NOTICE: Sometime in the early 21st Century, virtue was laid to rest in America. After a long and labored illness, and unable to sustain its fight for life, virtue succumbed to the cancer of evil. For decades, doctors had prescribed healthy diet and exercise, but its guardians, the American people, refused treatment, preferring instead that virtue […]
The third and final installment in our three-part look at Timeless Truths for 21st Century Ministers. I often tell young ministers that all ministers take their share of ‘hits” in ministry: from being disappointed by others to being fired; from not being taken care of by a church board to being abused by a church; from non-responsive church […]
This article is the second of a three-part series on essential truths for 21st Century ministers. You can read the first installment here. World events, church issues and the ministry itself tempt the minister to focus first on the ever urgent and always must-be-done now list. For others, attention and energy are spent one breath at a […]
When I entered full-time ministry forty years ago, I wasn’t naïve. But I was idealistic. In our twenties, most ministers are. I believed in the goodness and sovereignty of God, the truth and promises of His Word, the salvation and power of the Gospel, the beauty of the church, the privilege of serving in ministry. […]
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 […]
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