Leadership
A Pastor’s Loneliness
Here’s the story – all-too-common – of one of John Mark Ministries’ clients. His identity is being kept confidential at this stage. If you’re a pastor and identify with his loneliness, why not respond with your story, and I’ll forward it to him? If you’re not a pastor, why not forward/copy this to one you […]
Ideals Of Pastoral Ministry (John Stott)
It Was A Pastoral Oversight; They Were Shepherds Luke called them presbuvteroi ("elders"), a word borrowed from the Jewish synagogue (Acts 20:17), while Paul called them ejpivskopoi ("overseers or guardians"), a word borrowed from a Greek context (v. 28). The two titles evidently described the same people. Their function was pastoral, caring for God’s flock. […]
Pastoral Identity – And Old Testament Offices
The point of this article is that the roots of pastoral identity are found in the Old Testament offices of prophet, priest, sage, and king. These offices were held by the spiritual leaders or "pastors" of the Old Testament era, each one bringing a unique identity, calling, giftedness, and role. >From these offices the fundamental […]
Planning – A Catalyst For Change In Your Church
by David Smith found in The Country Shepherds’ Newsletter Pastors are often discouraged with the slow rate of change in their churches. It seems that the each new idea is greeted with five reasons why it won’t work. I asked a nationally known consultant at a recent seminar how change could be brought about in […]
Conflict In Ministry
"Conflict is the confrontation between differing expectations, purposes, goals, values, or desires; and/or the competition for limited resources." Though often unwelcome, conflict is a part of ministry. Sometimes it’s good. Other times it’s destructive. Several scales have been developed to measure the relative severity and destructiveness of conflict. The two most notable are Lederach’s "Seven […]
The Pastors Our Churches Looking For
by Revd John Simpson, (General Superintendent, Baptist Union of Victoria, Australia) Over recent years the Pastoral Search Committees (PSC’s) of our churches have been encouraged to give very careful thought to the shaping of their pastoral profiles before undertaking interviews. The pastoral profile is a usually a comprehensive description of the qualities which the PSC […]
Book Review: Unloading The Overload
Book Review: Cliff Powell and Graham Barker, Unloading the Overload: Stress Management for Christians, Sydney: Strand Publishing, 1998. Here’s a practical book by a couple of Sydney-based Christian psychologists about one of the most talked-about human conditions in the modern world. When I was younger only my physics teacher talked about stress: now I have […]
Time Management
How to gain five hours a week in an emergency Rod Benson () 1. Clear your desktop. 2. Get up 15 minutes earlier. 3. Plan your day first thing in the morning and set priorities for the day. 4. Stop reading newspapers and watching television. 5. Delay unnecessary reading and read only the parts of […]
Church in the 21st Century
(Final chapter in Recent Trends Among Evangelicals by Rowland Croucher, 2nd edition) This chapter was written for the second edition of this book during Easter 1991, eighteen months after the Lausanne II in Manila Conference on World Evangelization (July 11-20, 1989). It is deliberately impressionistic – a montage of quotes, ideas and my reactions. It […]
Do Yourself a Favour: Encourage Your Pastor
ENCOURAGEMENT (An article originally published in GRID, World Vision’s Leadership Letter – which created a deluge of 600 mail-responses. Share it with your pastor!) Shalom! Rowland Croucher (‘servus servorum dei’; AMDG) ———————————————————————— If one part of Christ’s body is praised, all the other parts share its happiness (1 Corinthians 12:26). A church of encouragers is […]
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