Youth Pastor's Vows

At the youth pastor's wedding: "... in sickness and in health, in youth whitewater rafting trips and in mosquito-infested backpacking, in weeknight ...

Comfort in Small Doses

Those who make comfort the great subject of their preaching seem to mistake the end of their ministry. Holiness is the great end. There must be a struggle ...

Hell Is Serious

Charlie Peace, a criminal in England, on the day he was being taken to his execution, listened to a minister reading from the Word. And when he found ...

Doing What God Wants

Mama says everybody loved Uncle Ceph. Cephas Poe was Mama's daddy, but everybody called him Uncle Ceph.

Uncle Ceph pastored in a different world. First ...

Search Committees

Knowing God is not a big item in the preparation of a lot of preachers over America today because, just between you and me, pulpit committees are not ...

Where I Want to Die

I've heard pastors say, "I want to die in the pulpit." Well, as for me, I want to die in bed. I don't think it's any gift to the ...

Safe but Sterile

Christian literature, to be accepted and approved by evangelical leaders of our times, must follow very closely the same train of thought, a kind of "party ...

Ministry in the Parking Lot

I learn about the effectiveness of my ministry by watching people in the parking lot rather than in the pews.

Responsibility for the Church

I beg you, do not look upon [this parish] as a steppingstone, but rather say: Here I shall stay as long as it pleases God; if it be his will, until I ...

The Always-Perfect Pastor?

A few years ago, I did a book on burnout among clergy. I was looking for those factors that often made pastors, having once begun in ministry, turn away. ...