2
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 Prayer people or Script and Camera people? Will our churches be studios or gathering places? A U40 minister recently told...
7 Questions COVID-19 is Hand-Delivering to Pastors: QUESTION #1
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 what the new normal will look like and how they can best serve their congregations through their questions. In recent weeks as we have processed the COVID-19...
9 Questions COVID-19 is Hand Delivering to the CHURCH
As a pastoral coach, I spend countless hours in conversation with our ministry’s target group, young ministers. It’s who we are; it’s what we do. And it’s a joy. These conversations are focused on helping our members in their ministry lives. Through regularly scheduled and special phone calls, I join their journeys and help them process not only their present life in ministry but their lifetime calling. With it comes a special blessing I call...
Pastoring In An Upside Down World
I remember the anxiety that filled our nation. People were dying. We knew the name of the infection that was killing them. But we didn't really know how the disease was spreading. And killing. And because we didn't know with certitude, the rumor mill raced in to fill the void. The black hole of curiosity and fear that looks for every idea – true or untrue – absorbed it all and spit it out across a...
The Church World Will End in 25 Years (The 2020 Update)
INTRODUCTION One year ago this month, Journey Pastoral Coaching published an article entitled, “The World Will End in 23 Years (The Church World).” In that piece, I cited statistics on the graying of the American pulpit. How gray are we going? This gray: “By the time your son or daughter, born today, graduates from college, the average ordained AG minister will be at retirement age (67.5 years).” The World Will End in 23 Years (March 1,...© [2015] — Journey Pastoral Coaching