Notable Voices and the Week in Review: December 17, 2016
Five Surprising Insights about the Unchurched
Six Surprising Insights Regarding Church Budgets and Salaries
Five Unique Christmas Gifts for Your Pastor and Church Staff
Seven Most Common Mistakes Bloggers Make
The Painful Reality of Church Bully Cartels
5 Lies Your Website is Telling About Your Church — Aaron Wilson
If you’re like many churches in the Western world, it’s none of the above. Instead, visitors are likely making first assumptions about your church from its website. As such, it’s worth considering whether your site is being a faithful greeter to guests or if it’s spreading unintentional lies about who you really are. Here are five digital dishonesties your website (or lack of one) might be guilty of communicating.
Should Pastors Give to Their Church? — Art Rainer
When we give to our local church, we get to participate in all the amazing ministry God is doing through the church. It is a place of significant impact. He uses your generosity to your church to make a difference in the lives of those in the church, in your community, and around the world. But what about the pastor of a church? Should he give to the church he pastors? It is a question many ask. His salary is derived from gifts given to the church. So if he gives back to the church, isn’t it just creating an unnecessary giving loop? The quick answer is yes, the pastor should give to his church. Here are a few reasons why:
3 Financial Tips for Pastors — Randy Stair
I’m not a pastor, but I love pastors. They’re prayerful and thoughtful, and they spend their days shepherding God’s people. I, on the other hand, work with numbers. I’m a finance professional, having served for nearly two decades in executive financial officer positions. Although I’m sure I’ve learned more from my pastors than they have from me, I recognize that I can help them, too. After all, they lead churches that have budgets and are called to be faithful stewards of the resources entrusted to them. Here are three simple pieces of financial advice that I hope will help pastors.
3 Unique Leadership Challenges in Ministry to Men — Eric Geiger
Fire is an amazing thing, isn’t it? It can be incredibly helpful—warming your home, cooking your dinner, and when focused, can even cut through steel. Men are similar to fire. Men can either warm families, churches, and communities or they can burn them to the ground. That’s why every church must minister to men in an intentional and strategic way. Ministry to men is challenging for many reasons. Kris Dolberry, who helped with this post, leads our men’s ministry strategy at LifeWay. After years of speaking with pastors and men’s ministry leaders around the country, Kris believes there are at least 3 unique leadership challenges facing a local church’s ministry to men:
Wondering if You’re the Next Pastor to Fall — Dave Harvey
In a world where almost anything can be professionalized and outsourced, it’s easy for pastors to farm out their care by finding the primary help for their soul outside of the eldership—sometimes even outside of the church. But just as a train engine pulls the caboose, care tows the burden of accountability. If you are finding your care outside of the people who know you best, then it may be high time to get real. You are living a pretty unaccountable life.
3 Ways to Become a Christmas-Loving Pastor — Ronnie Martin
Isn’t Christmas supposed to be a pinnacle of the church year? Isn’t it about light dawning in the darkness, and angel choirs ushering in peace for those whom God loves? Isn’t it that peculiar time of year when you hear “to save us all from Satan’s power while we were gone astray” played in Starbucks, Linus preaching Luke 2 on network television, and scores of unbelievers attending Christmas services to hear the gospel proclaimed? What’s not to love?
