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Ministry

A collection of 20 issues

Congregational Worship Is Worthy of Debate

The two ministries I have been involved with the longest are Bible teaching and worship. I had my baptism by the Holy Spirit moment in sixth grade and immediately started a Bible study in my middle school. My first lesson was on the faith of the midwives in Exodus 1.

Don’t break sheep’s legs please

I was recently reminded of a story that gets shared by preachers of a particular sort. It goes something like this: Sheep are known to be stupid and wander off. A shepherd's job is to go and find the sheep and bring it back to fold. Over and

Returning From Sabbatical

This is my first week back from sabbatical! After twelve full weeks away from the responsibilities of pastoring a church, I am back in my home office, triaging email, arranging meetings, and altogether getting settled back in. I've only had one other sabbatical, but—from conversations with other

Scholars or Pastors or Both?

Does Bible college and seminary create scholars but not pastors?

Guess You Had to Be There

Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart

Most people don't want a weekly church service

Pastors desperately need to stop measuring the effectiveness or quality of the church by Sunday attendance.

Introducing New Songs to A Congregation

The goals of every worship leader and team are the same: excellence which leads to participation. If the congregation can't sing along, you're no longer hosting a worship service but a concert. Concerts are great, don't get me wrong. But it's not usually what people are looking for from a church.

Co-Pastoring

If I wanted to drive a manager up the wall, I would make him responsible for the success of an organization and give him no authority. I would provide him with unclear goals, not commonly agreed upon by the organization. I would ask him to provide a service of an

Marketing and Outreach in a Post Evangelical Church

Something I wrestle with constantly as a pastor of a progressive/inclusive church is the need for "outreach" or "marketing" or whatever it is we're supposed to call it. On the one hand, it feels really slimy and sleazy to me. Every time I

From Courtship to Union - Res City and The Table

Nine months ago, in November 2021, we announced the beginning of a courtship between Resurrection City DC and The Table Church. As a refresher, Resurrection City DC is a church started by Pastor Tonetta and a team of others in 2019. When we had the privilege of hiring Tonetta as