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,...Then & Now Part Two
As a part of JPC’s mission, each month we ask our members to answer what we call an “Insight Question.” The purposes of the JPC monthly IQ are simple: 1. To coach the coach: Journey members’ responses are vital to me as I share their individual journeys and seek to understand the issues they face; 2. To coach the Journey coaching community: IQ results (without identifying information) are usually distributed to our members; 3. To coach the church world...
Then and Now
THE JOURNEY INSIGHT QUESTION As a part of JPC’s mission, we ask our members each month to answer what we call an “Insight Question.” From time to time we open our “IQs” to non-member U40s. However, the IQ that serves as the basis for this article was restricted only to Journey members. The purposes of the JPC monthly IQ are simple: 1. Coach the coach: Journey members’ responses are vital to me as I share their...
Minister of Loneliness
An Open Letter to Journey Pastoral Coaching Members I'll say it yet again: The number one killer of ministers is loneliness. And loneliness is skyrocketing among young adults. It's leading to record numbers in depression, self-harm, the inability to connect, and even suicide. Suicide rates for young males (ages 15 – 24) quadrupled between 1946 and 2006; rates doubled for young females over the same period. File the following under "Things I Never Imagined": "Kay...
Guest Blog: The Modern Christian
The Problem: Feeble Arms and Weak Knees Editor's Note: As Journey Pastoral Coaching begins 2020, we do so with an article written by a JPC member. In it, the author has one eye on the past and one eye on the future: the past - the troubling announcements in 2019 by celebrity leaders in the church that they are "leaving the faith;" the future - what all of us can do to stay strong in...© [2015] — Journey Pastoral Coaching