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| St. Oswald's Church, Grasmere, Cumbria |
The longer I’m in ministry the more I’m convinced that one of the prime reasons for pastoral burnout is that too many pastors are ignoring a simple command. Equip the saints.
The New Testament doesn’t emphasize the role of pastor nearly as much as our current church structure does. In fact, there’s just one passage – one! – in which the role of the pastor (along with apostles, prophets, evangelists, and teachers) is mentioned.
To be sure, there are plenty of passages about bishops, overseers, and more that apply to pastors, but Ephesians 4:11-12 could easily be called the pastoral prime mandate. In that passage, the Apostle Paul clearly tells us we have been called “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.”
Even in a small church, where the pastor often has to do more of the mundane tasks than our big-church friends do, we’re never exempted from the pastoral mandate to make disciples by equipping the saints.
Why the Decline of Church Transfer Growth is a Good Thing
Isn't any growth in a local church a good thing? Jess and Thom demonstrate why one particular type of growth can do more harm than good.
How to Eliminate Programs and Ministries
Most church leaders acknowledge that their churches are too busy and that their church calendars are too cluttered. Jess and Thom share a simple process for focusing on the right ministries and eliminating or minimizing others.
When Are Half Your Members Going to be Dead?
The tipping point for many denominations is not that far away.
Why Do Educated People Go to Church More?
It’s not about work schedules, free time, or even how religious they are.
Why Private Religion and Public Religion Tell Different Stories
Plus: a quiz to see where you land on both.
US evangelicals more religious than other Christians, but still declining
A professor at Washington University has used Pew research data to argues that while US evangelicals take their faith more seriously than Christians of other traditions, they are still being secularised, albeit at a slower rate.
Looking at a “composite religiosity index” (CRI), which essentially merges together factors like the importance of religion in a person’s life, church attendance and certainty in God’s existence, Professor Ryan Burge reports that since at least 2007 evangelicals have been consistently more religious than other traditions by a large margin.
Christianity teaches us not to turn executions into entertainment
The history of public executions suggests that when they are staged in free countries, they serve to degrade the citizens.
Also See: Theobro pastor Joel Webbon calls for public execution of Mike HuckabeeImmigration fears shape views of Britishness and Christianity, report finds
Anxiety about immigration and cultural change is closely linked to how people view British identity and Christianity’s place in national life, according to a new report by the religion and society think tank Theos.
Addressing the Pastor Shortage With the Gospel
The church in Canada has a serious problem: there are not enough pastors, even for the churches that already exist. In a now somewhat famous article in Faith Today, “Waking up to the pastor shortage”, Rick Hiemstra writes, “evangelicalism in Canada, as a movement, needs 625 new pastors per year over the next 12 years just to deal with retirement attrition. And of course, that’s not the only reason pastors leave active ministry.”
With this qualification, too, the problem is still understated, because addressing this issue would not touch the lack of church planters needed to start new churches.
What’s so fascinating about Church of England vicars?
Church of England priest Pippa White has more than 32,000 followers on TikTok, her online posts have been seen by millions, and she has just published a book explaining clerical life for a non-church audience.
In Not a Priestess, Pippa “brings her uniquely offbeat perspective to life as a young, female priest navigating the Church of England."
The London church that helped shape a nation: 300 years of St Martin-in-the-Fields
Few parish churches are as famous as St Martin-in-the-Fields in central London. This year, it marks its 300th anniversary. This is the story....
At one time Mayfield, Kentucky, in the Jackson Purchase, had an Episcopal church named after this famous London church. It was closed in 2006, in part due to its poor location and lack of visibilty, at the end of a culdesac, in an aging subdivision, a culdesac that was not directly accessible from a main artery of the town but required taking three different streets to reach. What ultimately caused the demise of the church was the appointment of a vicar who was not a good match with the conservative population of the community but who fit with the diocese's agenda of promoting radical inclusion.LOST CHORDS: England’s Forgotten Hymns
In this episode Ben Maton plays the organ of St. Peter's Church, a Victorian church located in Hornblotton, Somerset, and built between 1872 and 1874 by architect Sir Thomas Graham Jackson for rector Godfrey Thring. Thring loved church music, wrote a number of hymns and published several hymn collections. The church's interior reflects the Victorian obsession with the medieval church. Note that the choir stalls face each other, a hangover from the medieval monastic church when the chancel was the church and the monks were the congregation who sang the monastic daily offices throughout the day and into the night and the nave was a barn attached to the church.The church has no rood screen which would have hidden the Lord's Table and muffled the voices of the choir. As it is is, this placement of the choir requires the choristers to turn in their stalls to face the congregation to be heard and is ill-suited for Prayer Book worship, an admission its admirers are loathe to make!
Are You Using AI to Think, or to Stop Thinking?
Does using AI make you dumber? A Brown University professor thought take-home exams would help his students after a tragedy on campus. Instead, the class average hit 96%, then crashed to 48% the moment laptops were banned.
The problem isn't AI. It's how we're using it to skip the thinking instead of sharpen it.
In this video, I share how to use AI to build your mind instead of outsourcing it. What's your take?
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