11 Things Effective Pastors Don’t Do.
Sometimes the difference between effective an ineffective pastoral leadership boils down to the things we don’t do.
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The Spirit of the Age: Part One
Discouragement among pastors is at an all-time high. The spirit of the age has infiltrated the Church to help create this problem. This article traces the spirit of the age from the 1950s.
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Paul’s advice to pastors: embrace the suck.
Today’s pastors are discouraged, downtrodden, and depressed by the condition of their churches. A tidal wave of pastors thinking quitting is slamming into the American church. And the wave is growing. The pastors gave many reasons why they were thinking of leaving. PASTORS ARE CALLED TO HARDSHIP Yes, pastoral ministry is hard. It requires self-denial, sacrifice, endurance, hardship, ill treatment, and discouragement. But this is nothing new. In fact, it’s been this way since the beginning. Think of what the apostle Paul endured in all the churches he served. Let’s think about just one church that gave him fits, the
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Pastors think of quitting more than they think about sex.
I don’t have hard data, and what little data’s out there is sketchy. But the surging, sustained wave of resignations and widespread discouragement tell us many pastors are toying with the idea of resigning. Recent conversations I’ve had with pastors of troubled churches reinforce the notion. Why? Why are we seeing so many stories, opinion pieces, blog posts and social media reports of pastors quitting and churches closing? It’s a complex problem with plenty of variables to isolate. Here’s my take. Naiveté Many of us, perhaps most, answer the call to ministry with naive expectations and false hopes. We mistakenly
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About Theological Method in Pastoral Theology
Most pastoral theologies that are readily available for ministerial training in the West begin with or are largely confined to tracing the historical development of the pastoral office in the Western Church, with scant exegesis of the salient biblical texts. This methodological error results in works that are for the most part historical surveys and commentaries on church tradition. The net result are works that derive their theological considerations from two sources; observation of the development of pastoral duties over the centuries and unwarranted emphasis on the importance of tradition. This is not to say that history and tradition may
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Unlock Your Pastor’s Potential: Your Treatment Affects Their Effectiveness
If God the Father expects reciprocity from those who voluntarily entered into his Covenant, if Jesus expects it from and among his disciples, and if Paul expected it from the church he had poured heart and soul into, then there is every reason why pastors should expect reciprocity from their churches.
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Total Inability: Can People to Turn to God?
I recently joined my friends Kyle and Flynn of OnceLost Ministries on one of their podcasts. The topic was Total Inability; we talked about whether spiritual death means that unbelieving people cannot respond to God. If you are not familiar with this issue, those who teach Reformed theology use the acronym TULIP to sum up their key doctrines. The “T” stands for “Total Depravity.” In their system, this means that unbelieving people are can’t to God in any fashion. Some of them may modify this to say that unbelievers \can respond to God negatively, but not positively. In other words,
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Why Churches Resist Change
Churches resist change for many reasons, but with careful leadership skills a pastor can move them past their reluctance.
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How to Become Your Church’s Leader
Sergeant Ernie Savage embodied the qualities that pastors need to become leaders in their churches. A scene from the film We Were Soldiers shows Savage, portrayed by Ryan Hurst, looking after his platoon during a taxing training exercise. When the company stops to rest, Savage moves quietly through his platoon to encourage each one. He also exhorts them to put on dry socks to spare them from peeling skin and athlete’s foot. It was a small gesture that revealed his leadership potential. As a platoon sergeant, he led by walking alongside the troops. He cared for those in his charge.
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Prayer for Pastors: How to Pray for Them
Prayer for pastors is a vital way that believers can support and encourage those who serve. The pastor is one of the most important people in the Christian believer’s spiritual journey. Pastors play a significant role in helping us grow in faith, guiding us toward righteous living, and keeping us accountable for our Christian walk. Intercessory prayer is not merely a religious routine or a means of expressing personal desires. Nor is it something to do because we don’t know what else to do. We sometimes think that prayer is an easy way to let ourselves off the hook, but
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