Strike the Shepherd

Strike the Shepherd

The church pays a heavy price every time a pastor is forced out of his pulpit. Consider these sobering statistics: 23 percent of all current pastors in the United States have been fired or forced to resign in the past.1 The average pastoral tenure in a local church...
Defusing Explosive Meetings

Defusing Explosive Meetings

Have you ever been in a meeting that was about to explode? You could feel the tension building with each person’s comments and knew it was just a matter of time before the dynamite went off. It might have been a conversation with your spouse or teenager. Maybe it...

Are You Relational or Informational?

Many pastors are much better at imparting information than they are at building relationships. They are comfortable in their studies. They love their books. They pride themselves on their sound doctrine. They come alive in the pulpit as they proclaim “the wisdom of...
Gentle Shepherding

Gentle Shepherding

Tom called me for advice on how to deal with a church elder’s daughter who was pregnant out of wedlock. Half of his elder board was insisting that she appear before them to confess her sin. The other half, including her father, wanted her to simply write a letter of...
Don’t Overlook

Don’t Overlook

A lot of Christian leaders are being abruptly removed from their posts these days. Pastors, seminary presidents, ministry CEOs. In many cases, they were fired without warning. One day things seemed to be going along just fine, and then suddenly they were told that...