The most common call PastorServe receives revolves around the challenge of balancing family and ministry. Here is the reality you must grasp if there is indeed deep life change: all of life is ministry, and your family is your primary ministry.
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Pastors face a lot of cross pressures from week to week, especially when the stakes are high. Easter brings both high hopes and lofty expectations. Being able to lean on the cross and the resurrection gives us the strength to speak the truth of hope in Christ and leave the rest to Him.
Pastor friend: You and I have a life with real meaning—not emptiness or the feeling of being lost. Everyone wants to discover truth, meaning, and a deep sense of peace.
The victorious God of Easter morning can relate all too well to whatever anguish you might be suffering on your own Holy Thursday and Good Friday—as a pastor, the weight of your vocation, and the unknown trials of your congregation.
“The big problem is, we only trade conclusions with each other. We never share how the conclusions came about. We never get the backstory.”
Aaron Ivey says a lot of people look at their lives and ask how it works. How does a writer and podcaster help a pastor fulfill his vocation? How does a pastor help with a writer and podcaster? How do they complement each another?
In this week’s Pastoral Tip, Aaron Ivey offers advice to fellow pastors on how not to let the ministry overtake your family life. Aaron is the worship pastor at Austin Stone Community Church in Austin, Texas. His wife, Jamie, is host of the popular Christian podcast, “Happy Hour with Jamie Ivey.” Last year, they wrote …
May you attach your sense of self, your meaning and purpose, your moral compass, and your hopes and dreams to the message delivered in that upper room and to the actual moment of sacrifice on that hill outside the city.
So this season, how about scanning your heart and life? How about looking for those places where you still need to die to self? How about crying out for the willingness to take up your cross and follow Jesus in his death?
Let go of things you tend to prize. Let this season of sacrifice loosen your hands and free your heart. Let go of some of your comforts, things that have perhaps comforted you too much, so that your heart is free to seek a better Comforter.
