Donald S. Whitney

Amid turmoil, how can a pastor avoid joining the unusually high number of pastors voluntarily leaving the ministry? This final article in our series about personal spiritual disciplines speaks to perseverance in those disciplines to maintain in stressful times. It’s what the Barna Group referred to as “pastoral resilience.”

This article is part 7 in a series about pastors and their practice of the personal spiritual disciplines. While the practice of family worship involves at least one other person, it usually relies primarily on the discipline of one individual for it to happen. Pastor, in your home, this would be you.

This is the sixth in a series of articles on pastors and the spiritual disciplines. One of the disciplines we can practice either alone or with others is fasting. As with prayer, we fast in the hope that by His grace, God will bless us.

George Müller, one of the most prayerful and faith-filled men in Christian history, prayed the Psalms. The Lord Jesus Christ himself and the apostles of the early church prayed the Psalms. Why not you and your church?

In our focus on the personal spiritual disciplines, we have said the two most important disciplines are the intake of the Word and prayer.

Pastors must care for their own souls before they can care for the souls of others. This looks like reading the Bible and meditating on it.