MINISTRY
15 misperceptions about ministry (Chuck Lawless): Forty-three years ago last month, I began full-time ministry. Looking back, I realize now how many misperceptions I had about ministry then. Here are some of them—without much elaboration, since they’re usually self-explanatory.
LEADERSHIP
5 traits of great spiritual leaders (Daniel Seabaugh): Spiritual leadership differs from leadership in general in that spiritual leaders tap into a power beyond themselves. They don’t rely on their own abilities or charisma but stand confident in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Head of every head: How to lead like Jesus (David Mathis at Desiring God): Our great need is for more heads like Him, leaders who are not just kinder, gentler, and more patient, but men who actually lead — in taking godly initiative, in opening God’s word and explaining it, in prayer, in envisioning good deeds, in shaping the moral vision of our families and churches. We need heads who don’t melt into a puddle of self-pity when they don’t get the strokes they’d like, but who are ready, like Jesus, to endure personal discomforts for the good of their household, and the joy set before them.
SPIRITUAL LIFE
Which preacher influences you the most? (Bill Farley): If someone polled your church with this question, “which preacher do you listen to most frequently,” how would you respond? Some would point to their pastor. Others might suggest a preacher on the radio or a favorite podcast. But if we are honest, these answers are often not true. Believe it or not, the individual who has the greatest access to many of our hearts, the one who preaches to us most frequently and aggressively, is not who we think.
WORSHIP
Defy the decay rate for worship in the church (Trevin Wax at The Gospel Coalition): Rightly understood, Christian worship is the opposite of a shortening decay rate. We don’t compress time into the present by riding the wave of novelty or looking for the next best thing. Christian worship extends and lengthens time by helping us reach backward and forward.
BIBLE INSIGHT
Remember the 4 ‘alls’ of the Great Commission (Trevin Wax at The Gospel Coalition): God will have his worldwide family of faith. We’re commissioned to the task of discipleship, which itself will have an outward, nations-focused element of missionary obedience. “The call,” they write, “is to establish Christ-loving, sin-hating, God-honouring communities of worship” under the banner of Jesus as Lord.
CULTURE
There’s a religious earthquake coming. can you feel it? (Stephen McAlpine): There’s a religious earthquake coming. You can tell. The first rumblings were a few years ago. Despite the obvious decline in the number of people ticking a religion on the census data, something is shifting.