By Laura Stephens-Reed For a long time there has been commonly-held wisdom about church size dynamics and the role of the pastor at each church size: The family size church has fewer than 50 people, with most of them related to one another. This congregation experiences little numerical growth because it is difficult for visitors … Continue reading
By Laura Stephens-Reed Over the course of their vocational lives, many pastors find themselves charged with leading a church staff. This is not only true for senior pastors, but associate pastors can also function in the same way within their more specialized ministry areas. The supervisory role is challenging. Most pastors enter ministry expecting to … Continue reading
According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, a firestorm is “a raging fire of great intensity, as one fueled by oil or gas, that spreads rapidly.” That might be the best way to describe what Kristen Kobes Du Mez’s work around her book, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured … Continue reading
“Real transformation requires real honesty. If you want to move forward – get real with yourself.” — Bryant McGill By Crystal Ham The word of the day is transform. As I googled quotes about transformation, the one above spoke loudly from the computer screen. Transform. Honesty. Forward. Real. All words that represent potential and oftentimes … Continue reading
By Laura Stephens-Reed In A Path to Belonging: Overcoming Clergy Loneliness, leadership specialists Mary Kay DuChene and Mark Sundby raise the red flag that loneliness among clergy, a stress response to not having adequate levels of social connection, is epidemic. This was true before the pandemic, but our need to distance ourselves physically during the … Continue reading
What’s your theology of caring for the dead? You haven’t thought much about it, have you? Neither did I until I sat down with the authors of Corpse Care: Ethics for Tending the Dead, Mikeal Parsons and Cody Sanders. “What we do in relation to this stage of bodily becoming, the inevitability of our incarnation … Continue reading
By Grayson Hester It’s no secret to any American in any corner of this country that we’re enduring a seemingly endless housing crisis. Rent, from coast to coast, rises like sea levels while wages stagnate. This presents a problem to almost everyone, except for those rich enough to be insulated with their money. To the … Continue reading
By Justin Mofield We have all heard about how we don’t spend enough time alone with God. We know about the weekly trips to church whether it’s for worship, Sunday school, prayer groups and other events that take place as a congregation. But in these instances, we are speaking more about the daily grind, spending … Continue reading
Where did you get your concept of what the Bible is and its function in our lives? Where did that idea passed down to you come from? Just how old is it as a concept? The theology established in the early church and later confirmed by various councils was that God is Father, Son, and … Continue reading
By Brian Foreman CBF Fellows is a two-year ministry program for ministers in their “first-call” in congregational ministry. They meet six times a year to provide support and empower ministers to commit to serving their congregations. At the Chicago cohort, Kan’Dace Brock, pastor of The Message Church in San Antonio, invited fellow clergy to consider … Continue reading
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