Your Church Is Without a Senior Pastor: Now What?
When a church loses its senior pastor, it is natural to grieve. Those interim periods can be dark and confusing times—and they often come more frequently than we expect, and last longer than we want.
But are there any opportunities afforded by an interim period? Could God use such a season for good in the life of a church? To get wisdom on these issues, I spoke with Phil Douglass, professor of practical theology and director of the DMin program at Covenant Theological Seminary.
Phil is the wisest person I know regarding the practical dynamics of church life, including the challenges involved with transition. Read more
6 Resume Mistakes Pastors Make and Tips for Correcting Them
I don’t do a lot of guest posts on this blog, but my friend Dr. Jennifer Degler. Jennifer keeps putting together great ones that I want to share. Here’s another. Jennifer served on the search team that brought me to Immanuel. She shares from her experience. Read more
Paying the Preacher
“Okay, it’s time to pay the preacher.” Those words made me cringe every time I heard them in my early years of pastoral ministry. Just the mention of the Sunday offering seemed to immediately spawn quips about paying the preacher. I was not sure how to take it—whether they gladly gave to “pay the preacher” or regretted feeling somewhat forced to “pay the preacher.” Did they view the work of “the preacher” as gratefully necessary in the ministry of the Word in their congregation or did they think “the preacher” intruded upon their already tight budgets? Since I was “the preacher” it tended to put me on the spot. I usually tried to say nothing or to quietly respond, let’s just give as unto the Lord.
While uncomfortable with those comments, whether understood or not, they actually revealed a biblical idea. Paul wrote, “So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel” (1 Cor 9:14). Paul’s instruction arose out of a discussion on Christian liberty (1 Corinthians 8–10), and as an application, on congregational support of gospel ministers. Ironically, while expounding from Old Testament texts the New Testament principle of supporting those ministering the Word among the congregation, Paul insisted that out of Christian liberty he had the right to not receive those gifts. Yet that did not mean that they were to forgo those gifts for others or to neglect this practice in the local church. Read more
How Much Should You Pay a Guest Preacher?
Eventually, your church will have a guest preacher. Your pastor may be out of town or he needs time to focus on other areas of the church. When this happens, you are faced with the question, “How much should we pay the guest preacher?”
Most of us want to show the guest preacher our appreciation through an honorarium. We desire for him to feel valued and loved but still be good stewards of the church budget. It is a tension many church administrators feel.
Here are four guidelines I suggest for navigating this tension.... Read more
Marryin' & Buryin': How Much Should I Pay the Pastor?
I decided that the best time to write this post was when I didn't anticipate anyone in the church I pastor needing it. Yeah, I know, that sounds silly - but I wanted to make sure that no one felt as if I was critiquing and/or counting on a particular dollar amount from them.
With that said, I'll try to answer some questions you might have about the odd strange world of "honorariums" and "love offerings". Read more
Eight Very Difficult Ministry Situations for Pastors
In a recent post, I shared the results of an informal Twitter poll that pointed out the greatest sources of discouragement of pastors and staff. In this post, I share the challenges of difficult ministry situations. Specifically I asked: “What are some of the most difficult situations you have had in pastoral ministry?”
This time, I am simply reporting anecdotal information in my conversations with pastors. Eight consistent themes have arisen.Read more
Sloppiness in ministry: Not allowed
The work of many a preacher is an embarrassment to the Kingdom of God.
We are often careless and haphazard in the way we do the greatest work in the world. The service we render in Jesus’ name often reflects poorly on Him, leaving the impression that we care little for His glory and even less for His people. Read more
How to Kill Your Career In Three Easy Steps
Life can throw us a lot of curves. Our childhood, our parents, physical challenges, early experiences on the job, all indelibly imprint us with bad behaviors that are hard to shake. A woman abused as a child, a man whose father told him he’d never amount to much, a person who lives with insecurity. Big or small, they damage our relationships, the quality of our work, and our chances for success. But there are three specific personality “quirks” that really set people back from achieving all they could become in life. I’m not a psychologist, and don’t have all the answers for fixing these problems, but I’ve discovered that if we can take a frank look at ourselves, and at least recognize the limiting behaviors, it helps us get started on the road to freedom.
Take a hard look at this list, and if you suffer from any of these types of behavior, stop blaming others, and put some effort into making real adjustments. Trust me — everyone else knows you’ve got it, so you might as well fix it. Read more
5 Insights I Have Learned About Failure
It could be because of relationships gone bad.
Business setbacks.
A personal life — that was private — but is not anymore.
Bad decisions intentionally done or bad circumstances — out of their control.
All of that and more — failure.
One reason people seem to identify with my teaching is that I’m not perfect. I’ve made lots of mistakes. I didn’t enter the ministry until I was 38 years old and that was plenty of time to learn valuable life experiences by failure. (And, I haven’t quit making mistakes in ministry.)
Here’s what you need to understand though. Read more
How Pastors Can Avoid the Sin of Pride
When pride walks on the platform, God walks off. Under major conviction from the Holy Spirit in 1995, in the early morning on a night when I could not sleep, God revealed this truth to me. It was not a truth about someone else, but a truth about me. During those early hours, God began a work within me that He is still doing in and through me daily.
Every pastor I know, but mostly this pastor, needs to continually learn the powerful truth from 1 Corinthians 15:31, “I die every day!” May the Lord teach us this truth. Read more
The Most Neglected Part of the Pastor’s Job Description
In nearly all the meetings I’ve had with my fellow pastors we come to those areas where we feel ill-equipped, ineffective and perhaps even discouraged. One man mourns his prayer life. Another feels hopeless about evangelism. Still another recounts leadership challenges. Someone wants to improve their preaching. We all share our wisdom, our common struggles and encouragements.
But in all of this talk over the years, I’ve come to believe that the most neglected aspect of a pastor’s job description is the command for pastors to disciple older women in their congregations. It’s a massive omission since in nearly every church women make up at least half the membership and in many cases much more. And when you consider how many ministries and committees depend upon the genius, generosity and sweat of our sisters, it’s almost criminal that most any pastor you meet has no plan for discipling the women of his church apart from outsourcing to a women’s ministry staff person or committee.
Consider Paul’s instruction to Titus. Read more
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