So the pulpit search committee has contacted you, Pastor, and wants to sit down for a formal interview. How do you do to prepare for the meeting? Every pastoral candidate is prepared to answer questions, but are you prepared to ask them? Neglecting this critical aspect of the interview process is a recipe for disaster. […]
EDITOR’S NOTE: The article below is a difficult one to publish. Even painful. For it is written by my daughter, Allison Luna, and it tells the story of the most devastating experience of her life, an experience that devastated us as a family, those who love her. Allison does not tell her story to draw attention […]
While attending university the first time, I worked as a customer service representative for one of the country’s best-known package delivery services. My duties included not only working with the public, but with fellow employees who loaded our center’s delivery trucks for the day’s deliveries. Even before dawn, it was a lively workplace. Several of […]
In our previous article, we began answering the question, “Pastor or Leader?” Should the role of the person who directs a local church be that of a pastor or a leader? Is this person’s function best defined by leadership or pastoral principles? We pointed out that this choice of “either-or” is a bit too limiting. […]
A frequent conversation in the study and practice of pastoral ministry is “Leader or Pastor?” Should the role of the person who directs a local church be that of a leader or a pastor? Is this person’s function best defined by leadership or pastoral principles? This article is the first in a two-part series that […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 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 […]
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 […]
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