Blog
Blog
Leaders, Here’s One Powerful Way to Face Your Shadow
Most leaders search out books on leadership to discover new tools, ideas, or skills. We are charged with the task of knowing what to do next, knowing why it is important, and then bringing the necessary resources to bear to make it happen. Yet the...
4 Steps to a Meaningful Sabbath
All work — paid and unpaid — is good, but it needs to be boundaried by the practice of Sabbath. The problem with too many leaders is that we allow our work to trespass on every other area of life, disrupting the balanced rhythm of work and rest God...
3 Vital Questions for the Biblical Counselor
Ashley and her husband, Nate, met with me at church the day after their twin sons’ eleventh birthday. With tears streaming down her face, Ashley shared that twenty-five years earlier, not long after her eleventh birthday, a relative had begun...
How to Make the Most of Spiritual Conversations
Spiritual conversations involve good talk about our good God in the midst of our bad life. “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those...
Pastors: Are You Brave Enough to Leave Your Cultural Comfort Zone?
Many majority culture believers say they want a multicultural church, but when you get down to it, they really don’t. They want a group of people of different races coming together to worship in their style. You might say they want a multicolored...
When a Pastor Loses Hope
I had been a pastor for ten years when I realized I didn’t believe in heaven. My mother had died, and the devastation I felt at first was normal, understandable. But then, it hung on, and eventually grew into the dark, clinging despair of...
A Sermon for Busy Pastors: Unexpected Lessons from an Unjust Servant
May this sermon help you improve the quality, freshness, and variety of your pulpit ministry, and better meet the spiritual needs of those in your congregation. Sermon Title: A Quality of Discipleship — Astuteness Text: “I tell you, use worldly...
How to Make Your Marriage Your Loudest Gospel Message
Understanding singleness and marriage as callings or vocations must inform our self-understanding and the outworking of our leadership. Our whole life as a leader is to bear witness to God’s love for the world. But we do so in different ways as...
People Are Leaving J. D. Greear’s Church … And That’s Exactly How He Wants It to Be
The primary function of the pastor’s leadership ought to be helping their people discover and unleash the ministry potential God has placed inside of them. Congregants are not to be merely gathered, counted, organized, and assigned volunteer...
How to Identify Future Pastors (and Deliver Hands-on Training)
Paul tells us in his letter to the Ephesian church that God gives some men to the church who are apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors and teachers for the equipping and building up of the church (Ephesians 4:11 – 12). How do you find these...
How Whole-Person Discipleship Can Overcome Poverty
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk...
How to Prepare a Gospel-Centered Funeral When You’re Under Pressure
Funerals get dropped into our schedule unannounced, and they can be challenging to prepare. Typically, a pastor will have between two to five days to plan and prepare for all that comes with a funeral. Preparing for and conducting a funeral is an emotional and mental drain. Ways in which a pastor can take time to prepare heart, mind, and soul.
The 12 Markers of a Life of Discernment
The 12 Markers of a Life of Discernment Stephen Macchia As believers in Jesus, we are invited to live the discerning life by choosing to prefer God’s Word, his will, and his ways over our own or any preferences espoused by our unbelieving...
A Sermon for Busy Pastors: 3 Looks at the Lord's Supper
May this sermon provide assistance to you as you seek to improve the quality, freshness, and variety of your pulpit ministry. The Pastor’s Annual is for pastors who don’t have enough hours in the day. Packed with a year’s worth of sermons, use this book to enrich your preaching—and to reclaim some time and energy for other areas of your ministry.
4 Steps to Comfort the Grieving
I have found that at the moment of death, it is my quiet, helpful presence that is needed most, not my words. As a local church shepherd, I will have the privilege of taking many opportunities in the months and years ahead to provide ongoing...
4 Ways You Can Deepen Your Church’s Faith by Becoming a Theological Thought Leader
Pastor theologians aren’t extinct, but sightings are rare. We envision and want to advocate for a return of the pastor theologian who has a shepherd’s heart and a pastor’s primary vocational identity, yet who functions as an intellectual peer of...
Free Resources
Using How (not) to Save the World with your church or small group?
Here are some tools to help:
The Small Group Tool Kit includes two mobile-friendly invitation cards, reflection cards to enhance your small group experience, and a worship song playlist curated by Hosanna Wong that can beplayed during small group meetings or personal Bible study time.
The Church Tool Kit includes a downloadable poster, bulletininsert, invitation card, and Power Point slide.
Is your church talking about anxiety, depression and mental health issues? You should be.
Shawn Johnson, lead pastor of Red Rocks Church, gives a
searingly honest portrait of anxiety and depression and shows readers how to fight back and live free. He also has put together three free tools pastors can use to help their congregation have a productive conversation around mental health, including a discussion guide, sermon notes and key Scripture verses.