I woke up this morning to news of more ministry heroes of mine crashing and burning, their ministry pasts, presents and futures potentially deeply suspect.
Category: values
Like anyone, I like growth and expansion. I like more. But it comes at a cost. So I admire people who ask what went well last time, that we’re not going to do again
We have a little rule at the church council: on most issues we don’t discuss and decide at the same meeting. It’s a high value for me, because I’ve learnt the hard way the price I pay for steamrolling something through. Years ago, but still fresh in my mind, I thought we were all sorted
Did you enjoy Easter? I’m sure the music was great, the church was full and looked brilliant, the sermons were ones you put your heart into – and there were loads of visitors. But did you enjoy Easter? I mean, did you enjoy the gospel itself, for yourself, to God’s glory? Did you delight in
It’s shocking to consider that when I accept invitations to speak, preach or write, I am doing so for nothing more trivial than a desire to be seen.
Last week, I took a morning to conduct a Quarterly review. It seemed like a good time – two and a half months into the new ministry post, and I’ve gathered a headful of ideas and impressions. So this was a clarifying three hours, looking back and looking forwards. There are a dozen ways of
The church administrator sighed as she wrote on the whiteboard: once again, she needed more people for the coffee rota and welcome team. How hard could it be? The pastor sighed as he looked down the list of people: once again there were so few people with the spare time to help. But what if
I was at a large church for a book launch, and the author was introduced as ‘One of the brightest theologians around. A Professor at the University of [prestigious name deleted].’ The problem was, he wasn’t. A bright guy, yes, but a junior lecturer. A bright guy, but this was his first book – and
If there’s something wrong with the shirt I’ve bought, I take back to the shop. If the mechanic hasn’t fixed the car, I take it back to the garage. I’m a customer, I have paid, and I expect the level of service. That model of thinking is so prevalent in a consumer society, that people
Jesus taught us that our fundamental role as ministers is to be servants. He has served us, we are to serve each other, and those of us who are pastors are to serve as we lead. But words come in particular cultures and contexts. In Jesus’ time the word ‘slave’ was demeaning and potentially violent
‘They’re watching’ Not in a creepy sense, I hope, but every Sunday, every meeting, every conversation, you are being watched. Why? Because you are supposed to be a model of being a mature Christian. People learn from you how they are supposed to be Christians. Paul told Titus, ‘Show yourself in all respects to be
I got it wrong again this week. In public, which was a touch embarrassing. .. I was speaking to a group of pastors in training, looking at the priorities of ministry from Acts 6. You know the story – the needy widows were being overlooked in the food pantry, so the apostles arrange for a
Identifying your strengths is a key part of finding a job or moving on in your career at the moment. Knowing your contribution will lead to your personal satisfaction and worth, and to your being productive and energised. Perhaps the most engaging exponent of this view is Marcus Buckingham. A Brit living in the States,
One of the first, simplest, and best tools for time-management is to distinguish the urgent from the important. But I discovered this week that it has hidden, secret powers. You know how it goes of course: the threat is that the urgent drowns out the important. And so every time management system I’ve seen has
It’s one of the big theories about the Web. Chris Anderson first outlined it in his book, ‘The Long Tail’, and the marketing guru Seth Godin riffs on it endlessly. And it’s so nearly right it’s important to see that it’s completely wrong. It goes like this: at one time the only way to
It’s quite the thing these days for churches to have pithy descriptions of their values. A list of them, usually around five in number, starting with the same letter, appears on a large number of church websites. I think this is a great idea. It clarifies and prioritises. But I think sometimes we fool ourselves
“It’s everybody, I mean. Everything everybody does is so — I don’t know — not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and — sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you’re conforming just as much only in a different
