When you muck it up
Most Sundays there is at least one comment in one of the sermons I wish I could take back. Usually it’s something crass, blurted out in a fit of enthusiasm….
5 WAYS TO PASTOR VOLUNTEERS
Over the years I’ve become expert at deciding what to do, but not necessarily how it should be done. It’s been a challenge for me, since the “how” is often…
FOUR KINDS OF GAMES
In Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s remarkable book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, he identifies four kinds of games: agon, alea, mimicry, and ilinx. Having spent considerable time over the last few…
Ministry is like lifeguarding
Ministry is like lifeguarding. It’s an old comparison, but an appropriate one. The recent shark attacks in North Carolina remind me that the job of the lifeguard is not to…
Productivity (or why I nap at work)
We all have times of each day when we are more (and less) productive. Typically we can divide our days into morning, afternoon, and evening, adding early morning (before work)…
capacity, part two
Realizing you’ve hit the ceiling on your ministerial effectiveness can be pretty depressing. We all have dreams of reaching thousands and thousands of people for Jesus. We all want to…
capacity, part one
Self-evaluation is crucial in Christian ministry. Most ministry jobs lack clear pathways to success, and most pastors struggle to provide reliable answers to basic problems like: How do you…
JARGON DOESN’T REJUVENATE
Every season of Christian ministry gets faddish. Eventually, all the conferences and resources and vocabulary that once felt fresh become stale and jargon-esque. I’ve been traveling a lot the last…
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