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The Proverbial Pandemic

If there has ever been a time that pastors could legitimately say, “They didn’t teach me this in seminary,” it would certainly be now during this COVID-19 global pandemic. We’re all having to navigate new territory and uncharted waters, whether it be learning how to use unfamiliar technology or just finding an ample supply of toilet paper. Of course, there are people on the planet who are in much more dire straits. Nonetheless, it’s definitely a season in which all of us are having to learn stuff that we haven’t been taught.

Jim Shaddix

For Pastors: How to Love Your Wife Well During the Pandemic

A lot has changed in the past two weeks. Not only has your church shifted services to a virtual platform, but your family most likely is in your space 100% of the time. Both situations bring inevitable stress on you, but these changes can also impact your family, especially your marriage. It's crucial during this time that you pay attention and love your family well. If, when the Pandemic is over, we lose those closest to us, then we lose. How can you protect and prevent that from happening? I believe one way is by loving your wife well.

Melanie Ratcliffe

What a Difference a Week Makes

Perhaps you’re familiar with the saying, “What a difference a week makes.” The saying highlights how much things like the weather forecast to the price of gas can change in a short period of time. But, considering the drastic effects of recent events, this traditional maxim has proved to be even more true. From public school shut-downs, extreme fluctuations in the stock market, stay-at-home orders, to the rapid spread of disease and death, our lives have been rapidly and completely turned upside down.

Scott Pace

Should Churches Observe the Lord’s Supper Online?

With the COVID-19 pandemic making church gatherings unwise at best, many churches in recent days have moved to live-streaming or offering their services online. My own church has been one of those. Psalm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday are approaching. In many churches, these have been times when an observance of the Lord’s Supper has seemed especially appropriate and meaningful. But should a church observe the Lord’s Supper online, with members partaking in their homes? I think we can best answer that question by reflecting on the meaning of the Lord’s Supper. Why did the Lord command us to do this practice in the first place? What are we saying when we do this?

John Hammett

Parenting During a Pandemic

Parenting is hard. This is a statement that rings true to anyone with children in their home on even the best of days. What about when crisis strikes and the circumstances change? What happens when all the other people to whom we have been entrusting the care of our children are all of the sudden not able to be present in their lives? This is exactly the parenting predicament in which we find ourselves in the world of COVID-19 and the Shelter-in-Place regulations. Suddenly, we as parents find ourselves learning how to be teacher, coach and counselor in addition to being a 24/7 parent.

Chris Rafferty

6 Reasons the Coronavirus Threat Won’t Likely Turn Churches Outwardly—And What We Might Do About It

I read about the hope many of us have that this current global crisis will turn our churches toward the Great Commission, and I genuinely hope that’s the case. I’m convinced, though, that won’t happen apart from an undeniable move of God in our midst.

Chuck Lawless

Elevating Evangelists

There is much discussion on the challenge of evangelism in the North American church, particularly among church planters. Strategies and tools designed to aid the church in this work are seemingly a dime in a dozen, though most recognize that the problem has far more to do with apathy than it does aptitude. Only the Spirit of the living God can compel His church to live out their core missionary identity.

Matt Rogers

10 Evangelism Questions for Church Leaders to Ask

If you’re a church leader, you’re responsible for modeling evangelism for your congregation. Maybe asking these questions will challenge you to be more evangelistic.

Chuck Lawless

How the Local Church Can Prepare Single Women for the Mission Field

Months ago, I sat in a coffee shop chatting with two other women who served on mission overseas as single women in difficult areas of the world. One of the women had recently talked with a missions leader at her church. That leader pointed out the high number of single women on the mission field and asked her how church leaders can prepare single women to go overseas as missionaries.

Anna Daub

Mentoring for Mission

As a pastor of a small church, I feel pulled in a million directions. I have to disciple new believers, counsel couples, steward resources, build partnerships, prepare sermons, invest in families and do evangelism. If you’re a pastor, you can probably think of some things I left off the list. We all feel the pressure to excel at “just one more thing,” and we usually wonder if we have what it takes. And so, when someone says the church needs to focus on a new topic, like missions, we sigh (at least internally), because of the new demands upon our time.

Stephen Stallard

Lamenting the Personal Pain of Ministry

“Where do you go when your calling collides with the corruption of people who call themselves Christians?” Mark Vroegop, lead pastor of College Park Church in Indianapolis, Indiana, preaches on Psalm 55 about how we must not cease talking to God in our pain of ministry. Lament psalms teach us this. We must keep talking to Him.

Pastors Center

Praying God’s Purpose for the Text

You know the importance of praying for your sermon—or at least you should, because prayer-less preaching is powerless preaching. But, even though you believe this, my guess is that you sometimes try to “pray yourself hot,” but barely mange to “pray yourself lukewarm.” I know I do. I believe we can learn from the laser when it comes to praying ourselves hot.

Quentin Self

When Justice Rolls Down… Like Molasses

When I was a pastor in Baltimore, I had a neighbor who was involved in a verbal fight with a woman in front of his house. In mere minutes she had a group of fifteen at his house hurling obscenities and bricks at his house. He ran into his house and called the police. He may still be waiting for their help.

Ronjour Locke

Interview with Andy Davis on Church Revitalization

Earlier this year, Ronjour Locke sat down with Andy Davis, Senior Pastor at First Baptist Church of Durham, to discuss church revitalization and the many challenges associated with it.

Center for Preaching and Pastoral Leadership

The Trigger of the Spirit

The Spirit of God who indwells the preacher is the most powerful force in the universe. And God has ordained a system in His Trinitarian economy that provides every safety mechanism necessary to prevent us from accidentally hurting ourselves or someone else with His Spirit, but at the same time enables us to engage His Spirit in our work whenever we are ready to fire. He’s done this by ordaining prayer to be the primary way we engage His Spirit in the Christian life and work, including our preaching.

Jim Shaddix

Personal Prayer in Spiritual Warfare

Jesus instructs us that the thief comes to “steal, kill and destroy.” Jesus, however, has come that we may have life, indeed, abundant life in Him (Jn. 10:10). Paul reminds us that his life in the Kingdom is “righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17). But the enemy comes and when he does his only desire is to ruin that which God is doing in the life of His sons and daughters. Among other things, the thief wants to destroy our ongoing testimony with God (witness) and to kill our communion with and dependence upon the Spirit and the Word. The father of lies wants to steal from us the tangible awe of who God is and the immediate remembrance of all that God has done for us practically and personally.

Forrest Moss

Prayer is Power

Prayer is one area of the Christian life where we tend to have more questions than answers, especially when we consider not only praying on our own but praying together as a church. We want to pray, we know we ought to pray, but sometimes we don’t know where to start. When we look to Scripture, we find that prayer is the personal and public plea of God’s people to our Father who hears us. It is one of the means by which God shapes His people both individually and corporately. Corporate prayer is a particular time when the Holy Spirit knits His people together in Him, and to one another.

Pastors Center

Modeling Prayer

If prayer is crucial for the advancement of God’s Kingdom, we as leaders must teach our people how to pray, both informally and formally. We also should teach our people what God’s Word says about prayer. We do this by examining how the early disciples and most importantly, Jesus, prayed in the Scriptures. Our people will then understand how their prayers connect to their sanctification and ultimately, to God’s mission.

Cody Evans