Notable Voices and the Week in Review: February 18, 2017
The Resuscitated Church
How to Respond When You’re Forced Out of a Church – Rainer on Leadership #302
Ten Ways Pastors Can Be Bad Bosses
Five Reasons to Recommend Books to Your Church Members
Four Essentials for Ministering to Men — Rainer on Leadership #303
4 Essentials of Running Your Church Website Well — Matt Heerema
I have been working on church websites for about sixteen years. I have worked with hundreds of organizations, some of them through many iterations of their sites, and I’ve noticed a thing or four that are common among effective sites.
9 Important Characteristics to Look for in a Stewardship Pastor — Art Rainer
God designed us, not to be hoarders, but conduits through which His generosity flows. A major focus of most stewardship ministries is money. And rightfully so. Jesus spoke frequently about money because of its ability to reveal the heart. For where your treasure is, there you heart will be also (Matthew 6:21). So whether a someone in the church has much or little, they need to understand the biblical principles of stewardship as it relates to their money. It is the role of the stewardship pastor to oversee these ministries. So if you are a church considering hiring a stewardship pastor, what characteristics should you look for? Here are a few thoughts:
4 Theories of How a Leader Becomes Controlling — Ron Edmondson
I don’t know that I can answer for every controlling leader, but I have some theories. I know things which trigger controlling tendencies in my leadership – and, I think if we are honest, all of us leaders can control at times.
Eight Ways to Preach the Resurrection — David Murray
As Easter Sunday rolls around each year, preachers everywhere wonder, “How can I preach a fresh sermon on the resurrection?” “How can I preach something that doesn’t sound just like last year, and the year before, and the year before….?” This crisis is often caused by focusing too narrowly on the facts of the resurrection narratives in the Gospels. If all we do is narrate the historical facts of the resurrection, then, yes, we’re going to sound as if we’re on “loop.” However, there are a number of ways to “freshen up” our resurrection sermons so that they’re not just the “same old, same old.” In fact, I’d go further and suggest that we have a duty to ensure that such a glorious truth does not become mundane through our inability to think more imaginatively and creatively.
Stop Making Yourself the Hero of Bible Stories — Aaron Earls
We want to read the stories of the Bible and see ourselves as the heroes of the faith, the brave ones standing up in the face of persecution. But more often than not, we are the cowardly ones caving to temptation.
8 Ways to Read (a Lot) More Books This Yea — Neil Pasricha
Our world today is designed for shallow skimming rather than deep diving, so it took me some time to identify the specific changes that skyrocketed my reading rate. None of them had to do with how fast I read. I’m actually a pretty slow reader. Here’s my advice for fitting more reading into your own life, based on the behaviors that I changed:
