If you’re a church leader, you need to spend intentional time with a senior adult – or with a lot of them. Even a monthly lunch and conversation will pay dividends in your ministry. Here’s why you need to prioritize this time:
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When a guest pulls into the parking lot of your church this Sunday morning, what do they experience first – and what does that experience teach them about Jesus?
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For many churches, the ABCs of success are attendance, buildings and cash. While these are the easiest things to measure, pastors know they aren’t the best. There has to be a better way to measure discipleship success.
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Churches do not usually burn people out because they care too little about ministry. More often, they burn people out because they care too little about process. The problem is not always the people. The problem is often the pathway. When churches exhaust people, they blame the situation rather than the process.
I suggest that the pastoral ministry of hospitality has excellent potential for improving the local church’s health. My argument here rests on my analysis of New Testament passages and my personal experience as a pastor and seminary professor.
The Lord’s hospitality to Moses and Israel’s leaders in Exodus 24 stops careful readers in their tracks. What a God! He is holy but personal. And Jesus’s hospitality to Peter and the disciples on the shore of Galilee humbles us. So kind is the resurrected Son. God reveals Himself as a host in these two scenes and many other places in Scripture.
For many pastors, time spent in formal seminary training is one of the most joyful seasons of life. Most seminary students are in their twenties or early thirties, learning God’s Word and how to walk by faith in all spheres of life. Toward that end I offer here six steps for maximizing the seminary experience.
Many of us can’t focus for 5 minutes. The technological resources available to us opportune new pursuits without end. We can go in 1,000 directions and nowhere at the same time. This is a spiritual danger. The Bright Shiny Object fabricates a tale of fulfillment but lures us from reality.
