Notable Voices and the Week in Review: July 15, 2017
Five Sobering Realities about Evangelism in Our Churches
How to Improve Your Preaching or Teaching – Rainer on Leadership #344
Seven Costs to Being an Evangelistic Leader in Your Church
Six Content Landmines for Church Email Newsletters
10 Most Frequent Questions Pastors Have – Rainer on Leadership #345
The Real Reason We Don’t Read Our Bibles — Brandon Smith
When you think about it, we should get really excited about Bible reading. The God of the universe has given us his Word. He could’ve tapped out when we disobeyed him in the garden, but he didn’t. He went looking for us and talked to us (Gen. 3). Knowing our gracious God gave us his Word should make us want to read it, but often that’s not enough. We don’t read the Bible regularly because we don’t understand how it works. We often think it’s all about us, and that opening Scripture is only useful when we think we need it. We don’t understand how amazing the Bible really is.
5 Mistakes Most Preachers Make — Carey Nieuwhof
How you approach preaching ultimately determines how you preach, which, of course, also determines how your audience interacts with your message and the effectiveness of your message. Here are 5 preaching mistakes I’ve made from time to time. They’re also mistakes I’ve seen others make far too often.
Why Every Young Pastor Needs an Old Mentor — Sam Rainer
Every young pastor needs an old mentor. I know that’s not a new thought. I press the point because it’s hard to overstate the value of wisdom from someone 50 years older than you. Unfortunately, young pastors tend to dismiss the oldest generation of leaders. Not overtly, of course. Few would explicitly state they don’t want to hear from someone older. The dismissal comes more in the form of time. Our ears can only listen to so much before words start melting together. Podcasts, meetings, texts, phone calls, blogs, sermons—how many of them come from the oldest generation? If you’re like me, you tend to listen to people your age, maybe 10 years older. Listening to the oldest generation takes effort. It’s not efficient. My mentor talks slowly, with careful nostalgia. If I pay attention, what I hear is the greatest hits album of his ministry. It should be played over and over again.
Consider These Three Questions Before Taking a Job in Another City — Art Rainer
A new city means a new cost of living. Sometimes this works to your benefit and other times to your detriment. An increased cost of living could swallow the higher salary. So before accepting the role, consider these 3 questions.
How to Pray for Your Pastor — Melton Duncan
If ever there was an era in Christian history that believers should be committed to praying for their pastors, it is now. James rebukes our prayerlessness when he says, “You do not have, because you do not ask” (James 4:2). And what prayers are we offering up to God on behalf of our pastors? Let me suggest several.
The Strange Burden of Participating in Social Media — Chris Martin
One of my friends recently left social media entirely. He deleted all of his accounts and isn’t going to engage on Twitter, Facebook, etc. any more. I kinda wish I could bring myself to do that, but every time I consider it, I can’t. It’s not that I can’t bring myself to leave social media because I have some sort of unhealthy addiction to it or because I need to be informed about what all of my friends are doing with their lives. (At least I don’t think that’s why.) I think I can’t bring myself to leave social media because I have a sort of strange burden for it as a medium.
