For Christians, one of our earliest lessons—and greatest gifts—is learning how to pray. And yet many of us feel that our prayer lives fall short. Prayer is a conversation that moves primarily in one direction: from the believer who prays to the God who hears. If God appears silent, that does not mean he isn’t […]
The Bible and God’s Will The will of God and the Word of God are inseparable. The Bible is our guidebook for Christian growth. Nowhere else can we find a more complete picture of God’s will for our lives. This is true in terms of general principles and it is true in terms of specific […]
To continue the Christian life requires an awareness and submission to the will of God. I can’t imagine any follower of Jesus being disinterested in God’s will for their life. Repeatedly, the Bible tells us of God’s desires for His children. Those that He accomplishes are called “God’s will.” Paul wrote to the believers in […]
Scripture teaches that when we receive Jesus as Saviour we actually become the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. Paul asks, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). This is a staggering fact. Think of it—God the Holy Spirit […]
And at that time Herod the king laid hands upon to injure certain of the church. 2 And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. 3 And having seen that it is pleasing to the Jews, he added also to take Peter. (They were the days of unleavened bread.) 4 And having seized, he put […]
Why pray? We should pray because prayer is God’s cure for giving up. Isaiah 40:30–31 reminds us: “Even the youths shall faint and be weary, … but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.” We should not lose heart. We should not give up. Martin Luther said, “As it is the business […]
Set boundaries with your family in mind I was a full-time seminary student when I got my first job in ministry. It was a great position that afforded me significant responsibility and opportunity to use my gifts with our church’s college group, all while being mentored into ministry by the college pastor, Chuck. I was […]
Be ambitious for those around you To the extent we can, we’ve attempted to make every ministry in the church team-based, such that there is no area where only one person is able to perform a given task. A brilliant practice that we picked up early on has helped immensely with this. When a person is […]
Fail loudly. Shame and insecurity being what they are, most of us respond to failure by hiding. We reach for our proverbial fig leaf (i.e., an area of unquestioned strength) and try to hide behind it in order to mitigate our feeling of being exposed as weak. But the truth is that those leaders who […]
Find people you can submit to. Another way we add vulnerability to our power is by proactively seeking out accountability. Historically, this was known as the discipline of submission, and it was seen as essential to pastoral health and vitality. In speaking to this need, Eugene Peterson invokes the old adage that “the doctor who […]