This isn’t going to be a doctrinal treatise on tithing. I just read a good article on the Christian Post where Dave Ramsey encourages pastors to address people’s debt problems rather than just preach on tithing. As Pastors, we are often worried about the bottom line at the offering. Our salaries and the church’s operations […]
Read more "On Giving and Tithing"What would I tell myself if I could send a message back to 2007 when I stepped into the interim pastor role and pursued full time ministry? That’s an interesting thought. This is what I’d say to myself..brace yourself…self. Don’t quit your job, you have medical! And you’ll stay in touch with the real world. […]
Read more "What I would tell my pre-pastor self…"I am always wary of books that talk about “rethinking church” because they are usually the crys of hippster, quasi-liberal, relevance-hungry, popularity-seeking compromisers who always have the same urgent plea to the church: “if you don’t change now, you won’t exist in 10 years”. I remember this being the case with the Purpose Driven Church […]
Read more "The Caged Church"The average size church is under 100 people and if you know that maybe 60% of them give regularly and fewer give anything close to 10%. Most of these churches have a hard time paying one pastor a full time salary that comes close to being anything like the income of the average church member […]
Read more "Bi-Vocational is the Future"This will be fun….how is working in the ministry like working as a Correctional Officer? You give people instructions and they don’t listen You are paid to care for people more than they will care about themselves You can tell stories of such bizzare experiences where you will say: “you can’t even make this stuff […]
Read more "How Ministry is like Corrections"Even when I was a child and I knew that I wanted to be in the ministry, I felt an uneasiness about it and felt almost embarrassed about it when my proud grandparents would tell people that I was going to be a “preacher” when I grow up. It made me cringe. I was listening […]
Read more "The Shame of being a Pastor"This week, you may have read about this pastor in Southern California who took his life. My heart sinks into my stomach when I hear about people who do this. Recently, one of my co-workers in the jail took his life and in similar fashion, left two small children behind without a father. I will […]
Read more "Unrealistic Expectations"