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.
A crisis is a magnifier that tends to reveal cracks – but also highlights needs. What type of feedback are you receiving? Are your congregants enjoying your extra emails, texts and phone calls? Has this season revealed your need to spend less time on large group events and more time on one-on-one ministry?
Even during a pandemic, church leaders can have a significant impact on the lives of their congregants by being wise stewards of both technology and finances.
Pastors and church leaders make God their refuge and strength and thus rise to the occasion by marshaling practical and theologically-informed strategies in place for church life and by teaching the wisdom of Scripture concerning God’s faithfulness.
Christians have been here before, and we can take comfort and wisdom from the actions of those who faced these kinds of things well. During the first 100 years or so of the early church, there are letters written by Roman governors during times of plague talking about the behavior of this strange new group of people, Christians.
You don’t need a degree in philosophy to incorporate apologetics into sermons. A solid study of basic logic, worldviews and arguments for Christianity and against other viewpoints can fortify those in the church to have a winsome reason for their hope in Christ
The sweetest comfort I found in my grief was knowing that my baby is with Jesus. That he or she will never know loss, pain, cold, grief, disappointment or sorrow. That all their soul will ever know is joy in the presence of God.
Trying to make sense of tough topics, most people will end up online and in social media listening to friends or cultural icons. Nothing compares, however, to how a pastor will be around after the service, available over email and present the next week.
Joyless people are miserable people. They haven’t tasted and seen that the Lord is good. They haven’t yet learned that it’s through our times of suffering that the Lord often does his best work. I have been in a joyless place, and chances are you have, too.
Discouragement may come to the godliest and most talented of God’s ministers in the church. But as we remember to reflect on God’s good providence, His willingness to let us lament before Him, and how He has rescued his servants who sank deep into despair, we can find our moorings and press on to serve Him with gladness of heart.
There is something incredibly special and valuable about a leader who will cultivate a culture where their team feels safe.
