Pastoring is a hard job. There are unique challenges that come both personally and professionally. The Focused Pastor exists to come alongside pastors, their families, and the church with resources to encourage and equip them personally and to do their ministry more effectively. With biblically based content that is informed by pastoral research, we create resources that address these unique topics. The Focused Pastor seeks to encourage pastors and church leaders to be spiritually healthy and effective in their homes and in their roles.
When you are anxious about the evaluation of your ministry, rest in the truth that the Lord knows your heart and that the Spirit quietly commends your ministry through the changed lives of those who receive the gospel that you faithfully proclaim.
You and I know Pastors who are awarded tons of stickers. They deserve them. I think the Apostle Paul’s helmet would have been about full. But at the end, he only talked about the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, would award to him at that Day—and also to you, and to me, and to all who long for His appearing.
The Church must faithfully, unashamedly, and boldly stand on what Jesus said about marriage. Our churches need to hear this, the world we live in needs to hear this, and our own marriages will be enriched if we practice it.
This present a biblical blueprint for the mandate God has given to husbands in the covenant of marriage to love their wives, even as Christ loved the church.
Though being a pastor’s wife is a uniquely challenging calling, it is also immensely rewarding. Pastor, by finding ways to minister to your wife, you can help her realize some of that blessing.
Take heart: faithful pastors and missionaries achieve greatness not because of anything they bring to the biblical text but because of what it brings to them and their hearers. God has already equipped you as a teacher of his Word to help disciple all nations, carrying his unchanging truths from one culture to another.
It turns out that God created marriage for one glorious purpose – to illustrate the love relationship between the Lord Jesus and his church. If couples understood this, then most of the practical problems in marriage could be negotiated and managed successfully.
What can be done to help a pastor and his wife in their marriage? How can they move into a healthier situation so their marriage can do more than survive but maybe even thrive?
Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.–1Timothy 4:13
Our relationship with God through prayer is the lifeblood of the Christian life, of following Jesus as Lord. Church leaders should pray publicly and privately and be quick to speak of the need for prayer, ready to relate answers to prayer, and lament the lack of prayer. It is also no sin for ministers to solicit prayer for themselves and their ministry to the church.
Here are five principles the Lord has led Pastor Ernie Baker to develop to cope with criticism in ministry in God-honoring ways.
